Snowed In

Before coming to Denmark, I thought I would arrive in a country that stayed buried under a foot of snow for 6 months out of the year. Then I arrived, and discovered that the weather is warmer here than in most of the northern United States. But this weekend, we got our first real snow. It's snowed before, leaving patches of white on the ground that hang around for a few hours or a few days, but never anything heavy enough to even cover the ground. Yesterday, I woke up around 11, and it looked as if it had been snowing for maybe an hour. And it kept going. I think it stopped after midnight, but then started again sometime in the night, because I woke up this morning to find the white flakes falling again. The snow is pretty deep, and I think that in Aarhus, they aren't used to having this much snow fall this fast. The bus system is almost totally shut down. The few that are running are very late and very crowded. No one can ride their bikes, but I see a lot of people walking. Cars don't have much luck on the road, because the city's salt machines don't seem very effective. It's beautiful to look out my window, though, and see the drifts piled up on the buildings, trees, and bikes. There are several snowmen dotting my neighborhood, including one holding a bottle of Danish beer. I don't think the snow is supposed to stop until tomorrow afternoon.

Although the snow is beautiful, it is a little inconvenient for me. I was having quite a few people over for dinner last night, to make stir-fry in my new wok. Almost 15 people were supposed to be here, but the snow decimated that count. Only 6 live within walking distance, and one of them is Italian, and she was sure she would get sick walking the 5 minutes to my apartment in knee deep snow. The poor Italians aren't used to cold like this at all. Since the buses couldn't bring the others to my place, we had to reschedule my dinner. We decided to reschedule after two of the guys had already left, though, and we couldn't reach them to let them know. So they showed up at my apartment more than 2 hours after leaving theirs. They got here by hitchhiking to our road and then wandering around, trying to find my apartment. We were amazed at their dedication, so of course, we cooked for them and showered them with praises for making such an arduous journey. It turned out to be a fun night, and we'll get to have another fun night with more guests on Monday. I just hope the snow doesn't ruin that as well.