Winter Wonderland.

It's snowing here, again - after a day of things melting and dripping yesterday, the (rather large) amount of snow that was left has gotten a new dusting with white flakes. Now it's somehow indecided whether it wants to snow, or wants to rain, or... well.

It's been the first "real snow" for ages here now, and it has been enough for some chaos on the streets, and the buses not going for a while when it was especially bad. We got around having to drive the car when there was the peak of snow, and I'm quite happy about that (though I learned how to drive in wintery conditions when I was training for my driving license, that was a long time ago, with not too much practice inbetween). 

I wouldn't be surprised if the storms and the winter blasting in not just in Germany, but over large parts of Europe is a first taste of what winters after the climate change will bring us, if the gulf stream gets weaker (which is one of the issues we are facing). Snow is beautiful, and pretty, but it's also very heavy, and cold, and very wet, and can get slippery easily, and if you have to shovel lots of it you'd better be fit enough for that (and have good technique). 

Back when I was younger and the winters were colder and I was visiting my parents in the Fichtelgebirge during the winter, they'd go outside before I was due to arrive to shovel snow in order to make me a parking space... because the snowplough leaves a nice dam of snow on the left and right side of the street, just where you'd park. Heavy snowfall in that region was quite common, so we all knew how to deal with the issues, and were used to it.  I'm now living in a place that is a good bit more mild, regarding the winter weather, and correspondingly it's more of a surprise here to have lots of snow. Well... we will see what happens in the future, and if we'll all have to get used to handling it here, too!