After having lived in the frigidness that is Burgos in the wintertime for one week – okay, five days – I feel like I can talk about some lessons I’ve learned from living with snow. All you people who have lived in the snow before or who are less weak than I am can feel free to laugh at me, as you’ve likely known these things from birth, but indulge me, okay?

1. It is colder when it doesn’t snow than when it does. Now, as a good Atmospheric Sciences tutor, theoretically I know this to be true: when the skies are clear, it’s colder than when the skies are covered and (possibly) precipitating snow. However, I have just truly learned that this is true this past week. Today was cold, with snow and the temperature hovering around 0 degrees Celsius all day, but for some reason it didn’t seem as cold as the past few, very clear and sunny, days have felt. So I guess I grudgingly owe snow that bit of gratitude.

2. Slush sucks. Whoever invented slush or thought it would be cool to have snow kinda-sorta stick on the ground was just a huge jerk. I left my house this afternoon to go meet some friends for coffee, and by the time I finished my 7 minute walk to the cafe, my feet were wet and frozen because of the slushy crap on the ground. I would rather it was raining – I get rain, it’s wet, I know how to avoid puddles in the rain – or with a decent ground cover of snow than slushy. It’s deceptively wet and icky. And kind of snow, but really just not.

3. Snow is pretty when it falls. I am hugely retarded for having just written that sentence, I know, but I was walking back from the gym today in the gently falling snow, and I thought, “I get why people like this so much!” It was a serious moment of revelation (unfortunately followed a few short hours later by my slush adventure, please re-read point #2), and while all my body parts weren’t freezing themselves off at that moment, I was pretty sure snow was okay.

4. Windchill also sucks. Again, everything that I said about the suckiness of slush holds true for wind, as well. Burgos is infamous (apparently) for its wind, and it’s true – there are certain corners that I walk around every day that I know to expect strong winds at. But this is especially sucky when I read the weather report in the morning and it says, “40 degrees (YES! It’s warm outside today!), feels like 30 (GAH!)”. Wind should be banned from existence. Or at least people should come put up some turbines in Burgos to make it useful and energy efficient.

Alrighty, I think that’s all I need to quejarme (=complain) about this evening. I am warm in casa, and I have recently learned how my heating works (not a moment too soon!), so really things could be worse. I will TRY to get my post up about last weekend in Madrid – very exciting!! – sometime this weekend for all three of you who read my blog.

ADDENDUM!

I have found one more thing that seems to come with the wintery weather, learned today while walking home in a true snow-flurry, without an umbrella and rather cold:

5. People walk slower/are more annoying when it’s snowing. I love Spain and Spanish people in general, but aware of other people’s physical space they are not. Add to that the fact that every single person has an umbrella glued to their head which impedes their vision even more, and you have a population of people who are paying ZERO attention to you and other people walking in their space. No, perhaps NEGATIVE attention. The number of times I have been nearly stabbed in the eye by someone’s umbrella spike is insane. Also, when you have an umbrella, that means that you have to walk near the street and you cannot stroll under the overhang, because that’s where people without umbrellas (and therefore by definition want to get someplace quickly) have priority to walk. But I promise you people seem to stroll more when it’s yucky weather. With their umbrella spikes protuding. Ahhh, the danger!