SNOW SNOW SNOW . . . . . .

IS ANNOYING!!!!!!!! One of the first of the many questions people asked me when they found out I would be overseas over Christmas was "Oh so you're going to have a white Christmas?" "Have you ever seen snow before?". No I had never seen snow until now and guess what? I really couldn't give a rats ass if I never see it again! It is cold, wet and it's only white for a few hours, afterwards it turns grey and gross.

The first dusting of snow that I saw was a little exciting, but once you have worn all those layers, (which you have to pay for and winter clothes are not cheap) and tried to pull your hair out from under your scarf with gloves on, so thick that you can hardly make a fist and trying to balance and melted and refrozen snow and walk at the same time, the stuff gets friggen irritating. The worst part about the snow has to be driving in it. when you break the car just slides, so when you are a good distance away from a stop sign you just take your foot off the accelerator and wait until you slowly stop moving and only break if necessary. Well in heavy snow. It isn't that bad once you get used to it, but it still really isn't a lot of fun.

I was sharing my views on the snow with my host kid one day and he actually made a very good point. I didn't really get to experience the fun and joy that snow brings, like sledding or building snow men or skiing, but to be very honest it's just cold and wet, I don't think I would really be into it anyway. You never know until you try, so I guess I'll never know.

Coming from South Africa anything in single digits in degree Celsius is considered freezing, so when it reached -10 here on one day I honestly thought that I was going to die and perfectly preserved. Only to find that it normally gets as low as single digits in Fahrenheit. Please keep in mind that 32 F is 0 C. So as far as my selfish, cheap skate, warm blooded self goes, I am perfectly happy with the "mild" winter that I experienced. As for my environmentally friendly and concerned self, I am extremely worried and I'm hoping that this was just Mother Nature's way of saying "let's give the nature lover a break".

So overall this is a pretty negative blog, but I can't complain too much, I did take advantage of the fact that I got to see snow for the first and will probably be the last time. I got some good photos and that's all I need. The memories and painfully cold fingers from cleaning snow off my car, and having to heat it up 10 minutes before I went anywhere can stay a thing of my passed.

<------yes that is some pretty deep snow

Don't do this in non-water proof pants, I had a wet (frozen) ass for the rest of the day!

And I have to admit that snow on the beach is pretty cool!

The Big Apple Part 3 - Sites

I know it has been three months since my last post and I  am still ranting about New York City but time has simply flown and I have been to busy to blog, so now I shall try to remember what else I wanted to say about this amazing city.

One of the first things that comes to my mind when I think about New York is obviously The Twin Towers. I would have loved to have had the opportunity to see them standing, but I at least got to see the memorial! What an emotional experience. That coming from me is a really big deal. I always found Americans very over dramatic and still feel like they can over exaggerate almost anything (not that I am saying 9/11 wasn't dramatic it was and still remains a huge deal), but for someone like me, who has never really had much interest in The States, to find the experience emotional makes me wonder how incredibly emotional this site is to the Americans, especially the thousands that were directly effected. When you see the two fountains that have been built, your breath literally catches in your chest as you hear the water rushing down and you imagine something that massive stretching up so high. The you look at the buildings around them and you turn your head up towards the sky and try to imagine those buildings doubled plus a few more stories and you just give up and accept that no imagination is wild enough (not even mine) to picture what those buildings were like.

Some of the other fun and obvious things we did were Times Square which is really 24 hours of constant light, buzzing crowds and really gives you that excited feeling you get from a city that never sleeps and a of cousre a few randoms trying to convince you to see random shows or asking for donations like this cowboy. . . .

 

Then of course, how can you go to New York City and not see a Broadway Show. . . So we saw Chicago which was an amazing show and I would see it again and again. There were so many choices I wish I had enough money and time to see them all!

I think one of the best parts of the trip for me was just walking around! I saw so much and got to appreciate all the smaller, fun things that a lot of people don't get to see because they rush off to the bigger things, like Times Square, Brooklyn Bridge, Statue of Liberty and all that jazz. As amazing as all those sites are, I really enjoyed the exploring, getting lost on some dodgy street in China Town where scary people were trying to force us to buy fake Gucci handbags and such. The best part about walking around, is all the random stuff you end up doing. Like the Ripley's Believe it or not museum, Madame Tussuad's, pretty coffee shops, going into totally unexpected places, like St. Paul's Cathedral and the Library, enjoying a stroll through Central Park and trying to identify different places you recognise from Sex and the City and other movies or series like Friends. The giant Christmas Tree behind the golden statue at Rockefeller Plaza, Planet Hollywood and loads of other exciting things.

It's impossible to get bored in New York City and it is such an amazing experience. When you are dead tired and aching from walking, running and feel gross from subways and city street smells, you just keep on going because you know, any second that you sit down and waste, is a second that you will regret.