After a rather enjoyable walk in the snow, I went home to prepare for Max and Zoe’s arrival. Yes, their arrival does require special preparation, like childproofing the apartment. While our original plan was to go out to Parizade’s for a Whiteout, we decided to stay in and play games that involved red cups, ping pong balls and some other utensils. Fun times.
Anyhoo, today I woke up around noon, opened the blinds and saw Central COVERED in white powder. Mind you, this is the first time it’s snowed in Durham this winter. I went to Uncle Harry’s, the local grocery store, to get some food only to find it’s FULL of people stocking up with food as if they’re preparing for a month-long lock-down. I have to admit, the atmosphere at the store was such that even I was affected, so my bread-and-milk drop-by turned into something a little bit more than what it originally was supposed to be. On my way back to Erwin, I noticed that the roads are nowhere near cleared. Apparently snow is such a rare occurrence in Durham that the town’s winter equipment infrastructure is extremely scarce – there are no more than 5 ploughs here! Crazy southerners!
So later in the day Ferdinand, Stanislas and I decided that we want to take advantage of the pretty white snow and go out sledging at the Sarah P. Duke Gardens. We layered up and hit the road. What a fine choice that was! Mucho divertido.
The Duke Gardens are beautiful even during winter, but the not so convenient part about them is that there is a lot of water all over the place which comes in the form of ponds and little creeks. There was about 3 feet between the end of our little sledging track and a pond. After a really fun dive in the snow which ended with me lying on my tummy, staring straight into the water and cleaning snow off of my camera, I decided I’d call it a day for sledging.
Before we left, Stan invited us to his place for some Gluehwein in the evening. Zoe came over around 6 because we wanted to order dinner. But guess what – when it snows out here, restaurants either close down, or don’t deliver. Basically, snow is considered a natural disaster in Durham. So we went back to Uncle Harry’s, got some eggs and bacon and made our own dinner. Zoe played housewife and did most of the work, and when I told her that she smells like fried bacon, her response was “And it’s the most beautiful smell in the whole world.” God bless America.
To sum up, the moral of this post is that people of NC need to learn how to deal with snow.
Peace out.
