Winter
Surprise, surprise.I am in America now. In Rutgers University doing a double major in Physics and Journalism. I haven't lived in America in many years. Since 8th standard to be exact. That's...umm...(despite the fact that I am taking advanced calculus classes, clearly, my counting skills could use some improvement)...7 years I think? A little less than that. Anyway, you know how you think you remember something, you think you know what if feels like and how it works, but when you actually experience it again after years and years, it's all wrong, all different? That's what this is like. Forget the rest of it...the friends, the academics, all that rot. I'm talking about the weather.
When I left India, I thought I had mentally prepared myself for the drastic weather change. This is what I remembered of the winter.
1. It is cold. And unlike the Chennai winter, cold goes lower than 20 degrees Celsius.
2. You have to wear a lot of clothes. Many layers. Gloves, thick jacket, a hat to cover your ears from getting frostbitten when it's really cold, and so on.
3. If you're traveling by car, you have to start the car and turn on the heater a couple minutes before you're actually leaving so that it'll be a comfortable temperature when you get in.
And that's pretty much it.
Here's what it's actually like.
1. It is not cold. It is freezing. It is beyond freezing. It is terribly, brutally freezing.
2. It is very, very windy. Everywhere you go outdoors, there is a strong, cold, biting wind blowing right into you. When you're walking against the wind, it's difficult to even breathe.
3. The above point holds even when you're wearing so many layers of clothing that it's difficult for someone from a slight distance to tell that you're a human being and not a huge lump of clothes someone's decided to use to build a makeshift hut in the middle of the street.
4. You can never feel your hands, your feet, the tip of your nose or your ears. Ever. You need to constantly be rubbing your hands together to be able to use them at all. And your toes? You can forget it.
5. Your car will not move unless you start it at least half an hour before you want to leave. Yes, engines actually freeze.
Basically, it's awful. Granted, the snow is really, really pretty if you're sitting indoors and watching it fall outside while drinking a nice big mug of hot cocoa, but otherwise, yay for Chennai weather! (Yes, I'm home in 10 days :D)
Much lowe!
blabbered by Aditi @ 11:12 AM
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