Blogabroad
by Mary Pinckney Waters
December 1 , 2005 - Weather or not
We all know what happens when it snows in South Carolina.
Everyone almost has a heart attack -- either because they're
so excited about building the best snowman the world's ever
seen, or because they're blanched by fear of driving on roads
layered with an inch of snow that will melt in 30 minutes.
Growing up in the South, a child is instilled with a unique
instinct: as soon as the kid sitting next to him in class
tells him it's snowing, his eyes dart to the clock, ready
to place bets on how long it'll take before school is canceled.
Snow in the Palmetto State equals a suspension of time, a
brief passage through the twilight zone, as everyone takes
advantage of a rare glitch in Mother Nature.
Needless to say, that is not the case in Germany. Nature
is obviously on-task when drenching Bamberg in white, and
my South Carolinian impulses still have some adjusting to
do. The first day it snowed, my age plummeted 10 years. No,
wait, that would make me only 11, and I was definitely acting
younger than that. Woah, I am getting old. 15 years and I'm
six. Yes, that's better. Well, better-suiting-the-circumstances,
not better-Mary-feeling-young.
Anyway, along with the 15-year age drop, my voice shot up
two octaves. "Let's go play! Let's go play!" I
gushed in an obscenely high-pitched voice, only to receive "the
American is going crazy" stares from my German friends,
to whom seeing snow is like sweating to a South Carolinian. "Wirst
du dich jedes Mal so verhalten, wenn es schneit?" they
asked, with a somewhat-terrified expression. ("Are you
going to act like this every time it snows?")
No, I'm not. The phenomenon of crunching footprints in the
soft ice evaporated within the first week of snow, as it
is really only possible in those precious, virginal morning
hours before the nine-to-fivers' stampede starts deflowering
the beauty of that first night's snowfall. From that point
on, the ground's snowy blanket continues to lose it purity,
as shades of muddy browns pollute milky whites to form a
slushy, slip-and-slide surface that you wish you could sue
someone over. If only this were America ....
And the thought of canceling anything? The Germans think
it's a good joke, apparently. My opinion is, however, if
you have any motivational problems whatsoever, cold whether
is going to solve them as much as voice lessons are going
to help Ashlee Simpson become a good singer. (Of course,
I wouldn't imagine Hawaii-esque climate would be particularly
work-inspiring, either.) It has been my experience that upon
returning to my apartment around 17:00 (5 p.m.) -- when it
is already pitch-black dark -- I have no further desire to
leave a heated, closed-in structure until the next day, when
classes necessitate it. That's right, this exchange is really
allowing me to see the world -- and the world has four white
walls and is nice and toasty.
However, when I have suppressed my inner South Carolinian
and ventured out into the winter wilderness, I've managed
to find ways of forgetting how awesome it is to still feel
your toes, and I've even learned to appreciate the cold weather.
This weekend, for example, a friend and I traveled to the
famous "Weihnachtsmarkt" (Christmas market) in
Nürnberg, a big city about 45 minutes from Bamberg,
where we did some holiday shopping and warmed up with a couple
mugs of "Glühwein," a hot wine served in Germany
at countless vendors during the winter months.
A toy Santa, some Apfelstrudel and a cup of Glühwein
can make a harsh winter more tolerable, but I'll definitely
be happy when I'm back in the South and people question my
sanity when it snows and I don't show signs of hysteria.
Mary Pinckney Waters welcomes your comments
and feedback: marypwaters@yahoo.com |
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