Winter

I think right now it is technically winter here. It's about -3C here every day lately, and most of the leaves from the trees are gone. I think there was also snow recently, but the workers around the city hid it like they did the falling leaves of autumn. They gathered those right up early in the morning, and rode around on huge carts tranporting the leaves to an undisclosed location. Similarly with the snow, I saw guards shoveling a tiny amount of it off the curb and into a dirty box of snow. I also saw a small amount one windshield of a car. Look, China, you're not going to be able to hide winter forever. Why not just let the snow stay so people can look out their windows and remember, "Oh yeah, it's cold enough to break my ice cubes of fingers against a wall."

I think the temperature isn't really much different here than in, say, Indiana. However, the winds are just terrible. Just today, I was not once, but twice pushed backwards and to the right by the wind while trying to walk. Every so often, if there's a strong gust, you'll hear girls screaming. Donny and I decided that we needed to buy warm clothes and better gloves today, so we headed to a market.

To prepare for the walk, I put on tights, socks, boots, and pants, and two jackets, two scarves, and a giant coat. I also wore a hat, the hood from one jacket, and the hood from my coat. It was still freezing in the wind. My hands were so cold, and here I thought I had warm gloves. Not so. I bought new ones today, and as a result, the walk home was much more tolerable. My hands actually didn't get cold. Good gloves.

My teacher said the other day, "It's December already, and it's still so warm!" People looked at each other, horrified. I'm scared to find out what the coming weeks and months are bringing for weather. I've never spent a winter so close to Russia in my life, and I'm a bit nervous about being unprepared.