The Weather Outside Isn't so Frightful

I thought it was funny watching my friends from California see snow for the first time during my freshman year in College. Watching them touch it and walk on it for the first time was fascinating. However, I think watching the Irish people in the snow is hysterical. The first time it snowed in many years in Ireland was last year, so I thought that the “snow” we got yesterday morning wouldn’t cause too much excitement. Apparently I was wrong. I had two classes cancelled because of the weather – which, by the way, was only cloudy for about an hour letting the ground accumulate all but ½ an inch of snow and then turned sunny for the rest of the day – a snowball fight ensued in the center of the campus (which was a little scary at times), but the funniest part to see was the way that the people walked and drove in the snow.

I think that if there was a race between Irish people and snails in the snow, the snails would win. I’m not joking. People barely lifted up their feet to walk. They just sort of slid/drug their feet on the ground to reach their destination. It was icy, but not so much so that you couldn’t walk properly on it. The drivers would most likely lose in the race as well. I was walking on the sidewalk at one point and had to move as far as I could to the inside of it because an SUV just about had two wheels on the sidewalk. There were parked cars alongside the other side of the road and the driver wanted to get as far away from them as possible (which was 20 feet) I think in case he lost control in the “snow.” I wasn’t too worried about getting run over though because he was driving slow enough that I don’t think I’d even have gotten a bruise if he did hit me. I had the urge to jump in the car and drive him to his destination; I passed him too quickly to get in the car though and I didn’t feel like walking all the way back to where I left him.

Snow is wonderful, and I cannot explain how excited I was to see it falling yesterday. It’s gone today, but at least I witnessed snow on palm trees. That, in itself, is a lasting memory. It’s supposed to snow on Friday again, hopefully I’ll be fast enough to take a picture before it disappears again.