Life's lessons that Weather has Taught...

OK…well…another week of exciting adventures in Belgrade!! But before I write a post about the week, there is something I want to share that I think deserves its own post – THE WEATHER! (This should not surprise those who are aware of my bizarre semi-secret obsession with the weather).

Since the last time I wrote – like 10 days ago – it has been snowing pretty much constantly. It will stop for a day or so, the sidewalks will clear up, and then it just snows like mad again! It’s fine, because it’s not really that cold, it hovers around freezing, a few degrees above and a few degrees below – so compared to Michigan or Cleveland (where combined I have spent over ½ my life) it is really not so bad. And while there is easily a couple feet of snow, (at least) this is still not as miserable as winters growing up in the Great Lakes Region. The only hassle really is that I have to walk everywhere, which I usually LOVE, but when the sidewalk is icy and I am wet and my work clothes are dirty before I even get to work…I can sometimes feel a little frustrated.

Though again, I have to say, I have a visceral memory of walking to class in Michigan, with snow waist high and air so cold that your snot would freeze inside your nose when you breath. And that much snow leaves HUGE puddles on the road, so I also remember cars speeding through intersections and super-soaking us on the way to or from classes on more than one occasion! (At least the drivers here, while wild and unpredictable in every other sense, seem to slow down in consideration of the walkers they pass when there is a lot of wet snow. Perhaps because they too walk most of the time?)

I also remember so many Michigan winters as a pizza delivery driver – wearing long johns under my clothes on top and bottom, and full winter gear, with gloves missing the fingertips so I could count money…I remember feeling that bone chilling cold that gets even worse once you are wet, both from the snow that sticks to you and melts as you go in and out, and from the sweat that gathers while you are inside, from all the layers of clothes, and makes you feel like you will never be warm again. (I remember sticking my hands inside the convection oven, where the pizzas cooked, to thaw them between runs!)

I am not exaggerating when I say that the physical sensations of being so unbearably, painfully cold during those Great Lakes winters in Michigan are the most distinct, sharp, physical memories I have. Usually when you think about a time you were in pain or were uncomfortable, you recall that you were uncomfortable, but you cannot recall the actual physical feeling – [someone told me once that is a defense mechanism that your brain uses to protect you from the physical recollection of trauma, and I assume what makes people able give birth multiple times.] Anyhow, I have tons of great memories from all different times in my life, but as far as a physical memory, one in which I can still recall and reconstruct the actual physical sensation, I can recall the physical discomfort of Michigan winter – from delivering pizza, to walking to class, to living in an apartment with broken heat in a sub-zero February.

During that time, when I was delivering pizzas to pay for college (maybe 4 years? Maybe more in total), I was the only female delivery driver. Over that time period I was held-up and robbed (of my cash and the pizzas) three different times – once with a knife, once with a broken bottle and once with a gun. Yet, even more than being held-up, of which I remember things about the events, but don’t really remember the fear or trauma, what I really remember about that job is the winter COLD!

(As a significant – non-cold/non-trauma based memory - I also remember that a couple times a month, at the end of the night [3am by the time we were done], a few of the guys and I would drive over the border to Windsor, Ontario (Canada) – like 20 minutes away - and take our tip money to the casino. Afterward, before going home, we would raid the HUGE Canadian recycle bins behind the casino because Michigan has a “bottle return” recycling program, where you get 10cents for each bottle and can. Filling the trunk to capacity, we’d then bring them to the automated return centers back in Michigan and make between $100 - $200 each trip!)

The only other one of those really intense physical memories I have is also associated with cold. When I was 18, after 3 terms of what should’ve been a 4 term academic year of my 1st year at Ohio State, I was “too cool for school” and considered dropping out. I was recruited from some representatives on campus, and got a summer job at Cedar Point Amusement Park (which is in north-central Ohio between Toledo & Cleveland on Lake Erie, and which boasts the most roller coasters of any park in the US!). Overall it was a really fun summer job, with college students from all over the country working there. You lived in dorms on the grounds, and had full run of the park on your days off (The whole culture of working at that place was a whole crazy world I may write about some other time).

However, those of us that came early, before the season began, arrived at the park, in March to start clean-up. It was still icy cold and we worked outside in a light misty freezing rain for 10 hours a day. By mid-day everything was too wet to insulate you anymore and by the end of the day my fingers were white and my toes were numb. I remember feeling as if I would lose fingers and toes.

I also remember that experience teaching me a few things…

Even though the hard, cold, wet part of the job was over in 3 – 4 weeks, working so hard outside in the wet and cold, 6 - 7 days a week, 10 – 12 hours a day, was challenging. I gained a great sense of appreciation and sympathy for my dad who had worked outside 6 - 7 days a week, 10 – 12 hours a day, for my whole life, and never complained or called in sick.

In addition to a new adult respect for my father, I also realized at that point that I would NEVER want to be in a position that I would have to work outside for a living. I took my time about getting back to school in a serious way, intermittently following the Grateful Dead (another potential post to write another day!), working at a greasy chicken-wing restaurant, managing a Pizza Hut and taking classes sporadically for the next 2 years – first back at Ohio State and then at Community college after moving back to Cleveland with my family.

Although through my first stinging outdoor lesson in manual labor at Cedar Point, and the equally challenging lessons I learned in food-service, I acquired a strong work ethic and a healthy respect both for people who labor and people who serve for a living, my youthful delusions of “too cool for school” quickly faded. I went to Michigan to visit a friend whom I had known from Cedar Point and from Dead tour, and after a week with her and the “college life,” I went home to Cleveland, packed my things, and moved to Michigan to work for the summer, apply for school again and sign-up for Fall classes.

Though I worked full time for most of my undergrad education, once I was back in the haven of college, there was no looking back. I mean seriously… I was not only the first in my family to graduate from college, I actually just sort of went back when I was 20 years old, and then never left. After my undergrad degree I stayed in school for 7 more years for grad school, moving to Georgia for the last 5 of those years to finish my graduate work. If I know just two things about myself it is 1) I HATE cold and 2) I love to learn.

Well, anyhow, to get back to the point of this post, suffice to say, that it was the Great Lakes region’s snot-freezing cold, the mountainous snow, the unending winter (that seemed to go from Halloween through Memorial Day) that made me swear, once I moved to Georgia, that I’d never return to a cold climate.

And yet somehow, in the US, once again I live in a cold part of the country – Phillie - and in the larger world, my favorite place to live – Holland - is actually one of the windiest, rainiest places I’ve ever been…though the temps are not that terrible (a week or so of unbearable, and then hovering near freezing for the rest of the winter) and with a leather jacket to block the wind, I was still able to ride my bike everywhere nearly every day (my MOST favorite part of living in Holland – bike culture for everyone regardless of age and massive bike lanes throughout the whole country – urban and rural alike).

[Summer in Holland is a bit strange. I LOVE it that it stays light until 11pm (though that makes for a DARK winter) but the temps never really get warm…the hottest of the hot is like 70 F degrees, and yet Dutch people (who I think are part Polar Bear) still swim in the North Sea!)

One really great lesson I learned living in Holland - I had moved there in the week between xmas and NYE, and it was some kind of ridiculous cold snap. It doesn't usually get that cold in Holland, but like I had mentioned, the place is famous for generally crap weather most of the time - it is WINDY (hence the windmills) and it rains nearly every day for at least a little while. So after I'd lived there a few weeks and had met a Dutch friend to go out with in the evenings, she phoned one evening and asked if I wanted to go to a party with her at a club.

"Oh..." I said "I don't know...I mean the weather is so awful! Maybe we should wait for another time."

"Another time!" She said almost in disbelief. "But c'mon, this is Holland! If you wait for nice weather you will never go out!" [I phrase I heard repeated by many Dutch people after that day]

"C'mon." she said "Grab an umbrella, put on your coat."

After that day I realized that is exactly how Dutch people seem to look at it. Yes, of course it is nice when the weather is nice, but that cannot be counted on, not on any given day, so just expect it. While this is probably not true of every single Dutch person, and it is kind of an exagerated stereotype, it's not entirely untrue that - by-and-large - regardless of weather, many Dutch people of all ages are on their bikes, an umbrella in one hand, the mobile phone in the other, pedalling down the street to wherever their destination! Women will wear their fashionable clothes and cute skirts rain-or-shine.

And hence in Holland, I learned 1) Except in most extreme cases, that weather is not an excuse to NOT do something, and ; 2) Biking is quite possibly the most enjoyable form of daily transport I can even imagine! And if I could live somewhere in the US with that kind of bike culture I would give up my car and move there in a minute!

OK, so pardon the digression...I was talking about Holland vs. Phillie in relation to weather...

So...while these places are cold, and do certainly have a winter season (as opposed to a winter month in Georgia), nothing is like the mid-West, Great Lakes winter!!

In Phillie (and the surrounding area) they close down for the same minute amount of snow and/or ice that made me giggle in amazement at the stand-still everything would come to when there was even the threat of snow in Georgia! (We mid-West Great Lakes folk are of hearty stock! – As example, recall: Obama mocking the DC school closing with an inch of snow).

The same strange phenomenon of people rushing to the store to buy out every bit of stock of milk and bread that had me in confused stitches in Georgia is only marginally less intense in Phillie – as if the roads will somehow be impassible for weeks and no milk or bread will be available for an indefinite period! [And yet I don’t remember my university in Michigan being closed even a single time (and once it was windchill of -40 degrees Fahrenheit!).] And while Phillie will have the occasional brutally cold snap – I would say totaling 3 weeks of the year with temps below 20 F and maybe 7 – 10 of those in the single digits or below. So all-in-all, while I would prefer to live either back in the south, or in California, if I MUST live in the cold, Phillie is not so bad.

OK…so all of that to say…Belgrade is sort of like a blend of all of these places…

Like Georgia, you can easily have weeks at a time in the dead of winter when you barely need a jacket! A few weeks ago we had a whole week of light jacket super sunshine!

Like the Great Lakes mid-West, stuff here does not close for weather! But, even though there is a lot of snow, it has not been brutally cold. Dress warm, wear boots, hat, scarf, gloves and warm coat and you will be fine.

During my first winter In Georgia, there was – as is usual one or two days during the winter - an ice-storm. I called my landlord and asked him to come “salt the walk,” and he seemed totally confused. He showed up about an hour later with a shaker of table salt and asked me to explain again what he should do with it. During that same storm, upon realizing I was caught out without a snowbrush/ice-scraper, I asked in the drug-store if they knew where I could buy a “snowbrush.” They asked me 3 times to repeat what I was asking for, calling over other employees, and still they didn’t know what I was talking about. (Incidentally, these days not only led to school closings, but to EVERYTHING in town closing – banks, stores, everything but gas stations!)

So while in Serbia there seems to be no concept of closing for inclement weather, they also seem to be equally blissfully unaware of advancements in snow removal beyond the shovel, as I have yet to see a single plow, nor have I seen road or sidewalk salt. I have no idea how the snow gets off the road here. It seems that people just drive on it, it gets packed down, and then as it warms up to those few degrees above freezing during the day, it largely goes away on the road.

But the sidewalks are a different story… On the sidewalk the snow gets impacted to that it is a relatively smooth-ish walking surface, and during the day it is soft enough that you have traction in snow boots (though still many women are wearing ridiculous heels…). But in the evening it all turns treacherous as the top layer that was soft in the daytime becomes shiny and slick with ice.

This problem is doubly compacted on the “walking street,” where all the fancy shops are located in the center of town, b/c the surface of that road is a sort of smooth marble-looking stone that, even with rain, is super slick, but which becomes a little like an ice-rink in the snow. However, the shopping street was only a problem on the days it was actually snowing, as there are city workers shoveling there, in addition to small snow sweeping machines (length of a snowmobile, height of a zamboni [ice-smoothing machine you see at hockey games in the US], with 2 round sweeping mechanisms underneath) that sweep it all off to the side.

The other small problem I have had with the snow here is somewhat more bizarre, and probably has something to do with my own spacey-personality, spotty sense of direction, and visual learning style…

So after being here for 6 weeks now, I know how to get to both of my jobs, and I know how to get to most places I need to go. If I am uncertain, I study the map before I go, and I now know enough of the major landmarks that I can easily orient from them. If a place is brand new, and in a totally unfamiliar part of town, and I have to be there at a specific time, I will take a taxi to get there the first time…so I am not late and I know where I need to go. But as I am leaving I will walk or take the tram/bus, and then I will be able to find it again the next time.

However, I guess the fact that I am a visual learner has been reinforced because once the snow came so heavy and thick, everything looked different, and it presented a few problems with my orientation.

So, last Wednesday when I was on my way to the Women in Black office for work, the snow was coming down as thick and heavy as a raining downpour. It had been doing this the whole day Tuesday, through the night, and all day and night on Wednesday. So when, around 11am on Wednesday I left to walk the 20 minutes to work, it had been snowing like this for about 24 hours and even the sweeping machines could not keep the shopping street clear (which is how I learned how slippery it is…but thank goodness it was not me who fell this time, but some 6 ft. bleach blond glamazon in high heels!).

I left myself 10 extra minutes because of the weather, and started off. Up my street, across the big intersection, up the big hill, past the student square, unto the shopping street, down a few blocks, through a narrow street, then….wait…what now…

I look up to see if I’m in the right spot, but everything looks so different covered in snow…I suddenly feel totally lost! I walk a while in what I think is the right direction…wait…no…nothing looks familiar…DAMN!

Now I am late…and my feet are starting to get cold…God it is really coming down out here…oh now here is the little park I usually come to…but wait….it looks different…am I coming at it from a different direction? Damn! I better turn around, I think I am going the wrong way…

Hey…I think that’s like the 2nd time I’ve passed that grocery store…God my hair is getting so wet! The Serbs at work are going to think I will die for sure…they are so weird about the wet hair thing…ok…I think I am going the right way now…yeah…this looks familiar…good things starting to look familiar…

…HEY…wait a second…How did I get back on the shopping street again!!! Shit! No wonder it looked familiar! I was just here like 10 minutes ago! I am sooo late now!!! And soooo wet!!! The snow is sticking to my eyelashes….I am getting tired of slipping…I know I am going to fall on my ass and….OK…just be calm…step under the awning and look at your map…

…CRAP! How could I have forgotten to put the map in my bag!!! Now I will never find it! I will die out here in the snow and no one will find me until April when the wild dogs have eaten ½ of my face…and speaking of the wild dogs…how do they survive in this weather…FOCUS!...

OK…c’mon…you have this under control…WHYY DOES EVERYTHING LOOK SO UNFAMILIAR! I feel like old people you see on TV who wander away from home and forget where they came from

…OK…here’s what you’re going to do, commit to a direction, walk in that direction, and you WILL come to recognize stuff. It is not all new for goodness sake, it’s just snow!

All right, so this way…OK I got a good feeling about this…hey wait….is that the same grocery store again?!? Either I am totally crazy or I have somehow passed the same store 3 times! It’s like I am on one of those gag TV shows!...crap…trust myself or doubt myself…well either way keep walking or you’ll freeze to death….

…Oh…hey…what’s this? OH MY GAWD! This is the big street I cross right before the bus station that leads me to the stairs that take me to the street with the three porno-huts across the street from where I work!!! …. Got to remember to ask the women at work what they think about running a feminist organization next to the porno huts…

OK, don’t get too excited, you still have to make it down all those stairs and an icy hill without falling before you are home free…carefully…carefully…focus…

Oh my god, I am so close now…oh wait which door is it again? This one…no that one…oh right its this other one…OK!!! I made it!!! Phew!

So with a little getting lost I eventually made it to work. The leader was not even there, which was fine with me since I was late anyway, and my work for this place is largely independent, so while I wished a little that I was home and dry, as I spent the rest of the day in the freezing office with wet hair, feet and pants, I was at the same time so proud to have made it there finally, and glad to be there working on the project I was doing for them (helping to transcribe some really amazing women’s issues documentaries from around the world so that they can be subtitled in Serbian and shown to women all over the region).

OK, well I guess I will close this entry by sharing what I have liked best about the snowy weather here. It is threefold…

1st – I have made a decision to get as much focused writing done as possible while it is the poor weather. This has meant that any day I do not have to go to one of my jobs, I work on my writing and research from the time I get up until the time I go to bed. The fact that I don’t know many people here makes this easier and I feel super productive.

2nd – It is snowy, but not that cold! So you can generally go about your business with just a little extra care.

3rd – The snow makes everything look really pretty!!! It is light and fluffy and covering all the trees and muddy patches where grass should be, and even the ugly buildings in my neighborhood. It makes it all feel so cozy!!

OK, so thanks for reading! Hope it was entertaining for you. I will try to make one more post about the actual adventures I had in the last week, and will write again next week when I get back from next weekend in Budapest!