It's 10 Degrees! Fahrenheit!

That's with the wind chill, mind you. It's 19 degrees (-7 Celcius) not accounting for the wind, according to weather.com. But I don't need the internet website to tell me that it is f'ing cold outside right now. Pardon my abbreviated french, but once the temperature drops below a certain level, its really the only way to do it justice.

Am I actually writing a blog about the weather? I am. I can't believe it, is my life really that boring that I am blogging about the weather? Oh my god, I am.

Actually, I really just want to remind all my California folks back home not to take your wonderful warm winters for granted. I know I never will again.

When I first came to Korea, every foreigner I met who found out I was from California got some sort of twisted pleasure from telling me how cold I was going to be in the winter. I mean, some of them really enjoyed it. I think they liked seeing the dread in my eyes when they said "ARCTIC COLD!" Especially the Canadians. They really rubbed it in. Somehow I was led to believe that because I was from the warm parts that I would suffer more than all of these cold-weather pros. And I had this picture in my mind of myself standing on a frozen sidewalk all bundled up in layer upon layer of clothing, shivering madly, while everyone else stood there in tee shirts and sandals asking me what was wrong. I was really dreading it. I thought the only person who would be worst than me was Nadine, who is from Hawaii.

But I was wrong -- everyone is pretty much equally miserable once the temperature goes below freezing. And I got a strange satisfaction when I realized that. Ha.

Anyway, yesterday morning I walked out of my apartment at 8:30 a.m. to find this:


And it was still snowing. It was quite beautiful actually. Or at least the back steets were beautiful, where the snow was pretty much freshly fallen. Once I got to the main street it was a different story though. The pretty snow drifts are quickly transformed to muddy puddles that are impossible to get around if you want to cross the street. I even got splashed when a car drove by, it was just great! And I got to to through my morning with wet shoes and socks, until a kind coworker who came in the afternoon brought me some dry ones.

City snow sucks!

Today the sidewalks are a frozen mess, and the street I live on actually is entirely covered by a 3 inch layer of ice. Walking is a bit tricky, but no falls yet. Based on past experience, I predict my neighbors will chose Saturday and Sunday morning at about 7 a.m. to begin the ice chipping. If you think its hard sleeping with a dripping sink, try sleeping while someone bangs ice with a hammer right outside your window.

At least I don't have to do this:

Oh, and if anyone reading this is getting the urge to send me care packages with scarves and mittens and other warm things out of pure sympathy, it's already been done! Someone beat you to it (thank you Ali and Nette!) I am actually the proud owner of 9 scarves, 4 pairs of mittens and 5 warm hats, and I still want to buy more every time I see them. But you really can never have too many accessories, right?

Ok, I am done blogging about the weather. I promise.