Project 365

Compared to November snow, last night’s snow was the heaviest. See how my bike was almost completely covered by snow? Compared that to this photo of my bike, taken on November in the same place.

It was snowing SO.HEAVILY. today. ALL DAY. It was the worst I had ever experienced. The country never had this much of snow for one whole day. Today was clearly the exception.

It just happened that today I had so many things to do which required me to go out of the house. I used to live in the center for two straight years, so everything was close by. But it was different this year. I could really feel the hardship of fighting the snow, trying to get from A to B. I almost fell from my bike for many times. It was so hard to keep it balance. It was quite scary. The roads were soooo slippery. Going by car was as much dangerous as going by bike. A friend even told me she hit another car as she couldn’t brake her car.

And you may wonder by now, why didn’t I take a bus?

EXACTLY.

Yes, I didn’t plan to go out of the house today. But I had to go to my friend’s place for a while. The streets were very slippery! I almost fell from my bike a couple of times. It was truly a challenge to cycle on the snowy roads. Let’s be more careful, yes?

-16 degrees Celsius of windchill! Time to hibernate?

I woke up with this view 🙂 . It was snowing heavily yesterday and I had trouble cycling as the streets were quite slippery. It will even be more slippery today. Cycling can be very dangerous. Well, I’m planning to stay at home today anyway.

Eindhoven was raining all day today! It wasn’t the best weather, but I enjoyed it. I went to the city with Jessie and do some shopping. I finally got my purple jacket for a discounted price! I was so happy! 😀 I had been going to that shop for several times only to find that it was too pricey. But the jacket was on discount today so I was quite pleased.

The thing about living here (or anywhere in the world which has 4 different seasons), having coats or jackets for each of the 4 seasons (or in my case, 3 seasons, since I treat spring and fall to have the same weather), is really important. I didn’t know it until I was here. For the winter, I have one jacket designed for temperature below -2 degrees Celsius and a coat designed for temperature -2 degrees and up. I also have one coat for temperature between 8 to 15 degrees, which I usually wear during fall or spring, and one jacket for temperature above 15 degrees. The gloves and shawls also need to cater for different weather. I have 3 different gloves for extremely cold weather, mild weather, and raining season, and 2 different shawls for cold and mild weather.

One thing I don’t like about living here (uhm, not really lol) is that I don’t get to wear my flat shoes or sandals frequently. It’s too cold to wear it during all seasons except summer, which only lasts for few weeks (and it’s not always warm, by the way). So I wear closed shoes most of the times: boots and sneakers become really handy. I prefer to wear sandals though. Or even flip flops. They are comfortable.

Anyway, as I walked back home today (after a nice conversation with Jessie over an ice cream), I realized that the leaves of all the trees were visible now! That means, summer is approaching (uhm, okay, it’s still a long way to go). Spring remains my favorite season though, so I’m quite sad to see the tulips and all other flowers were beginning to die. See you next year, spring! Going to miss you 🙂