Winter has summarily arrived in Northern Moravia. It's considerably below freezing outside and there's several feet of snow on the ground. Every morning when my radio alarm wakes me up, it does so by listing exactly how many degrees below freezing it's going to be today, and the only thing that still lets me get out of bed is that I can't convert celsius to fahrenheit before coffee. It is, though, kind of amusing in some ways. Primarily that now instead of pushing children in strollers children are pulled on sleds. Down the sidewalk. And nobody thinks it's at all weird. Also a plus are the arrival of the Christmas markets, which I adore on principle. Though actually the only one I've seen so far is Opava's, since I walk through it to get to the Regional Archive where I started working at this week. They have three kinds of punč, French, Viennese, and domácí, which means more or less from around here. I think I may start getting a cup after I get out of the archive for the day, something to keep me warm until the bus shows up.
Thanksgiving was last weekend, and so in lieu of my previous plan of eating a turkey sandwich and being sad (since turkey sandwiches are impossible to find in Ostrava) I went to Prague for the Fulbright Thanksgiving meeting, where I had a joyous reunion with my fellow grantees, or at least the ones that don't live here. I guess seeing Rachel and JoEllen was also joyous, but reunion might be somewhat of a misnomer after a separation of only twelve hours. The dinner was surprisingly Thanksgivingish, the evening was pleasantly scattered, and I got a chance to buy several new books, most of which I have now read. Another year to wait for the final book in the Wheel of Time series. The Pendolino was nice (the fancy train!) and fast, but lacked power outlets for my laptop. My battery did last long enough for me to watch Tropic Thunder, which I thought was quite entertaining. It distracted me from worrying about my passport, though thankfully the worries were groundless. I also got the chance to see Luise again, which was pretty awesome! Though sadly brief. Um. That's about it these days. I should start thinking about what to do for Christmas, it's coming up quick. Maybe I'll buy a little tree this week.
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