Alas in wonderland......

Recent discussions of global warming and the “warmest summer ever” had started to bore me. There was nothing else anyone would talk about, not even my parents. I was desperately hoping for a serious change of weather talk, when last week the University closed down for one and a half days due to inclement weather! Since then I have been listening to stories of those two days. And I have one of my own too.

On the second day of the closure, my roommates and I decided to make productive use of the holiday and went out shopping. Being our first experience of real snow and bad weather, I don’t think we were particularly prepared for what came next. And even the one who has been here longer, and knows what might happen found the idea too tempting to think otherwise. So dressed in our Eskimowears we stepped out.

The first stop was supposed to be our beloved and then the parking. Five minutes in the cold and we decided it was better to change course and visit the parking first. We managed to locate the car, only because she had dared to bare partially. But then forcing her to let go off her brand new snow-white overcoat was a tad too difficult. After around an hour of scrapping, shoveling, pushing, and even kickboxing the snow, we managed to get on road. By that time it had started getting dark and we made a quick visit to the lake. It was awesome. Almost completely frozen, it looked magnificent! Two of us dared to get closer, while the other two stayed backed to shout caution. After what seemed like ages in Antarctica, we finally plodded back to the car.

The shopping was as eventful as grocery shopping could be. Once again content that we had shopped wisely, saved money and spent only an hour, we smugly started back home.

Now we don’t really have a parking permit. She parks in the visitors’ parking regularly. But that day we decided to risk it and were looking for parking places in the regular parking area. After all, why would anyone tow you away in such weather. A couple of empty spots raised our hopes, but we soon learned why they were empty. And learned the hard way. Trying to park at one spot, we got ourselves stuck. The car would move neither forward, not backwards. She tried doing all that she could sitting in the car, but to no effect. The only option was to get out and clear the snow to allow passage.

And so began the struggle of three 'strong' girls to move a car sticking deeper in snow. We once again scraped, shoveled and kicked the snow, add pushing and at a point even partially rocking and lifting the car. Thankfully a helpful neighbor, either concerned or completely irritated by the noise of skidding tyres, came down to help us. He gave us tips and tacts to make it move. Finally even he gave up and decided that the best thing to do is pick and push it out. So now we were four girls and one man struggling. (Its funny how attractive struggles are to men!) At the end of the one hour ordeal, we were four girls and five men pushing the car. Finally we did manage to get the car out and running , parked it at a safer location and labored our way back through the snow with loads on numb hands and minds.