Becoming a Northern European

There are already some symptoms. Maybe they don't mean I'm one yet, but maybe they do.

Summer was dismal, little sun, terrible. September was not too bad. Then, the temperature started decreasing, slowly but steadily. Some days ago, in the night ice was forming.

And, this week, for the first time the city woke up under the snow. It didn't last long, in the afternoon it had disappeared already.

The day after, it snowed again, and it stayed.


And today, I spent an unexpectedly nice morning with three colleagues in Utrecht. Wilhelminapark was covered with snow. Families with children had ice skates at their feet, usual for them (maybe), really weird for me.

And the weirdest thing: I and the colleagues walked on water, like Jesus. Well, in the sense that the pond in Wilhelminapark was frozen, and the ice was thick enough it was possible to walk on it. And skate on it. We walked, Dutch people skated.

Ice was making strange noises, like metal sheets. And we didn't know if that was something to worry about... Dutch people were not worried, and therefore we were not either... We should have been: one of my friends was doing the very last step before reaching the land, when the ice broke. Luckily, he was so close to the shore that he fell on the land.

After that, we were so scared we didn't try again. But children were skating, were playing ice hockey, and one of them was hitting the ice surface with his (her?) hockey club. Those Dutch people are scared by nothing!

Conclusion: I am actually enjoying this chilly weather with no rain! Today was especially good, sun and blue sky. Even though I like snow (maybe because I was born in a place where it never snows), I used to suffer incredibly from cold climate. Now I like it. Is it serious, doctor?