Living In A Winter Wonderland!

Okay, I know the title is corny...but really, Lulea is so beautiful all covered in glistening white snow. It is getting a lot colder though. It was pretty much averaging zero degrees to -2 all the time until this morning. I woke up at 8am and the first thing I did was to check the thermometer in the living room. It was -8.8 degrees! So I figured it was still early and things will warm up in an hour since i only had to leave at 9. So at 9, just before leaving home I went to check again and it was -9.2! So much for positive thinking. I decided to ditch the bike and walk to school instead because I was bundled up pretty well, which meant I would have less manoeuvring capabilities. Well I slipped and kinda fell on the way to school but I was quick to react and saved myself from a full on fall, so all was okay. And I was walking fast, so I broke out into a small sweat too!

After class, I bumped into a Swedish schoolmate, Alex, and we were chatting for a while. I said I was about to go home and he had nothing to do so he walked me home and I invited him in for coffee and ice cream. We ended up chatting for more than 3 hours and as he was leaving he said that we should coin a new word ' hanging-in' (indoors) which would be perfect for this kind of weather cos its just too cold to 'hang-out' (outdoors). I thought it was cute coming from him.

Well besides just 'hanging in', a whole bunch of us decided to take a trip to a ski slope about a one hour walk away...yes we walked in the cold...
By the time we got there I could not feel my toes but that did not stop me from getting into my trash bag and sliding down the hill! I also rolled around in the snow a bit and made a snow angel!
Oh and with snow comes snow sculptures! But my neighbour Katalin thinks that snowmen are so boring, so here's what she made on the ledge of her balcony...
A Snow Sheep! Too cute right?!

But not all is fun and games...Grocery shopping is not fun in the cold AT ALL. Given the ridiculous bus timings here, missing a bus means waiting 40mins in the cold for the next one. And when you shop for 3 weeks at one go, it is really hard to carry everything then your fingers have gone completely numb from the weight plus the icy weather. Anyway, we played charades from Vishnu's iPhone while stranded at the bus stop. Here's Bryan and I looking like a bunch of shady hobos.

But as always, I get by with a little help (and warmth) from my friends!