MiKE: It's snowing!

So, on Wednesday afternoon, talking to some locals, I heard the rumour that there was going to be up to 20cm of snow that night, and also on Thursday. I spent most of the evening awake, till about 3am, waiting for Serene to arrive - she was hitching a ride with her friend who drove up, and was supposed to arrive around midnight. More on that later; but in the meantime, it was a cold and rainy night - in fact, it had been raining for about the whole of Wednesday, a incessant drizzle that was not impossible to walk through, but at times increased in intensity, especially after the sun set at the very early time of 5pm these days.

I got her position reports via sms, and learnt that she was being held up by jams before the border, and also at the crossing itself. Apparently, what was planned to be a 12 hour journey turned out to be closer to 18 hours total travel time. I'll let her tell her side of the story recounting the trip, but as for me, I was staying awake, finishing a draft for submission, and then watching episodes of South Park.

By the time she arrived, it was after 2am, and I did not envy her - for some reason they had to leave the windows cracked open a bit or else the windscreen would mist up, so as a result, she arrived here practically an ice cube.

The next morning, when we awoke, I took a look out the window to find this:
The rain had turned to snow overnight, and because my outer window was ajar, it had blown in and almost jammed the window. It was still snowing when we woke up. Looking out, we saw this:
For people who have been following this blog, you should remember how this looked like when it was still sunny and the trees were still fully green; it was an amazing sight - the snowflakes falling were so light and being blown by the breeze in all directions.

When the snowfall lightened somewhat, the brightness went up a bit, and the view cleaned itself up:

And then we decided to go out for a walk, even though it was still snowing, albeit lightly. We wanted to go to the MEC Store - Mountain Equipment Co-op sells good outdoor stuff, and we walked the 1.5 km or so after lunch at a Japanese restaurant along Bloor Street.

Along the way, we decided to stop and take a picture:
and we walked on, went to MEC, bought something, and then promptly returned it even before leaving the store as it seemed that the product was not working as well as advertised. Sigh. We walked home, empty handed, in medium snowfall, in the dark.

This post is very boring. I need to write more, but not for now... Feeling sleepy and tired, and I thought to just post these pictures up first, and then maybe talk more later.