Posts Tagged: snow

Les montagnes

EUF Snowscape

Squirrel!

Bluejay

DC reporting in, #3: Snow Day

So, Thursday was indeed a snow day. And it did, indeed, snow – about 5 inches / 15 cm over the course of the day. I spent the day inside, catching up on some reading and work (and also napping, as I still wasn’t quite over my jetlag – or maybe just plain tired). But, Friday dawned bright and sunny, and the Library of Congress was open again (with an optional 2 hour late arrival period for staff members), and here are some photos of the snow-day-aftermath.

7th Street SE (my street) in the snow

Independence Avenue (the road that leads from 7th Street straight down to the Library of Congress)

It’s not the busiest of streets, and it does make for a nice 10-15 minute walk in the mornings and evenings … which will get even better once it’s a little warmer, I think (and then probably less so once the heat and the mosquitoes arrive…). We’ll see!

The Waiting Game

I called this photo the waiting game, and that’s a game I’m also playing right now. Term is winding down and we’re in the “the days before all the exams come in” lull, which is usually a time for the tidying up of offices and loose ends etc. This year, for obvious reasons, times ten.

Today I went to the post office and filled out the forwarding form for my mail, and when I go shopping or ponder what to eat I’m in the territory where one needs to ask oneself every time “am I going to finish this before leaving”?

Like: if I open another bottle of wine, will I drink enough of it before I leave Flensburg? (Which actually tells you more about how little wine I drink at home than about my prospective departure date). I’ve run out of hot mustard, and am not going to open up another glass of it, as 80% of it would then go to waste. I’m also going to run out of cereal, most varieties of tea, … really soon now. And will need to eat a lot of rice in the coming days.

On that note: I’m so so so glad that I decided NOT to give up my flat. Just thinking that I could be spending these days frantically packing boxes and moving things into storage … no no no no no. This is much better. Maybe a little more expensive (and also maybe not, as taking things out would cost money, storage would cost money, moving into a holiday flat after returning would cost money, getting a new flat would… etc), but also a million times less stressful. Flat things are also all sorted out and taken care of, and I can leave knowing that both the flat and my things will be in good hands. Which is a relief.

I’m using the occasion of not-being-here for 7+ months to do some general sorting out of stuff, so there’s a trip to the local civic amenity center on my prospective schedule for Monday morning. I decided against touching the clothing I no longer wear at the back of the closet, though – they’re going to keep until October, and I’m busy enough without also creating a clothing avalanche in my bedroom. So paper and medication and stuff like that goes, trousers that no longer quite fit stay (they also might fit again when I return, depending on how many peanut butter cups I eat).

So I’m both busy preparing and working … and yet also biding my time, and it’s all a bit strange.

It’s cold, won’t you let down your hair?

Snowscape; Sunset

The Weather on the German-French Border

Between Schweix (Ger) and Liederschiedt (Fra)

I’m in Nancy right now, and just about to set off on my trip further into France, but wanted to share this photo from yesterday with you. A more detailed trip report shall follow when there are less things to be seen and done! :-) A bientôt!

 The bright sunshine, the short exposure time

Parhelia

Had to go to the office today, to sign a piece of paper that needs to be in by Monday earliest, and on the way there I spotted parhelia and the barest discernible hint of the 22° halo [Parhelion, sing.; pl. parhelia. German: Nebensonne(n); English: sundog(s)].

I only had my mobile phone with me, it being a work and shopping excursion that required me to bring the put-stuff-into backpack rather than the full-of-camera backback, but I did manage to capture the above photo of them.

Icing sugar, like falling snow

For a first experiment with shutter speed and flash synchronization, its not too bad … and I have plans for New Year’s Eve and that combo, oh yes I do.

Two Colours of Ice

This morning, my car battery sounded like it would really apprechiate a stint on the highway to get recharged a bit, and so after I left work I took the Flensburg bypass out to the Danish border and stopped for a tad in Wassersleben on the way back, to see what the beach looked like this winter. (For two years ago, see here). A lot less snow, and definitely colder.

A Dusting of Snow

There’s a certain slant of light…

… on winter afternoons.

There’s a certain slant of light,
On winter afternoons,
That oppresses, like the weight
Of cathedral tunes.

Heavenly hurt it gives us;
We can find no scar,
But internal difference
Where the meanings are.

None may teach it anything,
‘Tis the seal, despair,-
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the air.

When it comes, the landscape listens,
Shadows hold their breath;
When it goes, ’tis like the distance
On the look of death.

Emily Dickinson