I dun wanna grow up, I'm a toys 'r' us kid...

Everything has frozen solid now--it's gone from snowing at least once a day to enormous swathes of ice everywhere. Guthrie Street, where I live, is one giant hill. There's a flight of stairs (with many, many steps) for anyone who'd like to avoid the long way, but let's face it: it was a serious act of willpower to make it up the steps when they weren't icy enough to literally slide down.

(The last time I did make an attempt to get down them, I ended up clutching at the handrail for dear life as I slid down four or five steps. The ice had almost complete covered the steps, but I'd thought there was still enough snow to get a grip. So not the case. I ended up sitting on the handrail and sliding down the way mothers always tell their children to never, ever do because they might fall off backward and break their crown. It was maaaybe more fun than it should've been.)

Last Sunday, before everything had finished freezing, I went out with a friend (codename Freiburg) to the Meadows (which I'm sure I've mentioned before. It's basically a huge and open grassy space with paths and trees and prettiness galore. Except now it's all coated with snow) to have a snowball fight with her and London. London slept in and missed half the fun stuff, but she and I tried and failed to build a snowman (the snow wouldn't stick together), tried and sort of succeeded at throwing a few snowballs at each other--except she does this thing where she throws one and then runs away. She just turns tails and sprints off, and no way am I going to chase her across the Meadows.

We also found a park with relatively undisturbed snow, so we turned into kids for a while and went swinging and sang Christmas carols. I did a stupid thing and was rewarded with falling on my ass. It hurt. A lot, and I was sore the next morning. And when we got tired of the swings, we made snow angels.

I've made a snow angel once before, but really all I remember of it is how unhappy and cold and covered in melting snow I was afterward. But the snow was so deep and totally undisturbed that I really couldn't help myself. I spread my arms and flopped backward, trusting that the snow was deep enough that I wouldn't break my tailbone.

It was. :)

We found a chair made of snow that had frozen into ice. That was pretty cool. Wwatched squirrels for a while--I got kinda bored, but it was restful, I guess, and they're quite rare in Freiburg's corner of Germany, so she was completely enthralled. And then London finally showed up, and we went to a different, bigger playground and turned into kids again. We played on the swings, and the playgyms, and there was a ziplineanditwasawesome!

Fantastic, amazing, stupendous day. Absolutely wonderful. We went to a delicatessen when it got dark and the food was pricey but good. I ended up going back later this week to get my secret santa (for my flat) a gift. :)

Not gonna lie, I'm really, really loving these fits of immaturity. They make the frigid cold and the sun going down at 3:30-4 PM bearable.

Snow!

It started snowing a week ago. The day after Thanksgiving. It really couldn't have been more perfect--isn't that we (those of us who don't get snow) hear? Thanksgiving, then the Christmas season. Christmas equals snow.

A friend told me it was snowing, but when I looked out my window I didn't see any. Still, I ran out of the flat (then ran back in for my coat, then ran back out again) and actually saw one or two odd little white spots kind of drifting toward the ground. Just one or two, just enough for me to kind of scrunch my face up and go, "Is that a snowflake? Is that what that's supposed to look like?"

I'd never seen snow fall before. At least, I don't remember ever having seen it fall. My parents once took my brother up to Big Bear for a weekend when we were younger, and I went skiing my freshman year, but beyond that I don't remember ever having seen it.

But now it's snowed at least once a day for a week. Frigging amazing. It's everywhere. The airport here was shut down for several days and the whole country is basically freaking out.

This is a view from my bedroom window, taken a few days ago. It was snowing hard enough that all the flakes were visible!

Three days ago I had to go to the archery club's Christmas dinner at a nearby pub--it was a whole big to do, with the back room rented out and everybody getting dressed. I'd had a few reservations, like I would with anything I ought to wear a dress to, but it was so, so fun. There wasn't a whole lot of food, but dinner was tasty, the company was great, and I went with friends to two different clubs afterward. The second one is kind of our regular spot, I guess, and it's quite a dive. Terrible music that never changes, you know? But that night there were different DJs, so there was good music!

And then afterward, when the club closed and they kicked everybody out--at three in the morning, mind you--we had a snowball fight on the way home. IT WAS SO MUCH FUN I NEED A BIGGER WORD FOR "FUN." Hysterically fun. I like to think I kicked some ass, even while wearing a dress. :)