Cold vs Kalt

This table reflects my experiences.

Temp. (F/C)	me	Germans
90+/31+	hot	omg you can't go outside, I can't sleep, I definitely can't live in a place like this, this is dreadful
80-90/27-31	normal summer	hot
70-80/20-26	slightly cool - nice	nice, but sometimes too warm
60-70/15-20	cool	pleasant
40-60/5-15	cold	cool - pleasant
32-40/0-5	freezing	cold, but not enough to take seriously
<32/<0	still freezing (my scale stops)	actually cold, but not enough to keep you indoors

Snow in Florence, the sequel

Last year, we got some snow in Florence the weekend before Christmas. Well, it seems that sometimes history repeats itself. Friday morning, after I had gotten to work, the first snowflakes started falling, and continued to do so during the entire day. What this meant is that transportation basically completely broke down. Roads were blocked with traffic jams, buses and trains had stopped running, the airport closed down, and everyone was worried about how they would get home. At 5:30pm, I left work on my bike, and while it took me longer than usual to get home, I was probably still significantly faster than anyone out there in a car. It stopped snowing sometime in the late evening, and I would guess that the overall snowfall was something like 20 cm (8 inches).
Saturday, I awoke to a beautiful winter landscape. The sun was shining and the snow was still there. Since I didn't think that buses were running again, I walked through Cascine park to the center of Florence (I had to get a panettone to bring my parents from a bakery there), and then continued on to Piazzale Michelangelo to take in the view from there. Back in the city, I stopped briefly at the Christmas market in Piazza Santa Croce for lunch, before making my way to the Duomo. I had been planning to go up to the cupola, but was waiting for a weekend with nice weather, and this was the day. The view from up there was spectacular, all the more so with all the roofs covered in snow. I managed to make my way home by taking a bus that was going in my direction -- apparently a minority the buses are equipped for snow, but there's not enough capacity in those, so they're very crowded.
We'll see how the situation develops -- I'm planning to fly back to Germany for the Christmas holidays.

Snow in Florence

The cold spell that hit cities across Europe last weekend also made it to Florence, where it snows only very rarely. So we were quite excited when the first snowflakes started falling Friday night. Looking out the window, the snow started getting thicker and thicker and kept coming. At around 10:00, we decided to go out to Cascine park, where we took some pictures and built a snowman.
The next day, the snow was still there, since it was still bitter cold for Florentine standards, and we were able to take some rare pictures of the sights covered in a dusting of snow. Of course, the weather also caused transportation chaos, but that's another story...

Not much

There haven't been many posts recently, because there hasn't been that much going on. It is the hot, sunny season here (the summer, like winter, has very stable weather).

I said before that Italians like to talk. I have also noticed that this seems to be the cause of and solution to some of their problems. Things are generally inefficient, but people often don't seem bothered by it, because they're distracted by talking to each other. I don't think there's any way to make anything happen more quickly, so talking seems to be the key to not getting angry at having to wait forever for something that shouldn't take very long.

Two more foods to add to my list:
- percoca, a type of peach
- scarola. I think it's called escarole in English, but it has a disc shape.

The Weather

We seem to have entered the rainy season here. It’s rained almost every day for a month.

The Weather

A little over two weeks ago, it was in the 90s. Then one day it dropped to the 70s. Then, and this is the strange part, it stayed in the 70s. Every day for the last two weeks. Weird.