Today’s temperature : -2 degrees centigrade
Wah lao eh … and to think it would be 25 degrees in the shade right now in Singapore … and we’ve been hearing reports that this is gonna be one of the coldest winters in Switzerland for some time.
Actually, -2 degrees is now in the afternoon. This morning when I woke up and looked at the thermometer (at about 7 in the morning), it read -4 degrees. Which wouldn’t be such a big deal in itself except that today I had decided I was going to cycle to the office. Previous winters I always went to the office by car. This year i decided that I would make more use of the bicycle that was lying pretty much unused most of this time. This has to be the first time in my life that I have been on my bike in temperatures this low … ever.
We’ve been here in Switzerland for 3 years now and although I’ve pretty much gotten used to the winters here, sometimes it still hits me. I’ve been in colder places before (I’ve been on the mountains snowboarding where the temperature got down to -12 degrees but that is another story!) but mostly I only needed to be outside for short periods of time and I was pretty well wrapped up. However, when you are cycling and the wind is blowing in your face (wind chill and all that) that is another matter altogether! (For those of you who can’t imagine what cycling in -2 degree weather is like, try this : open the freezer compartment of your refrigerator, set up a fan facing towards said freezer, plop some dry ice into a bowl of water and place in front of fan, start the fan blowing on the lowest setting, and stick your head in. Keep it there for 1 minute. Get the idea? Now multiply that by 2 and you start to get close …) Thank God that there weren’t any strong winds blowing today! I was wrapped up as well as I could be but my hands still felt like two gigantic ice cubes by the time I reached the office. My frozen face also took about 10 minutes in the office heating to thaw. Looking forward to cycling back home then … 🙂
WY
trippingdifferently 