I loveeeeeee cold winters

Back by popular demand (jun and milton... cough)!

Let me start this off by saying the first person i met in Lausanne was an asshole. Overall the swiss are very nice, although I think theres something pervasive about reclusivness and the french language culture. Anyways, the asshole is my dorm concierge, he's a stubborn arrogant twat of a frenchman that refused to answer questions and spoke to me as if i had a lobotomy at some point in my life. Infuriating asshat.

Anyways, back to my original post.

Many of us from cold climates have a deep seated dread of winter. For us it means bone-chilling temperatures, layers upon layers of clothing (except for you canada goose people), short daylight hours and various other irritating winter precautions that must be taken. Naturally, when we hear about Vancouver and their mild winters we think about how great it would be if it were like that. Lausanne experiences a similar kind of winter.

You might be thinking "Thats great! you must be loving it!", but I'm writing to tell you that you're completely wrong. I have a newfound distaste for mild winters as well as a new love for freezing winters (I'd still prefer to have no winter at all, but if I had to choose, i'd choose the f*cking cold one). To put it briefly, the mildness of the weather makes it humid, and humidity in winter results in tons of fog. Theres supposed to be a majestic view of the alps from my dorm room window, but I've only managed to see a few buildings away due to the fog. Not only that, but mild winters means theres no snow on the ground. I know most of us hate having to walk through the snow/slush in the winter months back home. But the snow brings another great quality to winters: light in darkness. After the sun sets, the streetlights & moonlight shine on the snow and it reflects everywhere, winter nights are bright to the point where you could read outdoors (only someone truly stupid would). This isn't the case here, not only is there no snow to reflect light, the fog gets trapped in the narrow european streets and prevents any real sunshine from getting through. We're used to getting intense sunshine on cold winter days in Montreal, I still haven't seen the sun here yet. I'm pretty sure they don't load up their milk with vitamin D either, so the lack of sunlight is really getting to me.

[edit] Admittedly, snow on the ground really wouldnt work in a place like this either cause of how the streets are organized and how narrow they are. In fact, snow would make navigation here impossible by my guess. [/edit]

Oh, almost forgot, our underground city back home is the bomb. All cities that experience winter should have one, its so convenient to hide from the cold AND get around.

Anyways, the experience out here in europe has not been what I was expecting, and the realization of the facts of life on exchange have sunk in. I have a more thoughtful post coming in the next few days once I'm in Paris, but I thought i'd bless you guys with one of my wonderful rants.