As I woke up this morning and looked outside my bedroom window, I was excited to see that the snow forecast was on the money! We already had a little bit of snow last Sunday, but it was gone by the morning. I saw a picture of a local park in the next day's news of snow-covered grounds, but I had missed that. On Thursday morning, for the St. Nicolas (St. Nikolaus) Day, the 6th of December, Lüneburg citizens were blessed, or cursed depending on your mode of transportation and length of commute, with snow-covered tress, roofs, streets, and sidewalks, including the bicycle lanes.
But none of that could come close to the snow, which is still falling now, at 9:30 AM on Sunday, December 9. If only there were hills around here that I could ski down! Alas, living in the flattest part of Germany, I should probably have been prepared for that!
I put on multiple layers, ear muffs, a hat, gloves, hiking boots, long underwear, and legwarmers (not necessarily in that order) and ventured outside to capture the beauty of freshly fallen snow in the charming town of Lüneburg. This really makes up for the short days and the long hours of darkness every day, which is not helping the already grumpy attitude of most Germans in this area. Not to sound ungrateful, but having lived in a place where having a conversation with a sales person or fellow shopper that goes beyond grunting a brief "Guten Morgen" or "Schönes Wochenende" is absolutely normal, I sometimes feel like a fish out of water here. Of course, I am generalizing and might come across as slightly bitter (again, remember, daylight lasts only form about 8:45 AM in the morning to 4 PM in the afternoon!). In all honesty, the customer service I experienced in Germany before I moved to the US was even more abysmal than what I have experienced so far, with many places in Munich and Cologne being an exception, as the Bavarian people and he folks from the Rhineland seem to have a sunnier disposition than the people in my hometown and the North of Germany; however, I am grateful that I work with a lot of Americans, because if I would rely on human interactions solely provided by most of my German countrymen and women, I would wither away like a tulip in the first snow!
But I digress... As I said, the wintery beauty almost makes up for all of that! And here is the proof:
