The Jig Is Up

I returned from Belgium to find the streets of Graz snow-free and the skies a rare color called "blue." I thought Spring had come and was looking forward to putting away my wool socks and turning down the radiator.

Unfortunately, today I woke up to this:

It's snowed a lot this year. There was a constant layer covering the ground from December to January that varied in depth from about an inch to upwards of one to two feet. And yet every time it snows, including today, the people of Graz act totally surprised.

I don't like snow. It's cold, it gets dirty really quickly, and it's hard to walk through. Part of the reason Graz sounded so appealing to me when I was filling out my Fulbright application was because I heard that it had a milder climate and thus less snow than the rest of Austria.

So, the first few times the Grazers acted surprised to have snow, I believed them and was surprised right along with them. But after the fourth or fifth time I stopped believing them when they said, "This never happens!"

Actually Graz, it does happen. A lot. I was here a few weeks ago when it happened. And I was listening then when you pretended it never happens. And the time before that. And the time before that too. Let's all just admit that it snows in Austria. I doubt that the rest of the world is surprised to hear this.