Lost in transit

Prague has had below-freezing temperatures at night for the past two weeks, and also saw its first brief snow flurries on Friday afternoon. And it's not even November yet. Oy.

Here in eastern Austria, the weather (and when not the weather, phases of the moon) seem(s) to take the blame for a lot of things - headaches, mood swings, crazy drivers, fatigue, insomnia.

And they are very big on drafts, as in, "close that window/door/etc., I feel a draft." This was new to me.

Here in the Netherlands, the weather seems to be the topic of choice when making small talk. I've had my Mother-in-law on the phone ( she lives about 15-20 kms away)and she will seriously ask me how the weather is in our town. Did we get rain/snow/sunshine as well. And the first thing that we hear during long-distance calls is a weather report.

I can't imagine my family telling me how the weather is in Alabama.

Having said all of that, I do find myself talking about the weather quite a bit. Must have rubbed off.

Every time we call my Aunt in Darwin, Australia, the first thing she tells us about is the weather, down to the percentage humidity! She's just moved back after 10 years in Inverness, Scotland... from one weather extreme to another.. so it's no wonder, really! Right now in London there's blue sky and sunshine, but I know it's going to rain the rest of the week. Gah!

Being Dutch, I can completely agree with Sue about the dutch obsession with weather chit-chat. Even now that I'm living in Italy I still love to open a conversation with some comments about how cold/warm/wet/dry it is. Unfortunately for me the italians are not as interested in weather small talk, their subject of choice is always food. It never ceases to amaze me how they can talk with incredible detail to strangers about what dish they ate the previous day. Talk about a bunch of food-obsessed people!

Everyone in the world is obsessed with the weather. It's a constant topic of conversation here in LA, even though the weather rarely changes! In order to talk about weather anyway, 70F will become "hot" while 65F becomes "cold." It's almost like they want to bitch about the weather just to fit in with the rest of the world that has four seasons. Though right now, there actually is something to discuss, as the suburbs are on fire so it's 90F in October...

Here in Alberta, Canada, it's snowing.

Our weather discussions are mostly limited to "Hmmm, it's snowing again," or "Hmmm, it's nice out today. Let's hope it stays that way." Or of course, "I'm cold!! Why didn't I wear a coat?" The latter being a favourite among people of my age group. Although, weather does, in fact, get get used as a conversation filler from time to time. But, even then, there's only so much one can say on whether it is snowing or not.

Here in Nice (France) we have our own micro-climate: we're surrounded by hills to the west and the Alps to the north and east. In spring and summer we'll sometimes get rain with sand that has come all the way from North Africa in it. As someone who's used to clean Northwest US rain, it still seems very weird to go outside after a nice downpour and see everything dirty with sand.

We also get strong winds every once in a while. Summer is usually hot and unbearably humid; I don't know why the vast majority of tourists come during that worst of seasons. Niçois would rather escape. Right now the weather can't decide between 10°C rainy days and 20°C sunny ones. Almost never freezes in winter, but people keep an eye on snow conditions in the mountains for skiing, hiking and such.

Yes, weather is a big topic in France! And I can easily imagine talking about snow conditions for at least fifteen minutes - how much, wet, dry or in between, any avalanche warnings, people you know in heavy snow areas, what's it supposed to do tomorrow, at what elevation... In fact, now that I think about it, the French people I know talk about snow more than anyone I knew when I lived in Finland.