SNOW!

This morning I looked at the forecast for the next few days. All of the days there are to be ungodly low temperatures and maybe snow. But the unsettling thing was that on the picture for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, there's a sunshine being partially covered by an igloo. I know when there's a cloud in front of the sun, that means partly cloudy, but wtf does an igloo mean??

Last night I told Ray "This is more snow than I've seen in my whole life put together. But then again, I'm from Atlanta so I've only seen like 4 inches of snow total." And Ray says "Yeah, and 3 of those were in 1993!" Haha!
But seriously, it's been snowing for about 18 hours at this point, and there are at least 5 inches on the ground. I keep imagining the havoc this would cause in Atlanta or maybe even Raleigh, and here it's just so NOT a big deal. These Swedes are just going along like nothing has happened... apparently they don't see the half-foot of snow on the ground. If it wasn't so cold I'd go out and tell them about it.
Now personally, I've never liked snow. I don't like rain or cold, and snow is just the lovechild of those two. I've never like the song 'White Christmas' because snow was always the last thing I dreamed about for Christmas... I mean really, who wants it to get that cold?? As for the song 'Let It Snow, Let it Snow, Let It Snow," well I just switch that one off as soon as it comes on. I genuinely do not like snow, never really have, and probably never will. Supposedly snow is peaceful, but the way these flakes have been falling is more along the lines of... angry? ferocious? It is really coming down out there. And it is such a weird sensation for me to be sitting here looking at the window and this much snow and know that how long it's been going on. And also, these Swedes lied to me. They said that once it snowed the white would make everything brighter. But they were wrong- it's just as dark and dreary as ever. And speaking of dark and dreary, we've only been getting about 6 hours of daylight here, and Monday is supposed to be the shortest day of the year with even less than that. Sunset will be at 2:30 pm or some obscene hour like that. If there's one thing I like less than snow, it has to be this darkness. It's oppressive, it's depressing, and I really really hate it. Just thank God that after the shortest day of the year the days start to get gradually longer. They'll probably up to 8 full hours of 'sunlight' by the time we finally get to go home. (I say 'sunlight' because it's not actually sunny, it's just not technically nighttime.) The one thing being here has taught me is that I had it so good before. I already knew that things were going fairly well, but after being here I have to say that they were really fan-damn-tastic!