Tag Archives: snow

In which a grown man rolls around in the snow

So, like I said before, my long-distance boyfriend is currently on exchange in the US.

Not just the US, but in Boston. At my school, Northeastern University.

How rad is that?!

It’s rad for me, but I think it’s been even more rad for him. The Northeast US is very different from what he’s used to. This boy is tropical, born and raised. His hometown has two seasons: hot, and hot and wet. His university, in Sydney, experiences 300 days of sunshine per year. This summer, he experienced temperatures in excess of 110 degrees Fahrenheit.

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As a result, he’s never seen snow. Not in person, anyway. Everyone’s seen it on TV– in those Christmas specials and the Harry Potter films– but he (and most Australians) has never seen snow.

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Thus, whenever I sent him snapchats all like

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He’d always respond

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When we finally found out that he was coming to the US, he was excited. I’m sure you can figure out why.

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Clearly, he didn’t understand just how horrendous the cold could be. How could he know? He’s never experienced it before. At my urging, and his mom’s insistence, he went out and got winter clothes for the first time.

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Finally, he arrived in the US. In the middle of December. I greeted him in the airport, where it was heated and warm and indicated nothing of what was to come.
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Then, we went outside.
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His face was priceless.
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He tried to laugh it off.
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I had to explain to him that, just because it’s below freezing, it doesn’t mean that it’s snowing. He looked like a wounded puppy.
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But he perked up real fast.
Back in Philly, however, it doesn’t snow all that often. Not as much as it does in Boston, that’s for sure. We’ll get snow a couple times a year, maybe. The boyfriend got over the novelty of the cold real fast, and waited eagerly for his first snow.
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Then, finally:
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That night, I went to bed. I’m not sure if he did, as excited as he was. The next morning, I was forcefully awakened.
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As it turned out, the snow had arrived, and the boyfriend had already gone out to play. As I sleepily ate breakfast, he shared his observations with me.
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He even took videos.
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By now, I had come to view snow mostly as a nuisance. It’s a pain to walk through. It’s even worse to drive in. I commute to school by bicycle, and nothing screws up your trip more than icy roads and snow in your face.
But seeing the boyfriend all throughout that day…
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…reminded me that snow is, actually, kind of nice.
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And that, as boring as I find my hometown, other people find it fascinating. It’s strange, being on the other side of a foreign exchange. Usually I’m the one freaking out, you know?
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Finally, the boyfriend and I went up to Boston. I figured he might like it. It snows a lot more here, so he’d get to see it more often!
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Maybe a little too often.
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I, as the good girlfriend, comforted him about the unfortunate weather.
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Looks like he’s adjusting well.
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By the way, the boyfriend is making a USA video blog! Here’s one he made about his first snow. I even cameo in it!

Finding Nemo? Nemo found us. Shortly after, I dug out a car with a frying pan.

Last weekend, Boston was hit by a historic snow storm.

Starting Friday afternoon, Winter Storm Nemo dumped 24.9 inches of snow on the city. That is (according to Wikipedia) the fifth-highest amount of snow Boston has had… ever. All of New England was in a state of emergency. My workplace, for the first time in years, decided to shut down on Friday. Northeastern closed as well. The whole city braced itself for the storm.

As did I. Since I didn’t want to be snowed in my suburban house alone, I decided to beat the snow and go to Northeastern Thursday night. That way, I could stick out the storm with my friends!

I use the subway to get to Northeastern, and it was closing down on Friday afternoon. But that was okay, too. Because the T would be back by Sunday, right? I would be able to get back home, right?

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I was stranded. I had work the next day. To get to work, I needed my car. My car was back in the suburbs. I had to get home!

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I wasn’t going to be stuck in Boston! There had to be a way. I realized that, though the T was closed, the roads were not. I’m a member of Hertz on Demand, an hourly rent-a-car service that has cars stationed around Northeastern. If I could only rent a car and nab a friend, I could drive home and have my friend return the car. It could work. 

I’m lucky enough to have awesome friends, especially the super-awesome friend who offered to drive me.

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Not all cars are created equal, and Hertz knows it. Therefore, different car models rent for different prices. As a poor college student, I rented the cheapest car– a Fiat 500.

This thing.

“Yo gurl check out my car it’s so rad”

It’s a petite car. Trying to drive it on the highway is a harrowing experience. It’s also front-wheel drive only. Therefore, it rents out for a little over $5 an hour.

My friend and I reserved the car and made our way to the parking lot, where we were greeted by this: 

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We were snowed in. We were more than snowed in. Like, we needed a snowplow to get us out of this.

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My friend and I failed to wave down a snowplow. But, maybe we could drive our way out of the snowdrift?

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So, I had a couple of options at this point. I could have called a cab and had a very expensive taxi ride. I could have waited to see if the T would eventually open. I could have simply accepted defeat, and called in work late the next day.

I have a problem. In the face of things that are so dumb, I respond equally idiotically. And so I told my friend:

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 Why did I decide this? I have no idea. I started trying to plow the snow out of the way.

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My friend joined in. We spent a couple of minutes trying to clear the snow with our hands…

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We called in some help.

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Our friends came…

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…and we proceeded to try to dig out the car with frying pans.

We managed to dig out the wheels. We tried backing the car out again…

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The front wheels, the only wheels powered by the engine, didn’t have enough traction. We tried sticking some baking pans under the wheels to give it grip…

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That’s right. I used the same image twice.
…Nobody said I was a great cartoonist.

We were making progress, though! Little by little, we were getting this car out of here. We threw sand under the wheels. We drove the car back and forth, hoping the tires could gradually clear the snow. And, finally, after an hour of digging…

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My friend captured our sad, sad moment of victory. Also, the guy all the way on the left IS holding a frying pan.

The power of teamwork cannot be underestimated. Thanks to the help of my friends, I could finally go home!

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So now I’m down ten bucks and owe four hungry dudes lunch.

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This snowstorm was crazy, though! Even crazier was that my friends and I went outside during it. Blizzards sting! Here are some photos I snapped of the aftermath:

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