Snow in Hannover

It has been snowing here off and on all week. In the tradition of non-extreme German weather, it snows lightly for a few hours, then stops, then starts again. It's pretty.

Since we never got more than a dusting last year, this snow in Hannover is a new experience for me. Here are some observations:

People on the street sometimes use their umbrellas when it is snowing. This seems silly to me. I guess it's not so different than using an umbrella in the rain, except that it takes something like 10 snowflakes to equal the moisture in one raindrop. How wet are you really going to get?

Riding a bike in the snow is tricky. My bike has skinny tires and went pretty fast when it was newer and cleaner. Now I use it to get around town. Riding that bike in the snow is like winter driving in a rear wheel drive compact car. It slips and slides more than I'd like, but when I get a called in to cover teach at 7:30 in the morning, I don't have time to walk. I'm getting to be a better snow bike rider, and it's still more fun than snow driving, even in a front wheel drive car.

Germans may not get the amount of snow that we are used to in the Midwest, but they have all the gear. The kids at school wear their full-body puffy snowsuits and everyone seems to have some serious boots on... They might be a little too serious for 3 inches of fluff. It is fun to be around kids when the snow starts to fall. I gave the 5th graders a 2 minute looking-out-the-window break on Wednesday just to watch it. Sadly, snowball throwing for grades 6 and up was forbidden today over the loudspeaker.

The poor children of Hannover have no hills to sled down. It is just too flat here. Instead, they pull each other, or their parents pull them, down the street or along the lake on their wooden sleds. Maybe they don't know what they are missing.


I took a few snowy pictures for you on my walk to school this morning:

Soon, the weather will warm up and it will all turn to slush. That is part of what makes snow in Hannover special; you have to enjoy it because it won't be on the ground until March. The thaw will make riding my bike will get a lot easier. If I was really talented, I could do it while holding an umbrella.