Bbbbrrrrrrrr!

the most commonly asked question of foreigners in estonia has to be "are you cold?" until today i thought it was funny. after living in philly for four years and surviving a few major snow storms i was pretty sure that i could handle it. so confident in fact that i vowed to put off wearing long underwear until late january or even february if possible. my reasoning being that if it did become as cold as everyone warned me it soon would, i would be prepared. nothing could have prepared me for today. the temperature gauge in my window informed me that it was a mere -15 degrees C (4 degrees F) at 11 am. i immediately realized that it was currently the coldest day i had yet to personally experience. this information, combined with the fact that my curtains were frozen to my double-paned windows, led to no amount of hesitation when breaking my vow and reaching for the long underwear. plus a few more layers and ear-muffs under my hat while i was at it. i'm glad that i did. even taking a train as close to the gallery as i possibly could, i still had an excruciating ten minute walk. when i left the gallery and returned home i found that the temperature was -18 degrees C (0 degrees F) and dropping! i'm told that it may even reach -26 degrees C (-12 degrees F) tonight. what? what did you ask? am i cold? yes. yes i am.


ps - don't worry! even though my curtains were literally frozen to my bedroom window, my apartment is not cold. it's actually quite toasty. you just can't touch the windows for an extended period of time.....