Winter in Vermont!

[Me & Laura]


Have you ever felt ice crystals inside of your nose? Before describing the beautiful white but harsh Vermont winter culture, I’ll start with my arrival, back to Burlington, after my one month winter break (which I’ll tell about in my next message).

BAD ARRIVAL
On the way back to the States I realized I actually had too little time for my last transit, since I also had to go through immigration. Thus at arrival in Newark I rushed myself through the crowd to be first in line. But at the booth I had the biggest shock for the moment causing my eyes to pop out, when the man asked for my J-1 visa document that proves I’m studying in the States! I didn’t even bring the paper; it was still in my map, in my room, in Burlington… One unpleasant flight with Lufthansa, took me to another unfriendly environment of stiff and harsh empty-heads at the ‘immigration and naturalization’ office. I imagined myself missing my plane and forced to buy another ticket, staying over at the airport, and missing first day of school. I couldn’t believe I was sitting there in a room with a most-wanted-terrorists poster on the wall. There were not only ‘colored people’ as one would expect perhaps, though. I was among sketchy, but also well-dressed men and youngsters and a crying German girl, who needed a translator. After receiving the authorized documents for me to proceed my trip, another surprise was in await for me as I tried to reschedule my flight: the one I thought I missed had a delay of over two hours due to bad weather! Finally arriving at Burlington Airport at 1.30am, my night of unfortunate events had not ended: both my luggage were lost, again. But the service was quicker this time, I received them both the next evening, luckily!

2ND SEMESTER
Being back at campus was different but very exciting. New courses, a lot of people left, a bunch of new exchange students got in, and there was a whole different environmental setting. The pile of snow is really thick and lasting, and even though the temperature is quite okay, the first day I did freeze my feet and hands off. I arranged a schedule that allows me to have the Monday’s and Friday’s off, and the Wednesday’s to enjoy winter Vermont to the fullest by snowboarding down the mountains!

SNOWBOARDING
The first day at Stowe’s resort, which is one-hour away from campus, was just perfect: it was a beautiful sunny day, and I was even overdressed. After some practicing the instructor even let us take the elevator, which was nice and clumsy, but also scary at the steep part. I got panicked when I realized that we didn’t really learned how to break or stop going downhill, so I lowered my body close to the board in order to fall more easily and less painfully…that’s what I thought at least! Instead, not standing straight enforced the speed of going downhill, and I did fell, really hard, and a couple of times. But it’s worth all the fun we have!


[Me, Maja, Anca & Eva]




CLASSES
To balance my four days of weekend and all-day snowboarding on Wednesday I have to sacrifice the other two days, and on Tuesday’s even from 11am to 9pm. I’m taking Statistics, the only mandatory requirement for my home university, so I have to work really hard on that! Other courses I’m taking: Psychology of Women, Child Development, and Race Relations in the United States. No Anthro-classes this semester, and I can really tell by the different way of teaching and examining (multiple choice!).

And oh, in addition I play squash now, and joined the UVM debate team! So fanatic…