Winter in Tata

Well, I experienced my first “winter” day last week.  There was a mid-week ice storm here in most of Hungary.  There was quite slick ice and it made the walkways and streets slippery.  Now, coming from Minnesota, I know that you just keep even footing, don’t go too fast, and keep charging on – you’ll be fine.  In Hungary though, if you live on a hill, you don’t have to go to work because it’s too risky.  Buses stop running, because it’s not entirely safe (keep in mind that my students depend on the buses to get to their various towns and villages.  People stock up on paprikas just in case the stores are going to close.  Classes are cancelled to allow more time to get home in the daylight.  It’s CRAZY!  I felt totally confident in my Hungarian style moon-boots getting home with not so much as a slight of foot.  My students were clinging to each other for dear life as they made their way along the same paths.  Granted we have much more experience dealing with inclement weather – I had to remind my students that it was – with windchill- negative 41 degrees Celsius last week – so this was nothing.  The true beauty of the Hungarian way of dealing with this situation came after the ice stopped.  I have never seen such creative? ways of dealing with ice as I did here.  It started with sawdust – as if some second grader had barfed the length of the entire sidewalk and Mr. Ricker (my elementary school custodian) had come with the sawdust to clean it up.  Sawdust.  Ok… then I turned streets on my way home and we upped it to wood chips- like the kind my parents filled the strawberry beds with – wood chips.  OK…. THEN – we went right to mulch.  It didn’t do much, but I suppose it’s environmentally sound?  Last but not least, my favorite – crushed class 5 fill (as seen in the picture above).  Really?!  Trust me when I say that none of them really worked – certainly not like sand or salt does, but it was interesting to see what each turn would bring.