Discoveries

Dear Reader! Have you read my last post? I mentioned the pitfalls of routine and tunnel view. Luckily, I haven’t been exposed to them entirely over the last days. So I have continued discovering many aspects of Athens that I haven’t noticed before.

I'm not fat! I'm just big-boned.

1. Cardinals are beautiful birds! While I haven’t seen our herd of backyard deer for quite a few days now, two cardinals were jumping and fluttering around in the shrubbery behind our house just this morning. And there was a bigger bird as well, blue-white plumage. I wanna say it was a blue jay, but I don’t know if they live around here...

2. The best stores are the least obvious ones. Last week, my roommate Lisa and I went out to get some wine and beer for a party. She took me to this small privately owned shop on Court Street in which every bottle, carton of cans, and six-pack has not only a price tag, but also another tag with a four-digit number on it. At the cash register, a nice old man—apparently the proprietor—uses a thick magnifying glass to check your I.D. Then he jots the numbers from the tags down on a tiny slip of paper, so I guess that this is the way he keeps track of his inventory. It may take about 5 minutes to buy a beer here, but this is one of these nice little stores that are not yet standardized and hyper-sterilized, and you kinda feel that the money you just spent on tomorrow’s hangover helps the right person to make ends meet.
        And just two days ago, I discovered the lovely Athens Underground. Situated in a basement on North Court Street, this thrift shop would easily make thousands of Euros in Kreuzberg and Plagwitz. They sell tons of clothes, accessories, china, books, and many other things as long as they're vintage and—in Athens Underground's own words—ugly. I rummaged around for a bit and the hipster in me fell in love with a snazzy flannel shirt at a very good price. The rest of me likes it, too, so that’s fine. I might go there again.

3. OU takes—well—let’s say it takes good care of its students in some interesting respects. On Sunday, I received a text message (I guess every student did) saying “Ohio University Athens Campus is open tomorrow, Mon. Jan 27. […]” Aehm—Of course, it’s a Monday! Later, an email on the same topic revealed that this was about the cold. Apparently, it was not cold enough to shut school for Monday. Then, on Monday, another text message informed us that Athens campus would be closed on Tuesday! Weather forecasts had predicted a severe cold, so students should better stay at home. The accompanying email provided us with about half a dozen tips on how to survive this apparently arctic climate. Don’t leave the house, dress in layers—stuff like that. Rebel that I am, I left the house, and so did others! Thanks to OU’s good advice, however, we somehow managed to survive while Court Street was crammed with dog sleds, sourdoughs, miners, and prospectors who had all come down from Alaska to see if it was really that cold, thus turning the city into 1898 Dawson (You know I like to stretch things from time to time. — the‘truth’ can be so boring). The funny thing is that Tuesday wasn’t even the coldest day of the week. Wednesday or Thursday was colder, but school was opened. Hmpf. But I even kinda like the cold. There’s nothing like a walk on a crisp day under clear blue skies! When the air you exhale immediately turns to ice in the facial hair you’d like to call a beard, if only it was thick enough.

4. Warmth is pretty nice as well. At about 14°C (57°F), yesterday was by far the warmest day since I’ve been in the country. You can’t imagine the communal joy and excitement caused by the sudden appearance of spring! From our backyard in the early afternoon, and even from inside the house, we could hear people cheering and rejoicing all over town. We knew we had to do something outside in order to escape the house on this beautiful day. So what better thing to do than drive to McDonald’s!? (We had to get rid of some coupons.) We took Nat’s cat with us and she seemed like she couldn’t believe her eyes, running and jumping around in the car all the time and meowing constantly. She was happy. Grabbed some frappés and fries, and then Geeg drove Nat and me to some friends where we hung around on the front porch, hailing strangers on the street. Warm air, cold Miller High Life, hot country music, and cool puppy dog Winnie running around crazily because she was just experiencing her first warm day ever. Good times. Unfortunately, today I woke up to the sound of pouring rain, and it continued until about 1 or 2 p.m. In the evening, precipitation has turned to snowfall again, so right now everything looks just like yesterday has never happened.