I brought the snow

For the month I've been here, I've heard the weather be described as "terrible," "unusual," even "abominable" (last one mostly by me).  There have been more days of snow than sunshine by a long shot, and there's currently a pile of snow waist-high outside my office window.  

It's been so bad, big branches are falling from these century-old trees.  The worst, of course, is that it's been a serious impediment to getting back and forth between town and the institute.  The bus company cancels the bus with basically no notice, marooning people working here to find some other way home, either by car (when they don't shut the road to all traffic) or on foot (which takes well over an hour, longer in the dark).  

Yesterday was a particularly bad day for travel.  I took the 9am bus up to the institute.  The ride typically takes about 25 minutes;  we made it in about 40.  Right then, I knew getting down would be a trick.  Immediately upon arriving in my office, I receive an institute-wide email informing us that the buses would stop indefinitely.  With the snow showing no sign of letting up, a group of 7 of us hiked to the Bergbahn which is this very cute tourist-serving tram that takes you up our scenic mountain, with a stop at the famous schloß (castle).  Normally, it takes 20 minutes or so to get down to town this way, but because the tracks constantly needed to be cleared to ensure a safe trip, it took more like an hour and a half.  

  Here I am riding the Bergbahn, freezing my toes off, but happy to *not* be walking the treacherous walk down on the snow and ice.  When we finally arrived in town (where it was warmer and merely raining, grrr), we treated ourselves to a nice lunch at one of my favorite breweries in town, Vetters.

 Here I am celebrating our safe arrival at Vetters with (from left) Sharon, Vivi, (me) and Kester.  Could have been a bad day, but as you can see, we were in good spirits, nonetheless.