Slippery when white

Yikes. Snow came, was ploughed flat and became a clear sheet of slippery winter fun. Which was demonstrated to me most efficiently yesterday, when my car showed me a completely new trick. It took me for a very interesting round-trip.

I was driving home from school, that is to say home as in mom&dad's, and it was plain obvious that the road was as slick as it can get. I drove very carefully to an intersection, saw that further away on my left was a taxi (a van) coming towards the same intersection, but it was so far away that I decided to take my right turn before it had crossed it. I was most definitely not driving fast at all, I think I was driving on second gear (means at the most about 40km/h with my car) but thought I'd make it just fine. The trick was, however, that I was turning uphill and needed enough steady speed to clear the little hill. I already once got stuck in the middle of it earlier in the winter, so I was determined to crawl it up slow and secure.

Sounds easy enough, right? Just a wee bit of speed, take a turn and just a wee bit more speed to clear the hill. Right. Add to the equation a car with the motor in the back (yep, my car) and the result is a nice 180 degree turn. There was nothing I could do. In a few seconds I just noticed I was heading the wrong way on the wrong side of the road and the before mentioned taxi right in front of me. Interesting. Luckily both I and the taxi driver had been driving slowly, so I was able to stop my car from spinning even more and the taxi driver was able to pass me safely. I hadn't even had time to get scared or anything, so I just drove over to the other side of the intersection, did a u-turn and on the second try I managed to get back on my way to see mom.

A complaint then. Where the hell was the sand from that intersection? Whoever had ploughed the snow away must've realised that by doing that the remains of the snow would be packed flat and become nothing but effectively a clear sheet of ice. Not all of us have four-wheel-drive cars... Luckily I do know my car pretty well by now and can operate it in winter conditions also, but this was the first time ever I couldn't do a thing. Aren't I lucky this happened in Nousiainen around noon, when there's hardly any traffic even though it was the biggest intersection in the center of the town.

Ok, so I'm just fine and so is the car and everyone else. Enough of that. I'm just waiting for spring now... :)

Satu invited me to her place for a few glasses of wine yesterday. We sat and talked almost 4 hours, which was very nice. Satu had a lot of stories to tell from her trip to Goa. How I wish I could afford to travel somewhere. My dream is to go to New Zealand for a few weeks, or maybe a month. Means that I'll have to save up at least 5000 euros, since the flights alone cost about 3000 euros... One has to have dreams, even if it'll take some time to make them come true. In the meanwhile I booked a cruise to Stockholm and back for me and Satu. Not quite the exotic destination I'm dreaming about, especially since we'll stay in the boat when it's in Stockholm... :) But we'll have a nice dinner and a few drinks, spend some time in the night club and so on - that's a nice way to spend a weekend, too.

Next week marks the beginning of serious hard work on my thesis. I plan to write the whole background chapter as soon as possible, preferably within about a week and a half. Keep your fingers crossed! I'll try to stay motivated and concentrated in return. But now I'll go and read some fantastic fantasy in the form of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. It's been a delightful novel so far and I have great expectations of the whole.

Ta ta.