S is for Snow

I happen to be living in Canada. Land of the moose, beaver, eh, and snow. Everybody loves moose, beavers, and saying eh, but nobody seems to like snow. I don't understand why. Snow is so unbelievably wonderful and delightful, pretty and so unbelievably beautiful. Canadians seems to grunt when I open the window and practically scream,
"ITS SNOWING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
What's not to like about this beautiful thing that delights the eye and tempts you with its white finger to come out and in your pyjamas, fall down and make a snow angel when you wake up? That people can simply ignore that wonderful feeling, is quite sad really.

Snow crystals are born in the clouds when water vapor freezes on a particle of dust, a floating bit of bacteria, or another solid material. When cloud temperatures are at the freezing point or below, and there is an ample supply of moisture in the air, ice crystals form around a core particle. As water vapor condenses and freezes, the complex pattern of a snowflake is born, one molecule at a time. It is here that water molecules bond together into stable crystal structures.

I'm sure that most people are familiar with the saying ' Ther are no two snowflakes are alike'. Some people may say that it's not true but they're worng. It most likely is true. You see, snowflakes are so unbelievably complicated that you might take a glance at two and say,
"Hey! those two snowflakes are exactly alike!" But actually, when you look at them under a microscope, you'll find that they are actually quite different. Also, there are so many snowflakes out there that looking at all of them would be like counting all the grains of rice that have ever been eaten in this planet.

"How can you not like snow?" I find myself asking many people very often. They always seem to answer that they don't like looking at it for four whole months in a row. Well, when you've come from England, where it seems like it's always a grey sky, drizzling, and hovering around 5 degrees, you appreciate the brilliant whiteness and the blue sky with the sun shining, making it so much nicer. Now with global warming, Canada might not have any snow in fifty years, who knows? If that happens, The Canadians will be the ones who miss it most.

Life lesson:
Don't take everything for granted, it can dissapear in a blink of an eye.

F is for Food

I love food. As long as it's good food, then i'm happy. Bad food I'll spit out in a nearby garbage can. This weeks blog is about my favourite foods and my least favourite 'im going to gag soon' foods.

I shall first talk about my favourite foods. I love fruit. I love the sensation of a perfect blend of sweetness, bitterness, and sometimes overwhelming sourness. I would like to say that I have a favourite fruit but I don't. I love all common fruits. I also like mexican foods. As long as it's not too spicy. The most wonderful item in the mexican food culture is tacos. To me, really good tacos have meat (well spiced of course), fresh tomatoes, lettuce and cheese on them. Delicieuse! I also like meat. Steak and chicken being my favourite in that category. Cheese is yet another one of those unbelievable foods that you can find in so many cultures. The best thing about it is that all of them tate so good, yet so unbelievably different. my favourite cheese is goat cheese. It goes so well with everything that it's hard not to like! Finally, dessert. Spelled with two s's because it's twice as yummy. You have many different types of desserts for many different types of people. I for example can't stand really sweet things like candy, treacle tart, or frosting. I'm a very, very strange person.

Now for what I dislike. I dislike quite alot of foods actually, but when you compare it with the amount of foods that I do like, it doesn't look that bad.
I strongly dislike fish that tastes like fish, or fishy fish as I like to call it. It tastes so slimy and icky, as if it's going to spit out puss any minute. Besides, how can you sit there looking at a head and plan on eating it without making a thousand trips to the bathroom? Another thing I strongly dislike is sweet things. Like I mentioned before, I WILL spit something out in the garbage if it's too sweet for me. It must look sincerely digusting when I do that but it happens anyway. Here's a short list of things I dont like just so that this blog isn't a thousand miles long:
Ketchup (ugh)
Salt and Vinegar chips (double ugh)
Anything that has vinegar in it
Fizzy drinks (yet again, I am a very strange person)
Overly cooked vegetables (why cant you just serve them raw? They're so much better that way)
Badly cooked food (who does?)

I would like to end with a quotation:
Fruit salad! Yummy yummy! - The Wiggles

Life lesson: Good food is good food. Don't let anyone tell you different.

L is for Lake Placid

Last week, my family and I went on a holiday to Lake Placid, NY. Looking out the car window the morning we arrived, a most delightful sight came to my eyes. The whole place was blanketed in a delicate (but very thick) layer of snow, and I thought to myself, what a wonderful world.


For those who don't know, Lake Placid hosted the Winter Olympic games in both 1932 and 1980. The people in Lake Placid say that Lake Placid is 'The winter sport capital of the world' and I believe them. Not only does it have alpine sports facilities (such as skiing, snowboarding, etc.) but but it also has things like a 400m speed skating track and a bobsled run. If you ever go there, bobsledding is something that you absolutely must do. Here's why:


While you are in the waiting room, they show you videos of all the times people have fallen off their sleds and broken their arms and such. It's pretty scary. Eventually, they call your number and you go outside to be taken to the start of the run. You get there and they put a helmet on you. While waiting for the bobsled to arrive you see other people take off and disappear. Finally you go outside and seat yourself in the bobsled, holding on for dear life to the straps on the side. You suddenly see out of the corner of your eye someone pushing on the sled, then jumping in. You don't see much because you're clinging on to your mom's blue jacket. Boy do you feel it though. It feels as if your on a roller coaster but better. Without all those horrible drops. Instead it feels like you're going a hundred miles an hour and there's no certainty that you won't fly off the track (as was shown in one of the videos).


If you are someone who is attracted to pretty whiteness and views, Mt. Whiteface is the perfect place for you. With the peek over 3430 ft high, the mountain literally shines with beauty (the snow reflects the sun's rays making it look magical). When I was up there I would constantly stop to look and appreciate the grace of this Olympic mountain. All this beauty -- and the trails are fantastic too. There are many runs for beginners and experts and the intermediate alpine sporters.


The other thing I really enjoyed was skating on the long track. Speed skating feels very strange after you've been skiing the whole day, but still incredibly fun. Speed skating is where you skate really fast on skates that have really long blades. You also have to sit extremely low. I find it very relaxing, if you're not going 100 miles per hour. Unfortunately, the rink is running out of money to keep it refrigerated all the time. This means you can't go skating when its not below freezing, which is really sad.


I strongly recommend going to Lake Placid for it's beauty, elegance and general feeling of 'we can do this, this, this and that today' . You won't get bored very easily in this little town.


Life lesson:

Sometimes fun is worth an eight hour drive.