Definitely need a better camera…

Got out of the plane and this is what I saw:

It’s like 9°C here at night. Unbelievable – California is colder in June than Germany is in January.

Fun in the, er, rain:

I say we shall have to practice this at a later day.

Today is not starting off well. I hope it will improve.

• My subway had 40 (!) minutes delay because of a “technical defect”
• I bluescreened my windows-based work-notebook by plugging my iPod in
• Someone is drilling in the office next door
• The weather sucks
• And I didn’t get any breakfast

I guess it is just “one of those days”.

I guess after that tornado, no strange weather should surprise me anymore. Yesterday morning, all seemed well, and I went to the Chinese consulate to apply for my visa. On the way back, went shopping, and after I got home the heavy rain set in. And I do mean heavy rain. When I looked out I couldn’t believe my eyes.

It was a hailstorm.

Yes, you read that right: Little pieces of ice were falling down, hitting my balcony, and bouncing back up 20-30cm into the air. Lasted about ten minutes. And then the thunderstorm set in.

And in the evening we had more heavy rains. Don’t know how much water fell on Frankfurt, but it must have been a lot. Temperatures, meanwhile, hover around 13°C. I am not complaining about this, I vastly prefer such a colder weather to temperatures in the 30s, but I must observe that it seems highly unusual considering it is now July.

A small tornado has damaged houses in Oberrad, a suburb of Frankfurt (Article is in German). Oberrad is about 15 minutes by tram from where I live. The event lasted all of ten seconds, but damaged about 30 roofs and knocked down 15 trees. Overall I have to say the weather is really freaky this year – brooding heat is followed by bad thunderstorms, and this week we’re supposed to only get 15°C – not that I am complaining, I do not enjoy to sweat, but it’s definitely unusual.

After it was very hot for many weeks, and especially unpleasant last week, the weather completely changed: The thunderstorms they’d been announcing for weeks finally arrived in force. Very loud. Very impressive. And with a huge amount of rain. Today it is cloudy and dark and stormy and still very rainy. I love it. Because not only it’s fun weather, it also means I do not have to sit in a puddle of my own sweat at work.

If it was up to me, I’d keep this weather all summer until we’ll eventually hit the autumn storms.

As I wrote on Friday, snow arrived in Frankfurt en masse that day. I cursed my bad luck, that I didn’t have a camera with me. In the morning it was snowing quite a lot, but this only increased. We easily had 15-20 centimeters by the late afternoon. Needless to say, few people were able to cope with the weather. Lufthansa alone had to cancel 150 flights. And it took me about two hours to go home.

I left my office at about 16:25. The bus was supposed to arrive at 16:29, but never came. Someone said there had been an accident with it earlier. Several other guys stood there and waited with me, but none of us was really willing to walk through the snow. Finally, at about 16:45, we decided that we might as well go ahead and walk to the next bus stop.

It was not pleasant. Within a few meters the wet snow entered my shoes and my feet were cold and wet. The bridge near our office was quite a sight. The icy, partially frozen snow was so slippery that the trucks and lorries were unable to drive unto the bridge – it was too steep. This also told us what had happened to the bus line. One truck was standing on the onramp of the bridge, and smaller cars tried to pass left of it – until one of them slid against the safety fence. There was no damage, but the car was unable to resume driving.

We continued our walk, until we arrived at the bus stop of the Flight Training Center. A bus just arrived; the rest of the way to Terminal 1 was just as slow as if we had walked, but at least it was warm.

The subways were also late. I finally arrived at home at about 6:40 or so. Freezing like crazy. The snow is still around, some of it anyway. I wonder if there will be more or if the winter is now finally over.

It’s snowing like crazy here. You can’t really see it too well – it was made with a co-worker’s mobile phone, and appears much darker than it really is. The German weather service predicts more than 10cm in 12 hours.

A few words about the storm that is raging today as well as other assorted comments. One of those “this is my life” web log entries that you can easily ignore as the ramblings of a random person.

Just another relaxing weekend. I finally caught up on some work I really should have been doing a long time ago. I seem to have these phases where motivation is hard to come by. A good sign that one’s current life is not very fulfilling. But I’m working on it. I’d tell you guys more had I not sworn myself to secrecy. ;-)

Speaking of improvements: I finally put up my big world map. I never had enough space on a wall before – now it’s over my couch. I think it’s slightly skewed, but I think I did okay for a lone person trying to put a 1,5m wide poster on the wall.

It’s really windy outside. I’d even call it a storm. The street lantern – hung from a cable across the street from the buildings to either side – is swaying quite wildly at times, and a gust just picked up a small branch from a pine tree and deposited on my balcony. There are some really impressive clouds in the sky, and in the background to all this there are rather many sirens today. Guess it’s autumn alright.

Update, 19:43h the same day: I went out to grab some food. Boy, what a storm! I waited a long time for the tram, and even longer on the way back, so I eventually decided to walk back home on foot. On the bridge over the Main river, I turned to face the wind… you could feel it trying to push you over.

I love such weather.