There's a blizzard raging outside!

Fri Dec 9

Wow, I haven't been in a blizzard since I don't know when! It started snowing yesterday morning and never let up. The snowfall was not heavy but most of the time it was blowing sideways. By evening the wind was really kicking up. We were still working in the office at 8pm and I was worried we wouldn't be able to get back to our hotel. I could see the road outside our office window that the roads were getting worse. But no problem in the end, I was just glad Laszlo was driving. Our hotel was busy because they cancelled all flights for yesterday and today so some people were stranded.

We braved walking outside and across the street for dinner last night. It was maybe a 100 yards walk but I had to cover myself head to toes. We got reccos for this place on the 9th floor. It was more swanky than we thought. First clue was a coat check when you walk in. Second was there 3 different wine glasses and 4 different forks on the table. When we looked on the menu the dishes that sounded fancy. No regular meat, just wild boar, deer, duck etc. We all ordered the fish soup since we love the fish soups in the restaurants here. Should have know because on this menu it was some fancy name like Clear Consome of wild herring in a ravioli blah blah blah. When it came it was this big bowl with a spoonful of soup and one ravioli in the middle of it. It was lukewarm and tasted too fishy. Our food was ok but not worth the price. At the end we noticed that they charged us for the water ($5 for a glass!) that we did not order (therefore thought it was free). The waitress claimed that this is normal and it was etiquette. What the hell? We told her that this was the first restaurant in estonia and in all the world that we were charged for water that we did not ask for. Oh well. Live an learn.

The windows of my nice hotel room (the Radisson) were rattling all night with the gusty wind. It's so crazy. I guess being on the 22nd floor in one of the higher buildings in the city didn't help either. They say that after the storm a cold front will come in. It's supposed to go back to below zero by this weekend. Oh joy! I am having a hard time remember what temps in the 70's feels like! 7 more days before I am back in phoenix! Yesterday Gary sent out xmas cards, a task that usually belongs to me. He has been so good about picking up the slack and has never complained. It really hit home last night during dinner. Laszlo was interrupted several times with phone calls from his family. He had to step out twice to talk. He explained that his family misses him and are being needy. He has been on this job one year already and actually works in germany when he's not on audit. He flies home to hungary on the weekends when he is working in germany so it's even worse than my case when at least I am working in phx when I am not on audit. Eventually Laszlo left Udo and I to our dinner so that he could call his family back.

When we drove to work this morning there were a few inches of snow on the snow. Our mercedes rental car was nice but not that good with driving in snow, espcially with back wheel drive! The fronts and sides of houses and buildings were covered in snow. It looked as if someone took a frosted paint can and sprayed the houses with it. I'm used to seeing snow accumulation on rooftops but not on the sides, it looked so strange. This showed how hard the wind is blowing and that the snow was really going horizontal.