Weather stuff

Snow, sun, rain, snow, thunder, snow, rain, sun. 0 C to -22 C
Today is Sunday, January 20th 2013. And we experience it all. All in one day.
I have seen many interesting, weather-wise things in my life but this goes into top 5. As one of my friends, a Canadian, described the weather today: it is like a kid in a candy store. It wants everything, all at the same time!
The weather has been crazy here lately. Having a meter of snow in 24 hours, then melting everything in a week, seeing green grass in January, thunder snow and now going from 0 to -22 in one day and staying there.
Kids were concerned that papa will freeze to death so we, as brave ones, decided to keep him warm but this is pure madness.
Packing bags and moving south, urgently!

Parking or how not to get a fine

Imagine you are driving to the airport. No, international airport in New York City. So, you are driving on a New Jersey Turnpike and suddenly you realize that the passports are... still in the apartment.
Anyway... you turn back, run into the traffic, get your passport and try to get back to the airport with no hope of getting on your transatlantic flight.
At the departure in Newark International airport, we, 2 adults and 3 children arrived 45 minutes prior to Lufthansa departing for Munich. Oh well, thought we, but there is still a thing or two one can try. So Morten, with the puppy eyes and with all 3 kids went to beg for rebooking on to the next flight, while I was waiting in the car.
5 minutes later David appears with the message: "luggage, luggage! we are going". All is great! BUT... What about the car?
We were faced with two choices:
- pay 800$ per ticket to rebook for the next flight
- or take the flight that day and leave the car at the terminal (yes, we are talking about leaving a car at the departure in the airport in NY)
A security and a few calls later (it was wise to inform the airport security to tell about our car), we were sitting in the plane, with a phone number in our phone and a knowledge that our car was not blown up (as one can thing, with the stand of leaving the car just like that) but been towed.
9 days later, upon the arrival, we just called the number and guess what. Our car was not only been delivered to us to the passenger pick-up, but the snow was cleaned up and the tow truck has a jumper just in case if we had a problem of starting it later. And the costs... 10$ per day! Yes, a valet parking at Newark 10$ per day, quite a bit difference for a legal parking of 32$ per day.
So, I guess, fortune favours the bold!

Driving

Today I got my first ever ticket! I was driving 20 in a 30 zone. How about that! I understand if I got a speeding ticket but an "unspeeding" ticket is something else.

No, I was not stopping the traffic, in fact I was the only one in a turning lane, I was not talking on the phone, nor putting a make-up. Oh well, I didn't try to argue, I guess I was too in a good mood or something. 

What does quietly frustrates me is the fact that there are so many bad drivers in north america (both in Canada and US) and they just get away with that. I was taught to blink when I change lanes or turn, stop for crossing pedestrians, not to talk over the phone while driving, not to pass other cars on the right side, not to speed, etc... Even that actually one needs to know and show the knowledge of all those rules on a driving test, it seems like once one is done and has a valid drivers license, everything becomes optional.

Anyway, I just needed to say that out loud.

On a positive note, I will share with you a way one CAN get away from a ticket.

We were driving on I-87, somewhere up state NY. It was dark and a very raining evening. We were tired and wanted to get to Montreal as fast as we could. So Morten was driving 80 mile per hour. Up state NY is a deserted place where no kids playing on the roads, and no even animals crossing the road. Anyway, suddenly we realize that we were busted and a police was pulling us. Alright, I agree with that.

So the police office comes to us and observes the following:
- Car with Quebec license
- Driver (Morten) with Danish license
- Insurance with an unpronounceable name
- Passanger, me, a lady (heavily pregnant with a broken foot)
- Back passengers, two screaming children

What a mess.

So he had two choices:
a. try to clarify, verify, figure out what to do with us and how to issue us the fine or
b.to ask us only one question: Are you on your way to the hospital?

He decided to follow his instinct and asked us the question.
Automatically, and guilty of that, we said "yes". So we were told that the nearest is 12 miles from where we were. That was all. Boy that was close....

However that slowed us down. The only thing we were concerned about if the office would be so kind to escort us to the hospital. But he didn't. 

Buddies

It is hard to move to a new country, especially when you are a kid. Hard enough to attend international school where one doesn't know who will continue in a year to come but to be the one who is moving away even harder.
We try to keep in contact with some of the kids from Davids school and sometimes we manage to do so in the most fun and unexpected way.
This year it happened to be in Luxembourg when I learned that Bora, Davids best friend, was passing Luxembourg on his way to France.
So... Both Josette, Boras mum, and I agreed on making a huge surprise for the boys. So the date, the place were set up. Now we had to wait.
But what should I tell to David? Why we were heading back to the airport only 3 days after our arrival? I told him that a special package will arrive for him. And he bought that. The only thing David was interested was, if he can play with the contents of the package afterwards.
Masha had been told about the surprised and she kept a secret, partly because she forgot, partly she knew how special it is for her brother.  
Anyway... we arrived at the airport...
The terminal was empty. And we were waiting... And people started to show up...

 And we are waiting...

 And waiting...

 When suddenly they realized.... that....

What was going on...

 And boy, how were they surprised and happy!

I am so grateful that Josette and I have arranged that. The face expressions were priceless.
And even these two pumpkins live on two different sides of the ocean, they still are best friends, both waiting to be reunited again, attend the same school, class, visit each other on a weekly bases and just being silly.
Hope, one day their dream will come true, but so far there surprises and unexpected meetings are very priceless and been remembered for a long, long time.