Tid-Bits

**Me and Angel are suffering from cold since quite some days now. Mine is better though, for Angel its fluctuating. She feels better, then the temprature drops and the phlegm increases or she might be catching it from her day care. The doctor says, it's bound to happen as it's our first winter here and we will be better next year onwards. I hope so.

 

** Here there is a government rule that unless the temperature is not below -15 degrees Celsius, they have to take the children outdoor and so she goes outdoor twice, for an hour each. Apparently, it helps in building the immunity. I am skeptical of this rule!

 

**The doctors don’t prefer to give any medicines, not even cough syrups as according to them, it has a lot of side effects. In India, we survive on cough syrups! Not sure about the side effects, it does give a psychological effect that I will feel better as I had the medicine. They give antibiotics here if the situation is too bad. Nothing otherwise. In a way, its good, the body will produce antibodies to fight the infection.

**We are trying ice-skating on weekends and are getting better each week.

That’s our skating rink, and no, we are not there

 

**The lowest temperature we have experienced here is -16 and the feels like temperature was -26 degrees Celsius. There is a forecast of -22 degrees for the coming Saturday *Shudder*

**I like the snow, while it’s snowing. It's beautiful. Angel says its crunchy. Later it turns into hard and slippery ice which melts gradually, making everything wet which I dislike.

**I like the ecosystem they have created to tackle and face the adverse weather. Every building, car, bus, train, train station, bus station is insulated. You get some amazing winter gear which makes you feel heavy but warm, so the life goes on, no matter what the temperature is.

 

 

**I am desperately waiting for summers now, tired of winter and flu already.

**While they say that this year the winter is very mild and they don’t get to see the brown patches on the earth and this year it has hardly snowed. I hope the delay of snow doesn’t delay the onset of summer.

**We visited the Gurudwara and missed the langar as we somehow reached the hall which was serving the snacks and sweets first and thought this was it and ate it. Later saw the hall which was serving the actual langar and we were full. Got a reason to visit again!

 

 

 

Not great clicks, as it was raining

 

 

**We visited the Swaminarayan Temple here. The temple is beautiful, I was disappointed that it doesn’t have the food court like we have in Gandhinagar. Acharya Khichdi was sorely missed! No pictures of the temple on my phone, as you might have guessed, I am in office.

 

**I finally met my friend from college, K who had a baby boy last month. He is adorable and Angel was fascinated with him. She has not seen any baby that small in recent times and has no memory of seeing one when she was young. It felt good to meet K and her family.


** We also tried a Gujarati Thali restaurant suggested by K and found it amazing. We are not foodies as such, however we do like to try new stuff (and revisit the old stuff) once in a while and that once in a while happens when I am too tired of cooking and just cannot cook anymore.

** We found a Patanjali store here. People who know me will know that I am a huge fan of Patanjali products. We don't get everything here we get in India and its expensive too, however something is better than nothing!

**  I took Angel to Ripley’s Aquarium when J* was working. She was spell bound with the upside down jelly fishes and stingray fishes amongst the other water bodies.

Stingray Fishes

The Sharks & Stingrays Co-Existed

                                                                      

Up and Close with Jelly Fishes

 

Upside Down Jelly Fishes

 

Clown Fish a.k.a. Nemo

 

 

**This was the fun part we did in last couple of months. Having said and done that, life here is exhausting. Everything is to be done ourselves. The weekend is gone in a split second doing laundry, cleaning, grocery shopping and Angel’s ballet and swimming lessons which she started going to recently.

 

**There are no maids and as I have said before, I now appreciate them and their work much more. After the whole day in office/day care and the commute, going back and cooking (me), doing the dishes (J*) and doing n other things (us) is back breaking.
 

**I don’t know how to end this post, so I will leave it at this and go back to my work.

 

**Edited to Add (ETA) - The said weekend had a temprature of -27 and the feels like temprature was -39 degree, thus making it the coldest day of my life!

 

This was not taken on the said day, I just like this picture with the glint of sunshine