Snow, Snow, and More Snow

I guess few have missed that we are experiencing some heavy snow here in Washington DC. Record heavy actually. Not that I am not used to white winters, growing up in Sweden. What I am not used to, however, is that the entire city shuts down because of winter weather. Government administrations and schools, as well as many private companies have been closed for days. I have had so called snow-days since Friday, meaning that the office is closed and that we are encouraged to work from home to the extent possible. Which I have, but I have to say that e-mail traffic has gone down, which has had significant impact on my workload. I don’t exactly mind – these days have been really nice. I find it quite amazing though that they still haven’t gotten the traffic running after the first snowfall on Friday night (which is the main reason to why so many workplaces are closed). It took them over a day to get my street free of snow, and it is the basically the address of the U.S. President. Not to talk about other streets and the metro, which are still not functioning properly. Which in turn has resulted in grocery stores, cafes and restaurants starting to run out of food. And this is the city that runs half the world…

Anyway, it has also been a lot of fun, at least for those of us with a roof over our heads and with functioning electricity. The city has been silent as there were virtually no cars in the streets for days, making the urban environment more accessible for pedestrians. Everything has been calm and pretty. And tonight we are having new, heavy snowfalls so tomorrow, I will enjoy another white, quiet day in DC.