Thursday, May 12, 2005

Weather issues

I do get obsessive about looking at weather sites when I have many “outdoor” days before me. At http://www.wunderground.com/ you can get a motherload of information about the weather in the location of your choice. And so I’ve been curiously checking in: for Paris, Krakow and Warsaw – my destinations for the week to come.

One reason why I like this site is because they are more optimistic than, say,
cnn.com. Where the latter has been predicting “rain” for Paris consistently for the past several days, Weather Underground has been scoffing at that with a “scattered clouds” icon neatly in place: a little picture of a smiling sun in a circle of puffy clouds. I like that. (Okay, Saturday, I may have to take an umbrella, but at least Friday remains solidly dry.)

It’s the temps that puzzle me though. Each of my cities will have one day next week (a different one) where inexplicably, the temps are to dip by some 15 degrees (for a high of 51). And it’s not like it’ll be tomorrow or the next day. We’re talking about something like Tuesday.

In Europe, there are not these continental drifts where you can see something heading toward you like in Madison. Or, at least I have never figured out what the meteorological relationships between regions are. All I know is that storms in Spain have little to do with the weather in the Polish mountains.

So what’s with the Tuesday dip and where is it coming from? Weird.

Weather on the continent is beastly unpredictable at this time of the year. One has to go with the flow and not mind, but I have to say that if the sun barely comes out in the next days, I will be good and mad. And cold, since I refuse to pack warm stuff on the theory that if I don’t want it to be cold, my suitcase should reflect these weather hopes and not weather resignations.

Right now my suitcase reflects great emptiness. The bus for O'Hare leaves in a few hours. I am behind schedule already. Time to surrender the blog until tomorrow. From Paris. Under scattered clouds.

And what will I take with me on this trip?

Okay, everyone has their own essentials of travel: toothbrush, pills, underwear, books, passport, whatever. For me they would have to include these two photos (of daughters), taken just hours ago. They’ll be the first thing that I’ll show my old friends back in Poland.

[It was fantastic having the daughters in Madison these past few days. Such total pleasure to have them accompany me on my daily ramblings...]
Ca., the little one Posted by Hello
S., the older one Posted by Hello