Everyone in the office was talking about the snow. "It's really coming down out there," is what heard from several different people in which I had varying levels of confidence. People began to leave early and since we didn't have the most reliable car or the requisite winter tires, we left too. The drive on the autobahn wasn't too bad. It was snowing and most people were driving at a good pace. Germans are excellent drivers even in the snow.
It was a Friday and the weather report indicated that we would be stuck in the apartment most of the weekend. Since we didn't have TV or Internet, I talked Ryan into stopped to rent a few movies. This is when it really got rough. Leaving the base, which is the only place we know of to rent English movies, is all downhill. Downhill is not good when the plows leave an inch of snow on the ground to be compacted into a solid sheet of ice. We were on the sidewalk at one point. We almost hit at least 3 other cars. There were a few very tense moments down this hill. When we got to the road that leads into the city, we saw the concrete and assumed it would be clear sailing to our parking garage. Then we turned onto the street below, which you can see still has ice and snow.
The drive from this point to our garage usually take 5 minutes. However, this night, it took over an hour. We slipped and slid all over the road. We took turns pushing the car when it got stuck. I begged Ryan to let me push through one intersection because I was afraid I couldn't steer. My high-heeled boots really were impressive as the dug into the ice.
There were moments when Ryan didn't want me to talk because he was concentrating and the moment above when he was in utter disbelief that the city had left so much snow un-plowed.
After over 2 hours on the road, we decided that we would not make it up the hill to our parking garage so we stopped in another garage and walked the rest of the way. This was a pretty stressful drive home so the last thing I was expecting when Ryan called me out to the balcony was to see that he had written "I love you" in the snow. After this horrible night, all he wanted to do was see me smile.
And, I did smile... for the rest of the night. I knew at that moment that no matter what went wrong for us as long as we stuck together and took care of each other, everything would work out just fine.
We decided to walk to the Viking restaurant for dinner and this time, we enjoyed the snow. When you don't have to drive in it, the snow really makes the city beautiful!
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