Weather

One of the oddest things that I have encountered here in Maine is the weather.
Snow in general is a new concept for me.  I've vacationed in the snow and love to ski and snowboard.  However, I have never had to shovel it.  Last week was the first time that I did, and I just about threw my back out.  The snow also takes a really long time to melt, which is probably more surprising that I expected.  Apparently, I thought that snow just melted away during the next day of sun.
But that's the thing, the sun is not warm here.  When I wake up and come downstairs in the morning, the sun is shining more brightly than I have ever seen.  I swear that part of this is because there is not such a thing as smog in Maine.  However in the Bay Area, there is a blanket of the stuff obscuring every skyline. So for me, a clear day means that it is warm, there was rain and a good breeze to clear out the area the night before. This is not the case with Maine.  The sun shines as bright at 35 degrees as it did at 100 degrees back in California.

First snow

Yesterday marked my first Nor'easter.  I had heard of super storm Sandy and Nemo, which happened before I moved to Maine, but since today is the first day of spring, I thought I had missed the snow.  Luckily I was wrong.

I woke up to snow just starting to blanket the ground. 

It is odd to see snow start to accumulate coming from California.  I am used to traveling 5-6 hours in traffic to get to Tahoe or another ski heaven, where the snow is already piled high on the ground.  Going through the mountain passes on a ski trip, workers already plowed and the snow grew tall on either side of the highway.  

Once in a great while, I would ski with my dad on a day marked with particularly bad weather.  Though bundled, the snow would sting my skin as I rode the lift up to the top of the mountain.  The cold seeped into my clothes and chilled me as I waited to start once more from the tallest point I dared.  But even with the storms, the snow always arrived before we did.

This day was different.  The cold morning air bit at my skin as I crawled from the bed which is warmed not only by our bodies, but also by the king sized electric blanket my parents bought for my birthday; an apropos gift as my mother knew I usually sleep with two or three blankets even in California.  Rich, who is always up before me, woke me up to tell me that the snow had started.  I jumped out of bed, which if you know me, is a rare site.  I threw on my snow boots over my pjs, grabbed my coat and went outside.  Already, the snow kissed every surface that was not covered.  Even the trash can looked beautiful with a blanket of snow.

Rich had the day off from work (his first snow day) and so we stayed in doors playing Lego LOTR  and enjoying a day away from work.  We only ventured out to make snow angels at MMA, the fire house for the weekly meeting and then to Danny Murphy's  to hang with the group afterwards.  As we trekked through our little town, the snow kept falling, mostly collecting on the ground and our clothes.  Once in a while, we would wince from a snowflake falling into our eyes.  When the snow really started coming down, we headed back home for a night of watching movies (The Hobbit), tea and snuggling.

This morning however, the snow had stopped and Rich had to go to work.  This left me with the wonderful task of shoveling most of the snow; Rich cleared a path to the street for us.  While great exercise I realized that lifting with my back was not the best idea, and that by next winter I need to find out where my abs have been hiding.

Happy first day of spring!

Getting to where I am

I grew up in one of the biggest metropolitan areas in the world, 55th biggest according to Wikipedia.  My entire life, I never lived more than 2 hours away from the Bay Area.  I graduated (soon to be twice) from the oldest college in the western United States, SJSU which also happens to be one of the most diverse schools in the nation. I got to go to play water polo and watch Olympians play at Stanford; I walked the famous Winchester Mystery house; visited pier 39 and the Orpheum and Curran (to see some of the original cast of Rent) theaters in San Francisco; I went to the historical Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk (which still prompts me to hum the song) and beautiful Monterey, and lived on two major fault lines, Hayward and San Andreas. As far as I was concerned, the Bay Area, despite the housing market and expense of living, was the best place in the world to live.  Everything I could ever want to do was within a few hours drive (Napa, Tahoe, Disneyland), if it was not already close by.

My partner and I had just celebrated one year of marriage when he graduated from Fresno Pacific with a MA in Kinesiology.  We had started applying for jobs in California, but the job market is flooded with too many new athletic trainers, and not enough jobs to house them.  So the job search began to widen.  There was a school in Arizona, Colorado, New York and a little school in Castine, Maine.  Maine Maritime Academy was the only offer that Rich got, and so he packed up his car and drove across country, while I stayed behind to finish my thesis.  After 6 months, I finished my thesis and packed 3 suitcases to fly to Maine.  

 Castine is populated by 1300 people, and over half are students.  This blog aims to highlight and draw attention to the differences in culture, lifestyle, attitudes and common practices in the Bay Area and Castine.  This is partially because I am fearful of living 3300 miles away from my comfort zone and home of 30 years.  I hope that this blog will also serve to help me embrace a different life than I had ever expected for myself. So far, the experience has been amazing!