Too cold to go out - Harden the #!#! up!

Ok sure, the weather is cold! I think I've made that quite clear. However, what you probably don't know, is what happens to all the people when the mercury drops into the bowels of the thermometer. Empty streets, images of an Arctic ghost town, desolate frozen town squares, well this couldn't be further from the truth. I know it is hard to believe for all you Cheimaphobic
Brisbaneites, who refuse to set foot outside, when those "wicked" westerlies push the temperature down to a city stopping 12 degrees. However, here in Vlad, be it +12 or -22 the show just never stops. That fact that you just happen to forget your gloves and are starting to experience the early stages of frost bite, is absolutely no excuse for not meeting up with mates for a beer in the park. (That's right guys, drinking in public is allowed and for young guys as common as going to the pub back home.) Every night of the week as I walk home from the car park, youngsters cram the park benches, gather closely in the outside entrances to buildings or just lean up against an ice solid wall and pop the top off a couple. Actually right now outside my window there are a group of teens huddling together and enjoying a very, very cold ale. The fact that it's -22 doesn't seem to effect them.

Using my friend Sasha's favorite adjective it is Vonderful. Constant movement and activity, no matter if your in the centre or in the suburbs, you are guaranteed to see the locals out and about. Walking, hitchhiking, drinking, selling roadside goods, the streets are a continual buzz of activity regardless of the weather.

It's always such a shock going back home to find the streets so deserted, void of any human. Even driving to work through the Valley in the early hours of the morning (workdays) I wouldn't see a sole walking up Brunswick St. Russian cities are like ant farms of pedestrian activity, regardless of time, weather or even if there is a footpath. Why would you jump in the car, in order to get to your local, when you can walk. A little lesson many of our obese country men and women should take note off. Come to think of it I don't remember the last obese Russian I saw. Is there a link between all the walking these guys do and the shape of the average Russian. Well it certainly isn't because they are watching what they eat and drink! That just wouldn't be living.

Even the dogs are oblivious to the weather, check out this little fella!

Granted, he is wearing a coat and booties!