A Winter Walk

In Moldova the official start of Winter is on the first of the month instead of on the equinoxes/solstices. So for me today was my fourth day of Winter. It was a glorious winter day and I spent it wisely by going on a rather fast paced walk through the village. Now that it has been cold for a while it has been harder to do anything outside other than my short jaunt to the school and back. I did have a classroom on the third floor so that helped give me at least a little bit more exercise but as of tomorrow I will be on the first floor with a slightly altered schedule so I need to start finding any excuse to raise my heart rate that I can find and today was the perfect day for just that. The weather forecast called for today to be sunny with a high of 60 but that didn't quite work out. Now that everyone has their coal furnaces burning all the time the air around the town has taken on a very thick gray property to it. And even though you could for the most part tell that it was supposed to be a sunny day in reality it looked more overcast and the temperature had trouble rising above 50-52. A few minutes into the walk I started to wonder if the positive health effects of the exercise I was getting was worth the negative health effects of breathing in increased quantities of unclean air. If the coal in itself wasn't enough to clog the air people here also have a habit of burning their trash in the furnace as well which is fine but a lot of that trash includes plastic which is a VERY bad thing to burn, especially if it isn't just a once a year occurrence but an everyday routine.

But enough talking. How about some pictures?