Since living in Europe for the last 8 years, the last 11 months residing in Germany, I’ve compiled a list of things that every warm-blooded person should be aware of.

1. When you walk through snow one day, don’t walk in your same footprints the next day. You’ll slip because compacted snow=ice.

2. If your front porch steps have snow on them, you have to throw (what I call) rock salt down. I’m definitely not chemistry major, but it actually turns the snow into slush, which is easier to walk on. This goes, too, for any walkways, sidewalks, and driveways.

3. After a freezing rain (and no snow) your porch steps look clean and shiny. This is big falsehood! The shiny surface means there is ice on the surface, and you’ll slip. Again, the rock salt helps in traversing these terrains.

4. A shovel in a cold environment is used to move snow away from areas that are frequently traveled. In addition, these instruments are very wide, and very heavy. Please don’t use them to unearth ancient artifacts because you’ll be creating craters in your yard.

5. You can shovel snow fairly easily off the aforementioned places, but ice is a bit more difficult because it is glued to the surface. After spreading the rock salt on the ice, it becomes slush again, which is easy to shovel.

6. European houses have radiators instead of central heating ducts. I’m not sure exactly how they work, but I think that because of a huge oil container somewhere in or under your house heats up the water in the house, therefore, heating up the radiators. It’s nice because you don’t have hot air blowing down on your face when you’re lying in bed. But, it sucks up all the moisture in the air, causing skin conditions of mass proportions. Incidentally, some clever people have invented a contraption that hooks onto the radiator so, when filled with water, becomes a sort of humidifier.

**As a side note I recommend these inventions instead of metal loaf pans – they rust, and you can no longer use them for banana nut bread.

7. The price of oil in Europe (needed for heating your house) is very expensive. We have a rather large house, so the rooms we don’t use on a regular occasion, we turn the radiators off, and close the doors. As well, we close the doors on the way from the upstairs to the downstairs living areas. In order to fathom this necessary habit, you must remember the movie “The Others.” Even though we do not lock every door on our way in and out of rooms, we close several doors on our way, say, from the kitchen downstairs to our living room upstairs. It can be a nuisance, but so far, our landlords have not complained that we’ve used an excessive amount of heating fuel.

8. If you are lucky enough to have a fireplace in your home, you can use natural resources (i.e. firewood) to heat your living space. We inherited a small supply of warmth-bearing-wood when we first moved here. After that reserve was exhausted, we enabled the advice of our landlord. Someone was willing to sell us ‘square meters’ worth of firewood. Chris and I, not realizing how much two square meters entailed, ordered that exact amount. For future reference, two square meters is a plethora of firewood.

9. Being from Florida, I’ve never had to stack two meters of firewood. After our helpful woodsman DUMPED (I honestly say that with much affection, since they unload the same way to everybody) the firewood in our driveway, in the rain, I proceeded to load the delivery in our garage. I did fairly well for about an hour. . I think my German neighbors gained a newfound admiration for me since I was actually doing outside labor. (Chris does the outdoor work on the gardens, and I take care of the house. He is what we’ve named the champion of yard work since the tenants before us didn’t do much to the yard.) Then, my nicely placed rows and stacks started to roll and fall. I always admired how neatly the Germans stacked their firewood. Now, I venerate their abilities. Chris came home afterwards (and after begging me to stop further attempts of stacking) and finished the last hour of work.

10. My last point is that if you’ve never driven in snow, or ice-covered streets, you’ll be in for a big shock. After sliding down the driveway instead of having to put the car in reverse, you understand the awesome ways Mother Nature works on man-made surfaces. Chris drove us down to Italy in November, and after going 30 mph for about 2 hours, I thought I would never get the seat out of my butt or my fingers out of my mouth. He did an awesome job, even passing slower trucks in the left lane with NO TIRE TRACKS to follow. However, if it would have been me, I would have probably pulled over and prayed for sunshine.

My story is not, in any way unique, but if, for some reason, people who relate to my plight live in this type of different climate, please head my warnings, and remember my stories. I’m sure I’ll be adding addendums in the future, since winter has just begun.

---Nat