Better late than never

It's been a long time coming, I know, but welcome to my first blog post.

I haven't gotten myself into the habit of carrying my camera everywhere, so I don't have very many photos.  I'll get more, soon enough.

The big news in Palmy lately was the snow.

Our front yard is full of lavender bushes. Flowers blossom continually, here. Snow on flowers earns a photo or two, in my book.

 Snow happens pretty rarely here. They say it comes to Palmy about once every fifty years. My flatmate, Kim, was pretty excited, and she had to do everything possible in the snow:

Astute observers among you will have noticed the laundry on the line, covered in snow. The laundry situation is a bit of a catch 22. Dryers are not common here, since electricity isn't subsidized and dryers use a lot of it. Most people hang their clothes to dry, but it rains all the time! I keep my clothes on a drying rack in my beautiful sunny bedroom! That's a bit of a mess right now, so no photos until later.

Aside from the cold, I'm living in a very pretty town. This is my bike ride to class.

And this is the ride home

Beautiful, right?

And people are very nice. Gone are the days of rude, gruff construction workers:

Honestly, I can't understand what they're so fussed about. It takes 15 minutes to drive across town. There aren't even enough cars here to create what I would call a traffic jam.

I miss you all!