| A couple of years ago, I had the wonderful | | | | ground is covered by at least a foot of snow. The |
| opportunity to visit and live in a part of the world | | | | first morning after my arrival, when we woke up, it |
| that most people never even think of visiting. After | | | | was 2 degrees Fahrenheit, but the forecast for the |
| meeting a woman on the Internet, visiting her, | | | | next night was -20 degrees. Most people in America |
| developing a relationship, and then making the | | | | would not leave their homes in this weather, and |
| decision to go and marry her in a foreign country and | | | | even if they did, they would be running for cover in |
| live with her there, I entered the ranks of other | | | | their warm vehicles. Here though, where many |
| world travelers. The exotic location of my new, | | | | residents don't even own a vehicle, they go about |
| frozen home was Angarsk, Russia, and it is right in | | | | life as usual, despite the cold. They have to walk or |
| the middle of Siberia. We had decided to marry and | | | | catch a bus to wherever they want to go, which |
| live there with her family for a year or so and then | | | | means spending a great deal of time in the elements. |
| decide where our lives together would take us. After | | | | On our first outing, my wife and I walked to the local |
| making the 32 hour plane trip across most of the | | | | grocery store and on the way we passed a natural |
| country of Russia from Moscow, I arrived in the | | | | ice skating rink. The temperature at that time was |
| middle of February and as expected, it was frozen. | | | | around 8 degrees, but the rink was packed with |
| This was to be my first experience living in a frozen | | | | children who were skating and living life as normal. |
| world and I was going to learn first hand how the | | | | Over the course of the remainder of my time there, |
| other half lives. I was coming from Florida, straight | | | | there were many times, in the midst of a snow |
| from the sunny shores of the Gulf of Mexico and I | | | | showers or other foul weather, that I would look out |
| was in for an experience that I could not have | | | | of our apartment window and see children playing |
| imaged. It was amazing to get on a plane in 60 | | | | soccer or playing on playground equipment in the |
| something degree weather and 11 hours later, get | | | | courtyard below. There was one scene that I |
| off in a blizzard in minus temperatures, and that was | | | | remember vividly, the children has removed the snow |
| just in Moscow. | | | | in a straight path from the end of the sliding board |
| Angarsk, where I was going to live, is a relatively | | | | and when they slid down the board, they continued |
| modern town with a population of about 230,000, | | | | to slide another 20 foot or so on the ice. |
| but for about 4 to 5 months out of the year the | | | | |