Winter in the City - TriCity

On the way to Ski Land :)

Long time, no see :-) Unfortunately I have experienced close encounter with not one, but two dental surgeons. As a result, I am growing bruise on my cheek and haven't had any solid food for a week :( Only comfort I have at the moment is that I can catch up with my ice cream eating :-) My biggest worry is that this Thursday is Fat Thursday and i won't be able to eat donuts.

Train stop covered in snow - it is winter time!

Anyhow, back when I looked like myself I wanted to explore more winter activities that you can enjoy in, or around TriCity. As I wanted to get out of the city I decided I will go skiing. Actually I decided I am going skiing about 2 months ago. It just took that long to moan somebody into coming with me. Fortunately volunteer was found before all the snow melted.

Winter landscape, what else would you need?

There are few ski slopes around TiriCity, with the closest being around half hour drive to about hour. (there is one ski slope in TriCity, more specifically in Sopot, but due to TriCity microclimate, might be closed if winter is not very wintery :) All of the ski slopes offer ski rental, tutoring and i am pretty sure all of them have bar or some kind of facility to eat in. Also, some have more than one slope and are artificially snowed, but all of them have some sort of skilift.

Winter branches

I choose to go to the closest one, not only because it is closest, but also because it seemed to be the least crowded. I did brag how I skied when I was a child in order to find somebody to come with. But truth to be told I had skis on one time in my life before and was skiing on a hillock so small that you wouldn't know that it was a hillock if you weren't told. However I didn't expect it to be any difficult, after watching all the winter adds where everybody is a professional skier, even cartoon characters. I was convinced is easy as pie.

Icy road, and sunbathing dog

It is nice to get out of town once in a while, especially in winters. TriCity has a special microclimate. Everywhere around is winter, but in TriCity is autumn, or if we are lucky - spring :-) so I really enjoyed the drive and the views. However when I got to the ski slope my heart stopped and I was ready to run back home, and if it wasn't for my pride I would. The slope looked much steeper and higher than on their website, it was also much busier than I expected.

Ski slope from the bottom

Let's just say that I turned out to be the best at putting shoes on and off, the other stuff - not so much. Just to get to skilift I had to use help of everybody and everything around me: fellow skier, their ski poles, wooden fence, workers, plastic fence. At one point I wished i could crawl. And all of that before I even got to the top of the slope.

Ski slope - the middle

Once I got to the top I was even more scared. It was much higher that I thought it would be. As I proceeded down I almost skied of the slope path into a ditch, also whenever I wanted to stop I was only gaining speed. The only way I figured out how to stop was to throw myself on the ground.

Ski slope - the top

As a result after 20 min of me trying ski I started to feel as if I went swimming not skiing. Not only all my cloths were wet. I had wet hair and was getting wrinkled skin of my fingers from constant water. I can truthfully say that 5-year-old skis better than me. After making that observation you cannot wonder that after one downhill ride I was done and ready to go home.

Funny enough, when that trip convinced me I am clearly not made for skiing, everyone wants to go skiing :-) Go figure!

The Winter has arrived :)

Winter scenery out of my window

As I looked outside of my window this morning I became overjoyed. It's all because a winter scenery has welcomed me. As I watched the falling snow reinforcing the layer on the ground. I realized that the previous lack of it caused my loss of inspiration and energy.

Garden dressed by snow

I guess I am one of few that gets happy when sees snow and minus temperatures. In that way I am a traditionalist, because I want to have winter when it is winter time. I thought that the chance of winter was gone and I was to look forward to spring now. I don't know if I should get so ecstatic yet, as the snow can melt overnight, but I surely hope it won't :)

Everything looks better in white

The way I look at it is that in spring and summer, and also autumn there are leaves that dress the trees. Grass dresses the ground. In winter is snow that does the job. In my opinion everything looks better when covered in snow :)

Winter garden

There is also another important purpose that snow serves. In winter the nights are long and days short. Fallen snow reflects the light and makes everything brighter. And when there is a full moon it's almost as bright as in daytime.

Close to dusk

What I like is when dusk is coming and the light shifts. It is not dark yet, then the snow gets exposed in a way that is very much appealing to me. I tried to photograph it but I am sure that it doesn't capture the beauty of it.

Winter branches

Merry Christmas

A giant glass ball - a promise of Merry Christmas

As the Christmas is coming to an end, so it is my little break. As always I wish happy holidays as they about to finish, it does happen that I wish people happy birthday 2 months after, so quite a good timing this time :)

Not so wintry view from my window

I so wanted to go and explore one more place before the holidays, but my head was empty and I couldn't think of place to go. Maybe it was caused by pre-holiday stress (as I read around half of my great nation suffers from it ) or I had a case of blues caused by horrific autumn weather this winter (who can stand constant rain for two weeks?). But I guess it's always a little sad for me when there is no snow for Christmas. Unfortunately IT happens more often now than before (two years ago I saw around Christmas time blooming flowers).

Spring is coming :)

As I read multiple headlines claiming that whole Poland is covered with snow, I look outside of my window and see little puddles. Most amount of snow I saw this year was on top of a car parked outside :( Well, the hope still remains that snow will arrive, and also would disappear before Easter :)

A touch of winter

In the meantime MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU ALL!!! Hope this Christmas was all you wanted and wished it would be :)

Merry Christmas