I Ain’t Setting A Good Example

As I am uploading this post the outside temperature of Laramie is 6°C. It snowed few days back... you can see the sun throughout the day but the snow has not melted yet. Don’t blame the sun, the wind outside is damn too cold… just stand outside for a while and you’ll get a headache!

 

Almost everyone presumes me to be a “mountain man” as if I have landed here straight from the Himalayas… that’s not their fault though… with the image of Nepal synonymous to the mountains… that’s a valid point… eight out of fourteen!

They say it’s quiet pleasant a weather this year compared to years before. In the past you would find Laramie covered in the white blanket at this time of the year… but not this year… the snowboard enthusiasts are sad for their delayed trip to the Snowy Range… I ain’t.

But for me the winter has arrived… I pile up clothes, one over another as for me it is what winter used to be in Kathmandu … I get surprised when I see students turning up in shorts in the university! I mean ‘you kidding me?’… may be they’ve got too thick a skin… may be! Luckily not everyone is donning the shorts, but you can see many of them donning tees though. Then there are international students to save my face… they do wear warm clothes, and most of them down jackets… feels a bit better.

But what happened this evening felt awkward. I was waiting for the campus shuttle outside William R. Coe Library… that place is awesome, abode of peace, literally!.. There was another guy, with long beards waiting for the shuttle as well… we smiled and the conversation began… donned in tee and a khaki pant… he was from Saudi Arabia... and me? I was wearing jeans, t-shirt, sweater, down jacket and a ‘chyangba topi.’ He said, “Nepal is all about mountains, may be this weather ain’t cold to you?” I was like,”It never snows in Kathmandu, I first encountered snow here!”

Here was a guy from desert who wasn’t feeling cold and I the man from the mountain was covered in a heap of clothes… that felt awkward. He said he was leaving for Los Angeles (El Pueblo Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula) during the break… hope he ain’t leaving with a different impression of a ‘mountain man.’

Being from the Himalayas doesn't make me cold-proof!

Post script: Till this day I felt only a Greenlander would find this kind of weather warm ;)