Saturday, December 18, 2010

A new word for winter- Viscoli

VISCOLÍ, pers. 3 viscolește, vb. IV. Intranz. A bate un vânt puternic cu ninsoare sau cu lapoviță. ♦ Tranz. (Despre vânt) A spulbera și a troieni (succesiv) zăpada. – Din viscol.
Sursa: DEX '98

So when you're walking along and the wind is blowing so hard that it is blowing the snow off the ground and into your face. = viscoleste



Ernest walking on "pamantul viscolit" - ground that the snow has been blown off of by high speed winds.

Even after one and a half years in Romania rarely does a day go by that I don't learn something new about the language. As Ernest and I were hiking in Parang yesterday I learned the above word. Winter has arrived with force here in Romania and Europe. The map of Romania is painted yellow and the mountain is painted white. The last couple of weeks has brought several centimeters of snow to town and even more to the mountain. Yesterday I bundled up while sipping on my morning coffee excited to finally get up to the mountain after a month of having other things to do on the weekends. A whole month off the mountain just doesn't feel right.

The sun poked through a bit in the morning but by the time we were in the cab toward the chair lift it was long gone not to return. We decided to play it safe and walk the road from the bottom of the chairlift to the top. The entire road was covered in snow but occasionally we would see a courageous driver, the car slowly climbing up with sporadic traction as it passed us by. We even saw one Dacia climbing up the snow covered switchbacks.

High powered winds, the occasional friendly dog, and good conversation carried us up the road to IEFS where we searched for a good coffee and found packed cabins instead. After starting our trek down we found a nice quiet place to have a coffee. The trip down was a blast. We decided to take the shortcut instead of the road where we slid much of the way down (step-slide, step-slide). We where having so much fun that Ernest asked me if I wanted to try going down "zidul mortii"(the wall of the dead). On our way to "the wall" we met up with some adrenaline loving kids and with them, Ernest and I slid down the slope through the fresh snow on our buts.

Welcome winter!

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