Deception

The winter has seriously started: Beirut is all wet and windy as I write this. This morning at 6:00 AM I got caught in this downpour that was so massive that it was impressive. My little dog almost got swept/washed away into the sewer, good thing I had it leashed. It would have been an inspiration for a blog post though.
And although we haven’t had much snow, there is some. There are not many things I miss from my home country, but I do miss cold weather and snow in winter time. Now and then I need a snow fix.

So I went up for some snow shoeing and skiing this weekend. You in general do not go snow shoeing for your pleasure, at least I do not; it’s a rather cumbersome sport, but you have no other option if you want to hike through the woods in the snow.  And we had snow. However, we had no woods.

It took some figuring out, but we located some trees in the end, and hiked through and around them.

As such, the images give the impression we hiked through an entire forest. You are being utterly deceived here, if there were 50 trees, it was a lot. They were cedar trees though. And a few poplars.
 

The next day, friends who had seen pictures of our snow-shoe adventure, all wanted to know where that fantastic forest was, because they all wanted to go snow-show there. I didn’t dare explain it to them. The deception would have been too great. Sometimes it’s better to leave one with just the impression. Imagination is a beautiful thing.

 

Then I went skiing. I had a wonderful time, but in all honesty, it was windy, icy in some parts, sludge-like in others, and most of the slopes weren’t open. But when I’d meet friends at the bottom of the slopes, and they’d ask “how is the snow,” I’d reply “Fantastic!” I knew there’d be no deception there, it was too late for them to go up anyway, they’d have to wait for next weekend, and by that time, who knows how fantastic the slopes are.

 

And so if you see all these pictures, and you get all envious because everything looks so fantastic, please keep in mind that – although I had a wonderful time this weekend – you shouldn’t get deceived by appearances.

There were not many people up in the mountains this weekend. Either they’re thinking that everybody is going up, and the chance of getting stuck in the mother of all traffic jams is not very appealing, or they are thinking that there is not enough snow to go skiing. Or they are thinking something else.
 

Whatever the reason, it was lovely and quiet up in the snow. I got my snow fix. And you got deceived J