So Freaking Cold

The final week of February blew us over with its coldness.  It was bitterly cold in a way I have never experienced cold before.  It is funny because we kept telling each other that Berlin winter had not been as bad as we had been predicting it to be.  Other Berliners told us to wait until the end of February.  And they were right.  OH MY!!  It was SO freaking cold!! 
For the final week of February/first week of March I don't think the temps ever got above freezing.  Even during the day.  The highs were often 10 or 12 degrees Fahrenheit.  I think the coldest day that

week we hit a high of 6 Fahrenheit. 

Josie is the one with the pink
scarf around her pink hat.  No
face skin showing today. 

We knew we were newbies when on our walk to school we realized that our children were the only ones with bare face skin. Benjamin who has been wearing a fleece face mask for months lost his at school at the beginning of the freezing cold week and Josie didn't think it looked cool to wear a scarf around her face.  You will notice in the next photo of the following day that she opted for a head/face scarf and we replaced Benjamin's lost fleece face mask. But it was sunny and beautiful and being outside took your breath a way in a completely different sense than I am used to.  I have notoriously been a cold weather hater.  Not just hater - despiser really.  I have always hated being cold.  But Berlin has brought something out in me that I didn't know existed.  I have mentioned before that Berlin is, in fact, colder than Seattle but it is also drier.  And somehow that sunny and bitterly cold was OK with me.  I have been wearing a super warm coat.

Granted, it looks like I'm wearing a sleeping bag and is highly unflattering but it is warm and although my face and hands and feet were cold my core never got cold.  And I was out in the cold stuff for a significant part of the day - I walked my normal routes to the kids' school then to my school for German class, then back home and then often back to pick the kids up from school. 

Just an average walking day for me in very below average temperatures

It was so cold that one of Josie's friend's glasses froze over!!