Imagine if your husband/wife tells you that he/she found an amazing job and would like the whole family to move. Also, your job is with computers and thus is portable to anywhere with an internet connection. So, you’d say yes, right?
Well… the moral of the story is that you always ask where you are moving before agreeing to it. I’ve been following the story of Aliza Sherman whose husband got a job in wildlife biology in Tok, Alaska. The Temperature over there is usually -45 degrees celcius and often drop below -65 degrees.
Anyway, she moved there and she has been sharing her experience about the life there and has become a huge hit. Go have a look at it at http://livingintok.wordpress.com Remember, all the degrees mentioned there are in Fahrenheit, but once past -40 or -50, it is terribly cold, regardless of the scale used.
I lived in Chicago for a couple of years and the lowest temperature I have ever experienced was about -20 degrees celcius. I have ridden a bicycle outside at the weather and with the famous Chicago wind and accounting for the wind chill factor it may have been a minus 30. I was riding outside for an hour or so and I was wearing a t-shirt, one woolen sweater, one sweatshirt and a down jacket over all this. Still I remember it being bitterly cold and I cannot imagine Tok. Would love to spend a week there. Just for the hell of it.
Here are some highlights.
- Don’t leave your wine stash in the pickup truck outside in the winter in Tok, all the bottles will freeze up and explode.
- Thermometers will stop working.
- It takes a whole lot of planning to get dressed up.
- Driving is always a life or death experience. (And no, not much traffic)
- The Steering and Brake Fluids sometimes begin to freeze, while you are driving.
If you are thinking, yes, life in Antartica is much colder. Another 30 degrees lower, I should say, but this is not some scientific lab where a bunch of scientists live. This is a place where apparently a lot of normal people live too. Amazing
Follow her on
-30…. how do you live there ? In munnar there was -3 and it was horrible.
Comment by Kenney Jacob — January 12, 2009 @ 8:00 am
It touches 0 and sometimes a few degrees below regularly in Botswana – during the winter (Jun-Aug) with chilling winds. We keep our Geyser running 24Hrs – it is impossible to take a bath in the cold water…I guess all this is an experience of LIFE.
Comment by JMJ — January 12, 2009 @ 1:16 pm
@KJ, JMJ
True. But out here everything is heated – buildings/cars all. Even the water on the taps – it is slightly heated to about 20 degrees even in the coldest setting, and on the hottest setting, it could go scalding. I agree, you are dead without the geyser.
Comment by Domestic Avalanche — January 12, 2009 @ 7:31 pm
You guys don’t have the faintest idea of how Indian Army mans Siachen all round the year. You gotta pressure cook the brush before you can use it coz the water leftover on the bristles from your last use, freezes up and could easily damage your teeth. You could suffer from snow blindness. The winter temps come close to -70deg C and summers are usually warm at -40 degrees C. BTW I’ve not been to Siachen yet…These are what I’m told….so no flaming me if u find any of these incorrect…and definitely no responses citing some entry in snopes.com…
Comment by Ash — January 18, 2009 @ 4:21 pm