I am tempted to start this entry with a clearly untrue but still quite heartfelt “Only in France!” Let me elaborate. It’s January in Lille. Now, Lille winters are generally substantially milder than Ohio or Pennsylvania winters. It does not get as cold - in fact, it rarely gets down to freezing. Rather than snowing, it rains…which is miserable, but that is beside the point. The point, rather, was that this particular winter WAS cold. Uncharacteristically so. Freezingly so. For about two weeks, it got cold enough for the ever-present puddles that gathered in uneven spots in pavement and where there were missing cobblestones froze and remained frozen. Rain froze, it sleeted, it snowed. Lungs, hands, and noses felt the stinging, burning sensation of sub-zero temperatures. Normally, this would not bother me at all - au
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