Russia is famous for several things, and foremost among them is its status as a winter country. Russian winter is legendary: It stopped Napoleon and Hitler, and it is impossible to imagine Russian literature without thinking of frigid winter nights. And, while there really are large parts of Russia that aren't very cold at all (the Black Sea coast, the Caucuses, and even some parts of Siberia), everyone thinks of Russia as an icebox.

Russians take winter very seriously, and, given the long history of endless bleak winters spent in drafty wooden houses, the Russian fear of the cold is perhaps understandable. Illness is a huge topic of conversation here, and, if you ask any Russian (and especially any babushka), the cold is the cause of all these ailments. I've been told that I will get a sore throat from not wearing a scarf when it's cold, and walking around outside without a hat is definitely frowned upon. This fear of the cold extends to food and drink too: you will never--and I mean never--find an ice cube in a Russian drink, and cold milk is considered dangerous (it hurts your throat glands); people will generally heat milk up in the microwave before drinking it. Although, by the same token, ice cream is very popular here, so I'm not sure how that all works out logically.

It's been pretty cold here the past week, with high temperatures hovering around freezing. The wind has been whipping, and today we had some nasty freezing rain. Speaking of weather, there has been pretty extensive coverage of hurricane Sandy on Russian TV, and it sounds nasty. A few of my classes even asked me about it today. So maybe it's not so bad to in a country that doesn't have hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, or volcanoes (at least not where large amounts of people live). We just have an infamous winter.