the big snow

This past Monday, London awoke to find itself covered in snow. In fact, this was the heaviest snowfall in nearly 20 years, and the city still hasn't fully recovered from it. As of early Monday morning, none of the buses were running, and many of the Tube stops were also closed. All the Underground trains were experiencing either minor or severe delays, and one of the longtime residents of Vincent House told me that the Notting Hill Gate station was closed, which worried me a little bit, because I was scheduled to teach that day, starting at 9:00 am. Looking out the window, I didn't get the sense that the snow was too debilitating, so I decided to walk to the station and find out what the situation was. This is what Pembridge Garden--the road that leads the Underground station--looked like at 8 am:

The Notting Hill Gate station was open, so, after waiting for a couple of very packed trains to go by, I squeezed my way onto one, and headed to work. I arrived at Anglo-American Educational Services (this is where our classes are held) on Bloomsbury Square at a quarter to nine and waited for someone to arrive and open the building. Meanwhile I admired a very snowy Charles James Fox:

The first group of students arrived, and they were happy to be sliding around in the snow and throwing snowballs at one another and at me.



In all, eleven of eighteen students showed up to class, and eventually someone from Anglo arrived to open the doors. (Several of the other students got stuck at Super Bowl party out in zone who-knows-which. They made a valiant effort to get into London--in spite of a complete absence of public transportation in the area they had stayed.)

After class, I decided to visit the British Museum, where only the main floor exhibitions were open. Particularly impressive was the blanket of snow over the glass dome covering the Great Court:
I spent about an hour in the one room devoted to art from what is now Mexico, and then I wandered down to Lincoln Inn's Fields, where lots of folks were romping around in the snow. It occurred to me that all the trains in the Underground might shut down, and then I'd be stuck a good distance from Notting Hill, so I took a train back there, and had some tasty Thai food at the Churchill Arms. Out front was a strange snowman and a snow arm-chair:


Later, I discovered that less than a fifth of London's workforce made it to work that day, and about that number stayed home the next. I can't say I really understand this. While this kind of snow may not fall on London on a regular basis, I think you'll agree that this isn't a phenomenal amount of snow. Nevertheless, it practically shut the city down. Even now, there are areas of London where the trash won't be picked up and removed until sometime next week. It seems to me that if I--a resident of the decidedly non-snowy Central Valley of California--can make it to work fifteen minutes early, surely a larger number of the residents of this fair city can make it to work. I find it strange. Still, it made for a memorable day, and I'm glad I was here to witness the Big Snow.