Snow is so strange. To actually see these huge flurries descend on the city, and painstakingly paint everything white, millimeter by millimeter. As I left my French class on Thursday night (exam result: a pleasing 75%), I stepped out into the park to see a lamp-post half covered in snow. A lamp-post! Just like in Narnia. Who knew these things actually existed. I always thought that one had to go to the snow. I never really understood that it could come to you.

We did one final round of the plaisirs d’hiver (winter fun) markets in Brussels with our friends James, Colette and Grace from Leuven. While James and Colette defrosted in a café, the rest of us braved a walk through the insides of the inflatable ice monster chained up outside. Adrian was very amused at my screams due to the loud noises and people jumping out and grabbing my legs. I emerged feeling very unimpressed and it is unlikely that I shall ever walk through the bowels of another monster ever again.

In response to Laura’s challenge, Adrian constructed a balcony snowman, but I added the final touches to turn it into a bonchaton de neige (good kitten of snow). The snow is beautiful, magical, otherworldly, and extraordinarily sublime. It has however, shut down Brussels airport for two days this week. Fingers crossed we can fly out to Italy to meet our cruise today.

Photo by CaptPiper

I look outside my window and I can see an immense flurry of snowflakes whirling down. It is an astonishing sight. Bit by bit, they are starting to form a thin layer on the ground. The green grass is gradually disappearing under millions of fluffy white specs.

Growing up in Australia, I never saw snow fall from the sky. My first introduction to snowflakes was in a Strawberry Shortcake picture book. The flakes were as big as her hands, and did not melt when touched. This is how I imagined them to be – resilient thick structures of ice, capable of being passed from hand to hand without melting. Instead, they are like a swarm of white insects, filling the air with circling motion.

In Brisbane, Australia, the temperature has only dropped below freezing once since records began, in 2007 when it fell to -0.1 ^oC. Here, at the beginning of winter we have a maximum of -1 ^oC today. It is painful to be outside during my short walk between work and the metro. My eyes tear up and my lips crack in the cold. I have a thick coat, gloves, hat, and scarf, yet I yearn for earmuffs and thicker socks.

They tell me last January it reached -29 ^oC in Belgium. I can’t even imagine that temperature. Surely the only time that water should become ice is when I put it in the freezer?

They told us that it would take three days. Seventeen days later, our kitchen is nearly complete. The sink and the dishwasher were connected yesterday, so now we no longer have to wash our dishes in the bathroom sink. This was our kitchen before the renovation. Note the lack of: extractor fan, dishwasher, freezer, oven, power points, and counter-top space.

This is our new kitchen, 90% complete and finally functional. We actually have space to cut, chop and prepare on the granite benchtop. We have plugs for our toaster. We have lighting to see our food.

To give us some more bench space, we shifted from a four burner ceramic stove to a two burner induction stove. I really like the new induction stove because it heats liquid a lot faster than the old one (and also because it uses magnets).The kitchen lady seemed a little judgmental that I wasn’t the type of wife to cook my husband a dinner requiring four different pots, and as I was trying to justify my decision, Adrian quietly reminded me that I was not actually mandated to supply an explanation. Now we can also proudly display our toaster that we won betting on the ‘pigs.

The dishwasher, fridge, and freezer are all nicely hidden away. As we have been living with a bar fridge for the last six months, the fridge and freezer seem cavernous in comparison. And for the first time in my life I have a dishwasher, small enough so that we can run it with dishes from just the two of us.

Where is the microwave? In the oven. I didn’t believe the kitchen people when they first showed me this dual oven-microwave. On one setting, we put in metal oven trays and it acts as a perfectly normal oven. On another setting, we use a ceramic tray, and it is a fully-featured microwave. It is very strange to put a plastic container into an oven, switch the oven on for three minutes, then open it up to find my meal bubbling away.

This trip was my first chance to sail amongst icebergs, in the Jokulsarlon lagoon. As the salty sea water reaches Vatnajokull, Europe’s largest glacier, hundred of icebergs break off where they slowly melt as they progress towards the ocean. It is a really beautiful and surreal place. With the glacier and snow-capped mountains in the background, most of the shapes are carved out in shades of blue – from the pale turquise of the ice to the vibrant azure of the sky. Streaks of black from centuries of volcanic eruptions cut through the vista to emphasise the age of this place.

We took a cruise through the lagoon and our guide carved off a sliver from one of the icebergs, so that we could eat ice that was over 1000 years old. Our guide was a native Icelander who spends all her winters in Australia – she even went to college in my hometown of Canberra. She spoke like a perfect Australian native, which made it all the more shocking to hear her correctly pronounce towns like Þorlákshöfn when talking about the region.

Occasionally, seals would poke their heads out of the water. Our guide told us that there were two types of seals in Iceland, and that these are the cuter ones, as they are smaller and have fewer whiskers. We were later told that the locals call the seals that give birth on land Land Seals, and the ones that give birth out at sea Out There Seals. The Icelanders are big fans of literal names for creatures and places.