The weather report promises more snow and record low temperatures for the next few days. In some parts of Germany, a few schools and offices had to close. Frankfurt airport had to cancel 17 flights this morning. Hotels, emergency rooms, and snow plowing services, as well as the German ADAC, work around the clock.

At the moment, the thermometer reads -3C° in the Frankfurt area compared to – 34.8C° (- 30.6 Fahrenheit) in Bucharest, Romania.

This is the way winter should be and this is how I experienced it as a child, growing up in a farm house without central heating. At night I could see the breath’s vapor rising while changing into pajamas. My window was decorated with icicles, which I probably would have broken off, only if I had been able to open the frozen-shut window.

We always had red cheeks when we came in from sledding and our hands would turn bright red once we warmed them above the wood stove. But life did not stand still – school did not close (we walked there), the cows and pigs still needed to be fed, and we enjoyed winter time.

Icicles are back again!

Nowadays flights get canceled, buses do not run, and train rail switches are frozen. Global and local means of mobility have managed to immobilize us in such a cold spell.