how much snow does it take to shut down a black hole?

We are serious
Scientists.  LOL, J/K.
We built a snowman!


First, thanks to Venus for the post title, and thanks to Nadège for the first part of the haiku.  And for the non-1337 among you: LOL and J/K.

Last night, CERN was buried under an additional 18 or so cm (that's 7"!) of wet, perfect, packable snow, which effectively closed the place down.  My boss didn't show up for work.  The cafeteria was empty at lunchtime.  The dudes on my team (those of them that showed up, anyway) and I spent some time this afternoon constructing a snowman and having a snowball fight.  We settled on teams of Northern Europe and US v. Southern Europe, but we discovered quickly that the southern Europeans were somewhat less cold tolerant.  Hahaha.

I also walked home in daylight today.  Well, near-daylight, anyway.  I could see the mountains in the distance, and, my, did they look fabulous.  Pinpricks of light were lined neatly along them, presumably following the roads, and everything was basked in twilight's purple-y glow.

I also finally got out for some exercise, gasp.  I jogged a few kilometres around the complex before realising that tennis shoes did not provide sufficient grip on ice-slick roads and coming home to do sit-ups (!) and push-ups (!).

Okay, I also have advice/info/comments for people who want to look savvy travelling in Europe.

1. Bring assloads of passport-sized photos.  For whatever reason, every friggin card you want here (rail passes, work cards, blah blah blah) will require a passport-sized photo.  Or four.
2. Beer is served in our cafeteria.  At lunchtime.
3. Coffee breaks are key.
4. The easiest thing to do (and this is in general, not just for Europe) with those stupid baggage tag stickers is to stick them on the back of your passport.  It seems like 25% of the times I fly now I have to change flights or something that requires the airline to check what's up with my bags.
5. Carry a digital camera: when you don't have a printer or a fancy-schmancy iPhone, you can just take photos of on-screen directions and look at them later.

I'm sure there're others.  Uhhhh... I'll post them if I think of them.

I don't think there's any more snow in the forecast for now, but it's still pretty magical-looking out there.  Maybe tomorrow will bring another snowman.  Also, I have been talked into snowboarding instead of skiing this weekend, having been given the reason that skiing is "stuffy."  Since I'm not really awesome at snowboarding either... it's not a total loss.  ;)