White Weekend

So after a snowy Friday, I woke up yesterday morning to see a beautiful blue sky out of my window, with sunlight shining down on the snow!

I needed to go into town to finish up my Christmas shopping, and as I was heading out I decided to walk into town along the river to enjoy the sun and snow and take a few pictures of something I'd never seen before this year: snowy riverbanks along the Meuse!

This one's coming up on the Pont de Fragnée:

I walked along the bank until I reached this point and realised I could go no further! I was at the meeting point of the Ourthe and the Meuse!

Looking upstream towards the Pont de Fragnée:

Looking upstream along the Ourthe:

 So I had to backtrack and cross that bridge you see in the picture above to get to Outremeuse, the island you see behind me in this picture:

I wanted to walk through the Park de la Boverie, a lovely park on the tip of the island. I crossed over the Dérivation (a Meuse canal between the island and the "mainland"):

and found a snowy park with the Museum of Modern Art visible in the background (a palace built as part of the World Expo that was held here in 1905):

and lots of big trees!

I also ran into a friend from my hiking group! :o)

Continuing along the river, if you click to make this bigger you can see there is snow on the opposite bank as well:

Hmm, this crazy weather doesn't seem to be bother these ducks and geese!

In the middle of the park there's this lovely little duck pond in a field which is great for a picnic when the weather's right:

Well now the weather is better for sledding than picnicking, and some kids were making the most of it!

As for the pond, well pretty much frozen solid!

Although someone must be keeping part of it liquid somehow for these guys to still call it home:

And the ducks and geese can count on people coming by with seeds or breadcrumbs...

You know how swans are considered so very elegant? HA! Check out these guys:

BOTTOMS UP!!! :p

Seguing into today... woke up with even more snow (since it of course snowed again last night, enough to complicate matters for me on my way to a Christmas dinner party with the hiking gang), but luckily for me was getting picked up by a friend to go celebrate his 30th birthday with a brunch in the Québec Café on the top of the hill on the opposite side of the city. Didn't stop snowing while we were in there, which led to some crazyness when we got out!

I took some shots from the car... We've NEVER seen the city like this!

This one's ON the Pont de Fragnée, everyone advancing at a snail's pace:

And when I got home, even more snow (and still snowing) out back!

So I went down and finally made a snowman! I had forgotten how much hard work that is! Came back in needing a shower, wet on the outside and inside of my clothes! :p But you don't get to see him until tomorrow 'cause I'm waiting to see how he looks with an extra layer of snow on, since it STILL hasn't stopped snowing! We've had at least 20cm of snow already just today. The buses stopped running mid-afternoon, the airports are closed down (ditto in France, England, Germany...), the few trains that are running are doing so who knows along which schedule... the whole country is paralysed! I'm wondering if I'm going to have any students in class tomorrow. In fact I'm wondering how I'm going to get up to class tomorrow! :p