Snow in Athens!

Hello again, and Happy 2013!

With my deadline met, I spent a few days in Athens, visiting family and friends. And usually, the weather is also an attraction. 

But on January 8th in the morning, it snowed! People were back at work after the festival of Ta Fota (The Lights, or Epiphany).
We watched the snow falling on the roof tops...

...and in the streets. It didn't lie and made everything feel cold and damp, although many residents were excited by it. 

The sky was dark and threatening ... but misty sunlight began to make it through the clouds from time to time.

The Acropolis of Athens and the Hill of Lykavitos not long after sunrise.

This wonderful picture, taken on another snowy day some time ago, reminds me of the passage in The Boy with Two Heads, near the beginning, when the priestess and Themis' family are waiting for the god of the sun, Apollo, to answer their prayers:

As Chloe looked, a flock of doves circled, white against that dark sky, tousled and tumbling in the wind. 

A bright beam of sunlight slipped through the seething clouds. Was this Apollo coming? Chloe looked up at the priestess as they sang.

The old lady’s eyes were wide open, fixed on the sunbeam. The lines on her face had disappeared. She was standing as straight as a spear. The sunbeam was still at first, flooding the Akropolis with light and igniting Athena’s gold. Then it began to move towards them. 

By afternoon on January 8th, the sun had broken through and Lykavitos Hill stood against a clear sky once more.

Everyone cheered up a bit. Maybe no one has enough money, rows of shops are empty, grimy, and covered in graffiti, and everything feels very insecure just now, but at least the sun can usually be relied on to make an appearance, even in mid-winter.