How Hercules visited North America

It is not unusual to experience coldness in winter, it happens almost everywhere, excluding a couple of places like southern Spain ;). But this year we arrived home just on time to be part of a historic moment. In the northeastern part of the country temperatures reached historical records. It not only was very cold, but also very windy, and it all went combined with constant snow... We had almost 30 cm! It was crazy days. Luckily the worse is over, we are still having cold temperatures, but I don't think we will see -24 degC in a long time. There is of course amazing images, but the most incredible for me was the frozen Niagara Falls.

I sought the explanation of this phenomenon, and it is so interesting that I want to share it with you all. According to the experts, this storm is a cold front that moved southward the north pole as a result of a sudden stratospheric warming, that is, when polar stratospheric temperatures increase very suddenly. When this happens, the high altitude winds change direction and flow westward instead of its normal eastward direction. The westward winds progress down to the atmosphere, giving westward winds to the surfaces and decreasing the temperature significantly.

In the chart, you can see that the minimum temperatures reached scary negative numbers (-40 degC coincides with -40 F). There were places in the US and Canada who reached temperatures lower than the north pole. On top of the cold, the wind made it feel 10 degrees colder.

The repercussions of the storm have been well documented though the media: cancelled flights, people were asked to save electricity to prevent power outage, roads covered with snow, fuel freezing, and several deaths were attributed to the coldness. It was recommended to stay at home if possible.

And, for this matter, i was also curious on how do we feel cold and hot, what is the process in or body? Is it something physical, or some chemical reaction? Asking my good friend Google, I found out a possible explanations discovered recently. Studies made in the University of California come to the conclusion that a few proteins, called ion channels, allow our skin to distinguish temperatures, from hot to cold. For this, there is a variety of transient receptor potential (TRP), that defines every temperature. According to this, there are receptors on the surface of the nerve cells that enables the body to feel the different temperatures. You can read more about this interesting study here. It is somehow similar to how we taste (if I understand correctly). In any case, I just found it cool.

Well, after a masterclass on coldness and its effect on humans, I'll let you guys go outside and enjoy the weather, no matter if it is cold, there is always a moment when it feels right for it to be cold (at least for a couple of seconds), that way we realize that this doesn't last, and eventually spring will knock on our doors :)

Thanks for reading,

Lita & Andres

Happy 2014!

Hello Folks! Long time no read! We have been busy in our trip to Europe, flying to Sweden and Spain, visiting family and friends.. it felt so short! But we were very lucky overall with the weather, the flight connections, and the time people were available to spend time with us :)

On January 3rd, 2013, we arrived to Michigan with the premise to stay 3 years. It sure seemed like a long time, but all of a sudden we realized we have completed two thirds of it! It has been an amazing first year with numerous new experiences, that is why we would like to present you our Top 10 facts of 2013 in the US. Some of them we have discussed in previous entries, so they will not sound new to you, others have not been shared yet. Hope you enjoy

Fact Number 10: The US is an enormous country, for good and for bad

With more than 300 million people, and almost 10 million square kilometers, the US is by far the biggest country we have lived in. It is different to Europe, since here they all share the same language and government. It is so big in fact, that the states have more power than what a region inside a country would have in Spain. This gives US citizens the advantage to move around within the same country, having the choice to live and work where they want, without much trouble. However, it is also difficult to maintain equality among all states; since they have their own laws, the possibilities that each of them offer are different, so they all grow differently. As for Michigan, you may know already that the capital of the state, Detroit, has filled for bankruptcy at the end of last year. We posted an entry about that, you can read it here.

Fact Number 9: Everybody needs a car

As discussed under the previous point, everything is far away from everything. Unless you live in big cities like New York or San Francisco, you can't walk to work, the groceries store, or a bar, you always need to drive there. Even if it is near you, the infrastructure is not thought for people to walk around, therefore there is just a few traffic lights with pedestrian crossing, as well as sidewalks parallel to the streets. This decreases the spontaneity to do things in the spare time, in fact everything needs to be planed, where to meet, how to drive, etc. In our daily lives, we feel the difference on how little we move, and sometimes we have the need to go for a walk, which here you can of course do, but you might need to drive to a park, the gym or even the mall.

As for public transportation, there is some buses and train throughout the country, but not much. Taking the example of Spain, where we took the train from the Madrid airport to the center, and then to Seville, and this service is available every hour, there is no such possibilities here. Again, big country, big need for independency.

Fact Number 8: "Cheap" things cost more, and viceversa

When we arrived to this country, we realized that the prices for objects had changed here. For instance, meat products are much cheaper than in Germany. And so are electronics, like computers, TVs, electronic books, gas, electricity, cars etc. However, there are other things than cost more, like dairy products, alcoholic drinks, and some veggies and fruits. Also insurance is more expensive, as well as cell phones, and of course education, which is free in most of the countries in Europe.

Fact Number 7: Entertaining is their thing

No matter if you like sports, music, theater, movies, shopping, dining, ... Americans have it all, and they know how to do it best. Especially in sports, there is a huge variety of leagues, several games a day, you can actually spend 24h watching games. It is amazing to go to a sports bar and see people follow several of the screens in parallel...  About the shopping, I don't think there is need to explain that Americans are so often linked to consumerism, they have so many shops and products, that it is almost impossible to know them all!

Fact Number 6: Best service you can have

In the restaurants, there is a significant difference in the treatment that you receive here. They take care of the customer, giving much freedom about choices, explaining everything nicely, smiling all the time... Well, it all comes down to the tip, which here should be around 20% of the dinner price if the service was good, compared to the 5 to 10% in Europe. But the ugly truth is that many places just don't pay enough to the waiters, so a big part of the waiter's living is though the tips. So I don't know if I should be happy about the service, or sad because they need to be nice in order to get a reasonable amount of money...

Fact Number 5: Eating habits differ to what we knew

I hate when we are in the mall and we walk by one of these Sweet Pretzel places, the smell is so intense that it comes though my nose directly to the brain! And there is always somebody buying these things, no matter what time it is! All  these Mac Donalds, KFC, Burger Kings etc, they are never empty! It is amazing to see how people go to these fast food places on a daily basis. There is people that never cook at home, some don't even know how to cook (this was shocking for me at first). I must say that the cafeteria at our work place has much offer, a big salad buffet, and a daily balance option. But it also has to have pizza and burgers every day on the menu. of course, this is changing slowly, there is more and more conscience for healthy habits, numerous new restaurants try to start the "slow food" concept, and this idea is growing nationwide. But so far the number of obese people is still dangerously big.

Number 4: Americans are always in a good mood

When you ask an American how he is doing, the answer will probably be something like: "great, thanks!". They are always positive, even if they have problems, or are upset or mad about something, they tend to show their best side towards friends and colleagues. This is a good thing if you compare to the Germans and Spaniards, we like to complain a lot, and therefore are often in a negative mood, which only calls for more negativeness.

Number 3: It is tough to work so hard

Fewer vacations days, extra hours don't count for time off, working long hours and some weekends... It is hard to keep up with this lifestyle. Americans don't have the concept of 3 week vacation, like we do. For them, 2 weeks is a lot, they normally just take one week at once, and if any, a couple of long weekends. Also, they have much less holidays, and almost all of them are on a Monday or a Friday, to prevent for people to take half a week off if a holiday takes place in the middle of the week. This is all really tough on the long term, because it is hard to really disconnect from the work with such little free time.

Number 2: Health Care is becoming more relevant

It has been all over the news, with the Obama Care, the US citizens are confronting a problem that they have had for a long time: it is the only developed country not offering universal health care. There is a lot of controversy with the subject, as explained in the entry we wrote back in Novemeber 2013 (follow the link if you want to read it), but it is in any case a good start to raise the awareness of the Americans regarding the lack of health coverage, and how to improve it.

Fact Number 1: US has beautiful places to visit

Places we visited last year, like Detroit,  Chicago, San Francisco, New York, Washington and the South West, have left us with the impression that the US has so much to offer in terms of landscapes and monuments. In fact, this was from the beginning one of the things that made us come here, so that we could visit as many different corners of this big country as we could. So far we are fascinated by the beauty of the US, and probably the next two years will not be different.

And with this, we end the first year and start the path through 2014, we hope you enjoyed this retrospect. Happy 2014!

Thanks for reading,

Lita & Andres