dinner... with extra smoke

I realize that this is a bit out of sequence; however, seeing as I am back in Xinyang I decided to write about it for a bit before returning to a recount of our short vacation.

It is still snowing here; so, that makes about two weeks of snowing. Of course my bicycle and scooter are under a bump in the snow. The result of this is that I do not expect to use either of them in the immediate future.

Yesterday I got a call from the office informing me that I had a package and, of course, they also wanted me to come by to pay the power and water bill from last month (apx. 368 RMB). So, I bundled up and put the sweater, harness, and leash on Wa Dou and walked over. They have impressive bars on the floor that the Foreign Relations Department has occupied, of the new building. However, the latch requires no key on the inside and with just bars, it is a simple matter of reaching through and opening the lock.

Well, the package was the Ubuntu http://www.ubuntu.com/ disks that I had requested. Ubuntu is a popular, free, distribution of Linux. I requested the disks on their web page and they sent them to me at no cost. Now that I have a second university computer here in the apartment, I was thinking of trying to see if I could get it to connect to the network.

After that I wandered across the street to the café. One can quickly see that even the Chinese consider this to be cold because a lot of the shops that cover the sidewalks, bike lanes, and spill out in to the street, are gone. Of course, the ice is pretty thick, making walking a bit rough.

When I went toward the café, the first thing I noticed that not all the doors were open. Normally, in China, the doors are left wide open for air. The next thing I noticed, when entering, was the fire. This building has no fireplace. Instead of a fireplace a fire had been built in a large, low, metal pan and consisted of a couple large lumps of coal with wood put around them. No, there is no chimney, this is part of the reason that the doors need to be left open, even in winter. I still smell the smoke...

It is times like this that one regrets not having a camera with them. I also noticed, while eating my meal, a mother pulling her children down the side walk on a wooden sled. After finishing, having some food prepared for Zeneta, and arranging some deliveries to my flat, Wa Dou and I wandered back.