Life in Waterloo is different... more specifically, the rain is different... at least different than it is in Vancouver! Here, the humidity rises dramatically as you watch the thick black clouds roll in from several directions as they angrily prepare for battle. They clouds meet with a crash, and the sky goes dark, so dark its as if it instantly goes from day to night. The temperature which has been getting hotter and hotter as the clouds get closer, suddenly drops and the wind picks up with great intensity. Then, the rain begins to fall, and not at all as a drizzle I have become accustomed to on the west coast. These drops are huge, and when one lands in your hair, it soaks down to your scalp and then proceeds to run down your face. These first few drops are a warning of what is to come, as the sky literally opens up and these huge rain drops fall with determined forced, its like they know that if they came any softer, the wind would blow them horizontally and they might never reach the earth. Wind, the mighty gust that it is catches the waterfall coming from the sky and blows the rain in a slightly vertical fashion as wave after wave of rain is sent through the air in front of you, leaving massive puddles and borderline flooding in its wake... and then, as suddenly as it came, it is now gone, and the clouds, which are now obviously lighter, begin to break up and the sun and blue sky peaks through and you know there will be some relief from the storm before it hits the same way over and over and over again in one day.
In all honesty, I love storms, except for the fact that I take the bus, and know I cannot predict when they will hit... and I have found that an umbrella is no match for the wind and rain combination in this city. Today is one of those stormy days, and I fear that I will arrive at work drenched beyond belief... but I guess this is the ongoing adventure that is my life in Waterloo... at least for now...
