Of polar splits and slippery sidewalks
Back to complaining about a different kind of ice
After a brief interlude where the temps climbed above freezing and the snow and ice melted away, the cold returned again last week and with it the ice-covered streets, sidewalks, lakes and streams.
This January was Berlin’s coldest in 16 years, according to the German weather service, with the average temperatre just -1.9C. (That’s 28.6 Fahrenheit, FYI. It just always sounds more hardcore in Centigrade.)
Although such winter weather used to be much more common here, it seems Berlin has grown unaccustomed to dealing with long periods of ice. Doctors’ offices and hospitals reported record numbers of injuries from people slipping on frozen sidewalks and streets.
State law requires inidividual property owners to keep the public sidewalks in front of their properties free, but there seems to be almost no enforcement against those who don’t.
This year did seem particularly bad to me - the sections of sidewalk that were actual…
