Brrrrr

The weather and the way people react to it is a curious phenomenon. Maybe our friends in Britain are right to adopt it as their favourite conversation topic. But don't think these wonderfully profound philosophical statements come to my mind just like that. They don't. I'm saying this because of something I saw on the news yesterday. All TV news shows in all portuguese channels decided to announce that a COLD WAVE was coming and that there was the remote possibility that temperatures could drop to almost 0. That's right, estonians, I did say "almost 0." And, of course, they interviewed people in the streets, scaring them to death, and did their best to spread panic. What modern society could live without the occasional outbursts of panic nowadays? And there were recommendations. I particularly enjoyed the one about "wearing warm clothes." Even though I was a bit saddened that I had to put away the bermuda shorts and sandals I was planning to wear today.
You probably are still laughing at the part about "cold wave" and "almost 0" and thinking we don't know what real cold is. And you're right. We don't. But that doesn't explain it. Nor is it just the media's fault (being true that they tend to do this kind of thing whenever there is nothing more shocking to talk about like tsunamis, terrorist attacks or a mother who has eaten her own son with ketchup sauce and mustard). The thing is, we portuguese like to panic. Not just be slightly worried about things like global warming, poverty, random wars breaking out all over the world. We like to run out waving our arms, pulling hair out of our heads, screaming as loud as we can that "WE ARE GOING TO DIE!" or "IT'S THE END! THE END!" It's part of our culture. If you know Fado, the portuguese national song, you will know what I am talking about. It's all about moaning, suffering, hurting, longing and other nice positive feelings like those. And we are lucky not to have a lot of things to panic about. So people take whatever is fed to them. Like an "almost 0 degrees" cold wave. They will dress like eskimos and go around saying to each other that it is real cold and that they don't remember it being this cold ever (which, of course, is not true because although temperatures don't drop below 10 that often, it happens every year).
Before the "cold wave" (stop giggling and go shovel some snow) people were panicking because it hasn't rained in months and farmers are starting to complain ("STARVATION! WE'LL ALL DIE OF HUNGER! HELP! HELP!") which is probably even a pretty serious problem, more serious than temperatures almost dropping to 0, at least. And then Summer will come and we will panic about how hot it is and how it never was as hot as that and how the heat will kill all living creatures in Portugal.
Today I woke up and looked out the window expecting to see everything covered in snow, people frozen solid, icebergs! Nothing. Just a bit of fog that will probably make us all wonder around aimlessly and fall down from high cliffs to a painful death. The weather forecast speaks of a maximum of 16 degrees and a minimum of 4 during the night. Brrrr...