My sister (who is a lot funnier than I am), writes about her experience in a snow “storm” that hit Jerusalem last week. (By “storm” I of course mean 4 cm of snow). She works in a bookstore which sells English books.

I sat in the store for about 2 hours until I realized that the only people on the street were Russians, who are not exactly huge consumers of English books during snow-storms

(Russians: Do you have any books in Russian?
me: no
Russians: Tell me, why are all the stores closed? Is it a national holiday?
me: no, it’s just that it’s 200,000 degrees below comfortable
Russians: exactly! It’s that good weather which caused us to make aliyah
me: (thinking they are kidding) ha ha
Russians: (puzzled) what’s so funny?
me: uh…nothing. Nothing at all.
Russians: We would also like to celebrate this glorious national holiday. Can you tell us where we might buy vodka?

Other than that only one lady came in to my store: She is the neighbor from upstairs and she was clearly surprised that a store would be open today. She tried to understand what my rationale for opening the store on such a day could have been. “Do you have somewhere to live?” she asked. When I said that I did she seemed puzzled and then asked if my husband beat me, if the place had a roof, and if I remembered how to get there from here. When I denied and confirmed things in the correct order she seemed even more confused, so I explained that I was Russian. This seemed a logical explanation for her and she subsequently brought me down a glass of tea with vodka in it and then retreated back into her apartment. That’s when I decided it was time to go home.