Whoa...weather

Date I would have liked to have posted this: May 25, 2009

So I’m sitting in a phone booth telling Mom about how hot and humid this weekend was in Paris. When all of a sudden, I see a bright flash of light and think, ‘hmm…I wonder what special activities they are having at the Eiffel Tower tonight?’ I little while later I disregard a low rumble as I continue my conversation with my mom.

Then the light flashed again and I remembered that my neighbor told me there would be a storm this evening. At the time I had ignored it because it was difficult for me to believe that weather as bright, sunny and warm as it was that day, could turn into a storm. Surely the weatherman was wrong. After all, he had been wrong all weekend when he had predicted clouds and rain. This flash, however, was followed closely by a very LOUD rumble. Thinking back to my elementary school science classes I remembered something about how the time between a lightening flash and the thunder signified how far away the lightening touched down. Uh oh. If my calculations were right, it hit just outside of Paris. And I was standing in a metal phone booth, with the phone to my ear. By the time it took me to turn around and look towards my apartment the clouds broke and the rain poured free. This storm did not begin with a light sprinkle. Torrential downpour would be more accurate. Not to mention the wind that had suddenly kicked up. Meanwhile mom is on the other end, wondering what the background noise she heard was. And then the lightening hit again. And the thunder right behind.

“Mom,” I said, “it’s raining, I think I better get inside.” Following a quick good-bye, I ran from the phone booth to my front door and tapped the code to my building as fast as possible, which wasn’t fast enough. I was soaked.

The rain continued on and off throughout the night. I can’t remember ever experiencing a storm that hit as fast or as furiously as this storm hit. The lightening looked fake but it lit up the entire sky, and the wind was warm. Very strange. Luckily Kristina was visiting at the time, so I didn’t have to sit through the storm by myself. We got cozy and cracked out our James Patterson books, to take our mind off the rain.

Which leads me to my next blog…