winter has arrived in Jena!

So it's not like it wasn't cold before, and even a little frosty, but this morning as I was taking the bus in to work (my bike got a flat yesterday, and I'm waiting for a new tube to appear in my stocking Christmas morning), as we went up the hill up to the institute, we entered a winter wonderland. It's about -6, but it was colder overnight, and everything is coated with a thin layer of ice crystals. It's been cold for a bit over a week now, but the relative humidity has stayed high (it's at 96.9% with respect to water right now, at the sensor by the river!), so we've had some fog. I know that ice fog is usually only seen with really low temperatures, but this stuff really seems like ice fog that's precipitated. If not, it's the tiniest little ice crystal/flurries that I've ever seen. In any case, every blade of grass and every twig on every tree up here on the hill is covered in this fine dusting, and it's just beautiful. I wish I had a proper camera with me (especially as it's sunny and the sky is blue), but you'll have to settle for these little pictures from the webcam on top of the institute. They really don't do it justice, I swear. This makes me a bit less homesick when reading about the wonderful winter storms that have been passing through eastern Canada...