Phil says "Six more weeks of winter"

At least in Pennsylvania that is. Happy Groundhog Day! For all of you who don't know what I am talking about, click the link. Or even better yet, the actual Punxsutawney one.

Here is something that probably most of you don't know about me.... I was there once! On February 2nd 1988, at 5ish in the morning, in drizzling sleet and freezing cold, I stood with hundreds of others (both locals and foreigners like me) somewhere in a field in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania shivering and staring at men in top hats, waiting for them to lift poor Phil up in the air and declare the arrival of spring or the continuation of winter!

It is true. It was, obviously, an experience I will never forget. The whole ordeal scored much higher on the "totally bizarre" and "Americans are weird" scale than on the excitement scale of my young, naive brain! It was a huge deal, the festivities I mean. But honestly, my guess is that over there in PA it will ALWAYS be 6 more weeks of winter at this time of the year! No matter whether the little rodent casts a shadow or not.

In any case, there I was, attending the festivities, as one of the special invitees for the 1988 Groundhog Day, together with all of my AFS (foreign exchange student) friends. A huge banquet was put on where all of us and our respective countries were introduced. I don't remember now what I said about Belgium that day, but I do remember that none of us were very sure of what was on our plates. We got to meet one of the Pittsburg Steelers, I remember that too, and for years I even remembered his name, but that too is gone from my memory now. And I remember that that night I threw up in my host family's shower and found out the next day on the bus back, that several of us had had similar experiences. We always wondered after that how far these Punxsutawney-ans took this celebration of the groundhog....