I think I'm going home at the right time

It's starting to get mighty cold here. Apparently, when we go to Oslo on Wednesday it's going to be -14 Celsius which is pretty cold. Also, the snow and ice are really starting to take their hold on Hamar, and I've taken my first fall. I think if I stayed much longer I'd have a concussion and hypothermia, neither of which would be all that nice. So I guess the bottom line is I didn't realize how truly mild Washington's climate is (at least in the West) or how wimpy I actually am when it comes to the cold. People always ask me "how did you put up with the crazy heat in Phoenix?" and I usually said "I don't know, I just did". I imagine Norwegians and other people from more frigid climates would have a similar answer to my question: "How do you put up with the cold?". Because it's not so much a question of how does your body handle it or something like that. It's the day-to-day knowing that it's going to be very cold outside and having to prepare for that and getting used to it that is hard to understand for me. That is what I would mean if I asked a Norwegian "How do you put up with the crazy cold here?". And it's not even that cold here in Hamar. To the North, they're looking at epically cold temperatures like 80 below. That's a different story altogether. I couldn't even put up with 5 below for any longer than a month. Then add the ice to that and I'd probably be dead by spring. Good thing I'm going home.