AKA I rant about cool things that happen when temperatures drop
Ello I just wanted to write some thoughts I’ve had starting this month.
I’ve noticed that October 1st is the unoficial date where the cooler season starts. At least here in Veracruz.
When I showed up to my university that day there was a noticible increase on sweaters; many of which were black, including mine; because of a norte that decided to show up the day earlier.
What’s a norte you may ask? It’s a meteorigical event where winds from the northern hemisphere travel to warmer areas, and therefore you get a sudden decrease in temperature. At least if you’re in an inland region. If live near the coast, you get the chill winds AND crazy winds. And guess who lives two kilometers away from the shoreline?
Granted, I exagerated the intensity of nortes, they do vary and range from having speeds of 5 km/hr all the way to 80+ km/hr; the avarage I remember that we recieve is around 30-60 km/hr.
They’re not catastrophic enough to say, cancel school activities, but on days with stronger norte events you do notice the wind slightly pushing your car while driving. Either way you still need to be careful of any loose debree; a few years back a chunk of the children’s hospital got ripped from the wind and fell on the street below.
Back to my original topic; I am certain everyone just grabbed the first sweater they could find on their closet and put it for good measure; though because of our weather patterns of recieving an avarage of 30°C throught the year, the sweaters we wear are on the lighter side, mine included.
I’ve just remembered now that my electromagnetism professor, Mr. Castro Valdés, noted that we jarochos were pretty chilly; in the sense that we were affected easily by the slightest decrease of temperature; and he’s sorta right, that day my weather app indicated that it was at 25°C (which apparently is the optimal temperature of a human to live in) yet all of my classroom had a sweater over them.
Another thing I’ve noticed thanks to nortes is that we eat a lot more pastries and sweet breads than we would normally do on other months. Mexico enjoys cold days at home eating a bread and a cup of coffee, and my town is no exception; there are bakeries everywhere and this year I’ve found more bakeries have shown up, and they seem to be having a decent time.
Wikipedia image for Pan Dulce
Fun fact!
Conchas (The sweet bread that is being grabbed in the image) is regionally known exclusively on my town as Bombas (bombs).
If you ask for bombas in any other bakery outside of Veracruz, you’ve outted yourself as either a jarocho, or a terrorist. It’s your call if any of these is a good or bad scenario :p
You can learn more about Pan Dulce via Wikipedia’s entry regarding these breads
Which leaves me to another topic which is tangentally related: Veracruz has a cookie factory near my university! The mexican company Cuétara has a factory in my town, where on windy days the smell of the cookies they make is carried to the rest of town, including to my home; It may not have been intentional, but it certainly aids in subdly influencing people in to eating more bread, myself included…
Whenever I sense that smell on my nostrills, it fills me with nostalgia and the relaxed feeling of being at home eating a sweet bread and dipping it on milk (I was too small to drink coffee)
I know I can no longer go back to those simpler times, but I can now experience the same sensation with more understanding of what chill days bring, and know I’ll be getting more of them the following 4 months.
That is all, thanks for hearing or reading my mad ramblings!
And in case I don’t see you tomorrow, good day, good evening and goooooood night!