An oddity in the weather

Sigh. I'm afraid it is that time. I will now enter my second winter of 2005 before returning to the States for my third. yukLast night I didn't sleep well because I was awakened every half-hour or so to the pounding of hail on my window. It was incredible! Today is windy and cold and we've just had two more rounds of hail. They last for a couple minutes; millions of 3mm-diameter balls of frozen rain...just about ten minutes ago it was coming in at a 45 degree angle. It's mental! (<-- Kiwi expression!)
And all this on the night before and day of the meeting for the four-day tramp I'm leaving for on Wednesday morning. Yes, I'm heaps worried about freezing to death. ("heaps," another widely-used Kiwi word)
Oh! Anna's birthday party was on Friday night. I made her a pinata and filled it with lollies. (this posting is just chock-full of Kiwi slang!) I think I was the only American there...it was awesome! I'm making friends, many go to the church I've been attending, so it makes for fun group events to already know some of the people there. Anna's family has completely welcomed me in as a member, they let me help out and are teaching me Kiwi-ese. Sam, the newly-12-yr-old son, is being quite helpful in repeating phrases and words for me to mimic. He gives his honest opinion, "Hmm. You sound too British," "Yes! That was just right!" "No no, just say it normal [by this I assume he means Kiwi, and I now understand the frustration of people when I ask them to speak with an American accent and they say it's too hard]..." It's given me and Sam something to bond over!But the whole point of mentioning Anna's party was the fact that as I was leaving, I slipped and fell down 7 steps. They have this incredibly narrow and steep flight of stairs in their home and they live upstairs so they're unavoidable beside walking outside. It all happened so quickly...I was walking downstairs and Hollie (Anna's sis - the one Dan's age) was behind me. Hollie's boyfriend, Euan (as in, Ewan McGregor), was at the base of the stairs and we three were talking. All of the sudden my wool-socked right foot flew out from under me and I fell on my rear and slid down the remaining steps. Euan tried to catch me before I fell and I somehow managed to kick him in the groin. He had to take a sit-down break after that. A bunch of people came running and two of my friends, Jon and Dom from church, slid down the entire flight of stairs to make me feel better...and to get some of the attention from the crowd :o) Boy, the things that go on at parties...