In 1993, an opera company from New York came to UNH to perform Bizet's "Carmen," which is the only true opera I've so far truly come to appreciate. (Gilbert & Sullivan wrote operettas -- light, comic musicals which aren't really the same.) There isn't much in the way of squealing fat ladies in "Carmen." A lot of the music involves a full blown orchestra pulling out all the stops, and the story is a sordid tale of seduction and obsession -- sort of the 19th century equivalent of late night made-for-TV movies, only more enduring.

But I'm not going to talk about Carmen in a snowstorm thread. The trip back from the theater, to my dorm room, is more interesting. It took me about 35 minutes to cover the full distance. "The full distance" consisted of crossing two untravelled streets and passing two buildings. Normally I could walk this in 3-4 minutes.

For you non-wintry types, here are the various relevant states H2O takes:

1. Water. In winter, water appears in the form of melt run-off stuff, and it is very cold. When you have a pile of snow or ice, melt starts from the bottom, where it comes in contact with the ground, so along shoveled thoroughfares, you get these sheets of ice that stick out and hover about a quarter inch above the surface of the road. These are fun to step on, because there's a muffled thump when the piece breaks off and falls beneath you. When there is a lot of accumulation and a lot of ice, water has nowhere to go, so it pools.

2. Slush. Slush is snow and water mixed together. Sometimes it falls from the sky like that, as sleet; this happens when snow falls at slightly above freezing temperatures, so that what starts out as snow becomes soggy, heavy, and splatty before it hits the ground. That stuff is annoying, because it's very heavy and therefore difficult to shovel, but when accumulated snow gets damp and turns to translucent silvery slush, it's worse. Slush is usually seen in travelled thoroughfares, where unplowed snow gets crushed by feet and wheels passing by. When mixed with road dirt, slush takes on a brownish tinge but still carries all the other properties of pure slush. If your foot so much as GRAZES a pile of slush, it INSTANTLY becomes numb with cold and sopping wet. Your socks will become saturated, even when you're wearing waterproof boots.

3. Ice. Most of us are familiar with ice. When it accumulates on the roads, it is very slippery. Sometimes, if it is thin and freezes quickly, it becomes difficult to detect and is therefore called "black ice" because it looks exactly like the road. Black ice is not only invisible, it is the most slippery. Sometimes even when you step on ice carefully, you fall anyway. A safer variety of ice is the white stuff, peppered with holes where an inadequate salting or sanding job melted little holes in the ice but do not otherwise dislodge it.

4. Snow. Snow is white and poofy and pretty. In cold temperatures, it is usually light and does not adhere together well, but nor does it soak one's pants or socks or shoes on contact. At just below freezing temperatures, snow is heavier and better suited for making snowballs and snowmen, but more difficult to shovel. Snow that sits on the ground long enough tends to develop an adhesive property, especially on top where it is exposed to the sun. Disturbing snow at the adhesive stage results in clumpy snow globules instead of a fine powder. Wait long enough for the top to solidify, and you can try walking on snow without falling through. Sometimes the almost ice-like top layer will support your weight. More often it'll break open, sending your leg plummeting into the three foot powdery layer of snow underneath.

So on the way home from Carmen, I navigated an unplowed minefield of all of the above.

The top layer was an assortment of cloddy type snow and slush. At first sight, it seemed clear that walking across it would be a matter of stepping on the cloddy type snow and avoiding the slush.

The middle layer, positioned directly underneath and wholly blocked from view, was about a four inch layer of water, more in some areas.

The bottom layer was the "mystery" layer, consisting in some areas of pure slush and in other areas of ice. The important part about the bottom layer is that it was completely intact, because otherwise the middle water of water would have somewhere to drain. The total height of all the layers was around a foot.

So I'm sure you can imagine what it was like. "Take a very long step, safe! Look around. There's a promising looking spot, but it's a bit far away. Maybe I can use that littler spot as a stepping stone. Ok, here goes. NO!! Water trap!! Aagh! Ok, look around. That spot looks like a good place for my next step. Whoa! Ice!"

Winter rules.