Natural Phenomena. Rainbow Season Begins.

The sun sets at 10:30pm in the north and brightens my window to wake me long before it's time to wake. And despite temperatures in the 30s C, Kokshetau was once again covered in a blanket of white -- but the blanket wasn't snow this time, it was cottonwood fluff that descended on the city like a blizzard, getting stuck on clothes and in noses and making little flammable piles in corners and along curbs.

If this wasn't enough, after a rainstorm yesterday evening I looked out my balcony window to see an enormous, Belmont and Clark-bright rainbow stretching 180 degrees across from horizon to horizon. I went into a rainbow frenzy, running around in the rain taking pictures and asking every passerby, did you see the rainbow? Thank you, yes, they all had. I called Gulshat from my corner store and yelled at her to run out to the street immediately to witness this miracle, to the polite amusement of the shopkeepers. After the rainbow faded and I regained my senses, I concluded that incredible rainbows like this are much more commonplace here than in America. In fact, the only thing that people seemed to think was remarkable about this one was that it was the first of the year. Rainbow season has begun!