This depressing photo was taken from my apartment balcony this afternoon. No retouching was required to make it a black and white shot.

Upstaters may be amused to know that this dusting of snow was enough to collapse the entire city. Schools sent children home early; city buses were called back to the depot. Some minister of something is on TV warning everyone to stay in their homes.

The Catalonian Snow Plan is in full effect. It is called NEUCAT. Neu (pronounced ‘NAY-oo’) is the Catalan word for snow. The fact that the national snow emergency plan has part of my name in it just adds insult to injury. It seems that even moving to a sun-drenched Mediterranean paradise, my fate is inextricably linked to the white beasties. Touché, winter. Touché.

Download your very own copy of the 38-page NEUCAT snow emergency plan

Thanks to Raquel and Gerardo for a delightful introduction to the Swiss dining experience called raclette. How fun to live in Barcelona and learn about Swiss traditions from Urugayan friends. To bring things full circle we grilled up some txistorra sausages (which are technically Basque I guess) to accompany our cheese-drenched potatoes and veggies.

I just love interactive meals. Assembling a fajita, boiling up some shabu shabu, pregaming on karaoke night with some Korean barbecue…which are your favorite interactive meals? Or are you of the “don’t make me work, just give me the food” camp?

Thank you German Flashmeister Impressum for a great site and Smashing Magazine for including it in your showcase of designs from Deutschland.

An alternative to the text message donation route is the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund. Colbert also lists some worthy organizations at colbernation.com. Please consider giving whatever you can.

Stephen with Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius

The article “With Immigrants, Growing Diversity of New York Police Dept” from the NYT, points out that 1,042 of 5,593 NYPD officers hired since July 2006 were born in countries other than the United States (a total of 88 countries, to be exact).

Here in Barcelona you would have to work quite hard to find diversity in Barcelona’s city police force. Yet nearly 14% of the city’s population was born abroad (up from 3.9% in 2001).

Doesn’t quite add up, does it.