With the temperatures dropping below 10 degrees and the Christmas lights going up the past weekend, it’s time to consider how to best get through the cold and dark winter days. As a self-diagnosed Christmas fanatic this shouldn’t be too hard but for those who struggle with the late sunrises and early sunsets and the chilling winds, here are some steps as to how to make your Durham winter better.
Step 1:
Invest in fluffy socks or slippers. I live on the ground floor of my house and can honestly say my life would be so much harder had I not bought both thick socks and slippers. To thoroughly enjoy the winter or at least survive it, this is a necessity.
Even better if your grandmother can knit you a pair, those are a classic.
Step 2:
Hot beverages. By far the best part of the winter months is the consistent access to hot beverages that you normally would not be able to buy. The obvious ones are the Starbucks Christmas drinks, sweet and filled with delicious Christmas nostalgia and all of the calorie guilt. What with toffee nut, eggnog and gingerbread lattes mixed with various hot chocolates and new mulled fruit, what’s not to love? Yet the absolute best part of this season is the mulled wine. A hot beverage with alcohol? Sold.
Step 3:
Know where to go. To me the best form of socializing is meeting someone in an adorable café where we can spend hours and the best part about doing that in the winter? It gets dark and it becomes that much more cozy. To achieve the ultimate café experience, the important thing is to be aware of your options. There are the chain cafes: Starbucks, Costa, Café Nero but Durham’s quaint, independent cafes are one of its true gems.
The first and definitely most popular is Flat White. With amazing sweet things and a chai latte do die for, there is no better place to be. The general atmosphere is good on any typical day but it is particularly inviting on those cold, winter days.
If you’re not a coffee fanatic and you’d rather go with classic hot chocolate, Leonard’s is the place to go. With various different hot chocolate flavors that are hard to fathom and a slightly out of the way location, it’s an adorable place to spend a couple of hours with a friend or a book.
Then you have Vennel’s and Treats where you can get an amazing bowl of warm soup with some bread for a reasonable, student-friendly price. Whenever the winter months set in, soup is the way to go.
Honestly Durham has a plethora of cozy, adorable cafes, I firmly believe if you pick any of them, you won’t be disappointed.
Step 4:
Surround yourself with people who make you enjoy your days more. Spend time with those that make you happy you’re here and happy that you chose Durham. I live with five of my closest friends and they make any day better with their mere presence. When you surround yourself with those kinds of people, you feel grateful.
Step 5:
Don’t be so serious! Take some time out of your day to just take a break and drink some hot chocolate or tea. Don’t spend every waking moment writing this formative and doing this tutorial prep and that summative. Everyone deserves a break sometimes and when you do, that’s when you realize that maybe the cold weather isn’t such a bad thing after all and there are so many things to look forward to when the temperature drops.