My New Best Friend (a.k.a. Hat)

Most of the middle of today was occupied by a several-hour-long shopping excursion. A significant part of that was dedicated to a search for some more warm winter clothes. My friend from Brazil, who has never seen snow or experienced weather as cold as the temperatures that we're having now (and it's still only September...), is understandably in need of some warmer clothes, but I was doing some serious shopping, too. 

I seem to be a lot better at imagining myself packing warm clothes than at actually putting these clothes together and into a suitcase, a conclusion that I have come to after realizing just how many things there are that I intended to bring but did not. A lot of the warm things that I did manage to get packed initially were later abandoned in one of the many repacking attempts that occurred in the struggle to make my things small enough to fit in my luggage and my luggage light enough to satisfy airline weight limits. Because of all of that, I managed to make it here without a hat or a scarf that is actually warm, though I did remember to pack a lovely pair of mittens and five scarves that are completely useless when it comes to fighting off cold weather.

I am pleased to announce that I have fixed this problem. Today, I successfully found and purchased a new hat and scarf. I began using them immediately (see photo below).

I am well aware of the fact that the scarf and hat do not match each other. It is not for any lack of trying, though. I bought the hat first. I asked if the shop had any scarves for sale, thinking that I might be able to get one that would coordinate with the hat, but they only sold mittens, legwarmers, and socks. I bought the scarf later, from H&M, after spending several minutes inspecting their scarf selection in search of one that would go well with my hat. Unable to find a perfect fit, I settled on this black one.

I'd rather be mismatched but warm, and I even think it's appropriate that the scarf and hat don't match. It parallels the mismatched-ness between the stores I bought them at- the hat from a little shop selling everything from shoes to mittens to bicycles out of a few tiny rooms, the scarf from the fast-fashion world of H&M.

I'm happy with both of my new acquisitions, though I'm especially fond of the hat. I wore it around the dorms all evening, for they are chilly since the heat still has yet to be turned on. I am seriously considering wearing the hat when I go to sleep tonight, since the room is especially cold near the window, which happens to be the exact location of my bed.