Attack of the killer swans.

The New Year started off with some beautiful weather -- freaking cold, of course, but SO sunny!

New Years Day at the dorm.

Yes, that's a wine glass in the bird feeder.

We went for an amazing walk around the University Park next to the dorm. The ponds were frozen over so the birds were just walking around on them. See below...

The next few days were also sunny! Unreal. So I decided that I had to take advantage of this and go for a jog. It was honestly the most beautiful, picturesque jog I have ever seen. I jogged through fields with horses, tiny paths enclosed by brush on both sides with a canopy of trees overhead, over bridges with streams and swans below -- it was unreal. I felt like I was jogging on a movie set like Anne of Green Gables.

Since I loved seeing all the ducks the day before (and was sooo jealous watching people feed them), I made my own little ziploc bag full of duck food (i.e. leftover bread which I carefully ripped into tiny duck-food-sized portions) and stuffed it in a pocket during the jog. When we came to a part of the river that wasn't frozen, we got the bag out, and it was as if we rang the supper bell. I think the ducks know the sound of rustling ziploc bag, because like 80 ducks swarmed us in like 9 seconds flat. I was totally cool with this, and happily threw lots of food around, so that they wouldn't fight over it. Then, however, 6 huge, and I mean HUGE swans arrived. Swans look super pretty and calm when they're all swimming in the lake, but when they run at you full speed standing fully-erect, they're freaking terrifying! The swans heads came just below my chin! They stomped all over the poor ducks and ran right at me -- no, they ran right at my bag labeled "duck food." I tried backing up, but they bum rushed me. I panicked, turn and ran, but they literally chased me... so, terrified, I screamed, threw the bag in the air, and sprinted down the path... past the little British kids who stared at me, the crazy yank. Freaking swans.