Winter is short in Des Moines re? You must me kidding or you have never lived in Iowa in the winter. DSM has one brutal winter season. From Mid october to Mid April. If you call it short then what is the definiton of long winter? I must say that last year winter was mild. Don't know about this year as I have already moved out.

DSM is pretty village setting town. Nothing fancy to brag about other than peace and quietness. No traffic no hassle. Go to work, come home and relax on your couch and watch tv, eat masu bhat. Most of the nepalese here are from Maharishi university of management, couple of DV wallas and hundreds of Bhutanese refugee settlers. One thing I noticed was people who came directly to DSM loved DSM and people who came from other part of USA hated DSM.