"I'm so excited for the snow."

"But I thought you were from the country of Mt. Everest."

This was a normal conversation for me in the days leading up to the snowstorm Jonas. Yes, I'm from Nepal. And whenever I come across a person who does not know where it is, I say, the country of Mt. Everest. But what I realized that most people are not aware of is the fact that Nepal is not all mountainous region. I was born and raised in the capital city, Kathmandu, a city which never gets snow.

So, naturally, when I heard about the upcoming blizzard, I was ecstatic. I had only ever seen snow in the distant Himalayan range. So, on Friday, January 22, I woke up at 7 a.m. to the news that school had been canceled. I peeked outside the window and the view was simply magnificent. Little fluffy flakes of snow fluttering around in the wind. I watched, spellbound as the snow began to accumulate and very soon, the entire campus was shrouded in a magnificent blanket of white.

I was too excited to go back to sleep, so after breakfast when my roommate asked me if I wanted to go build a snowman, I instantly agreed. I followed her suit of dressing up in many layers, gloves, thick boots, woolen cap and whatnot. I was ready to build my first ever snowman.

But two minutes after we stepped out of the dorm I realized that it wasn't as easy as I had anticipated it to be. It was difficult to walk around in the snow or to gauge how deep the snow was in the path. Often times, I found myself buried knee high in the snow. But I thoroughly enjoyed the walk, the fast falling snow around us and the beautiful view of the Colonnade as we walked along.

As we began building the snowman, I learned about the various kinds of snow. (I did not have the slightest clue that it was possible). Packing snow, fluffy snow and what not. Eventually, I understood what my friend meant by, "This isn't the right snow to build a snowman." The snow just crumbled under the pressure and refused to stack up. Nevertheless, we persisted, and in a couple of hours, we had succeeded.

After that, we decided to go sledding. Again, a totally unfamiliar term. We trudged to the slopes behind the library and I saw crowds of people walking around with cardboards and lids of storage containers. In a matter of few minutes, I understood why. At first, it looked scary, but eventually, I found myself sitting on a storage container lid and being pushed down the slope. And it was simply amazing.

The wind seemed to cut my cheeks but I didn't care as I slid down the slope and eventually fell off the lid and landed face first on the snow. My cheeks felt numb as I got up, but I couldn't have been happier. It had been the best first snow ever.