Snow. Such a simple phenomenon, really. The existing water droplets in clouds transform into ice crystals because of the low temperature in the atmosphere. The ice crystals that fall to the ground when the cloud is ready to release them are called snowflakes, and they are the perfect, tiny, hexagonal, unique centerpieces of this type of precipitation that billions of people experience every day, all around the world.

But for someone who is happening upon this wonder for the first time, it can be an almost miraculous experience. The first time I really saw snow was the Friday before my time at The Washington Center began. I was with my parents inside Macy's buying ear warmers and thermal underwear and things for the cold I had only heard about in movies or seen in cartoons, when I received a text from my other friend from Miami who is also spending the semester here at TWC. I ran out of the Macy's and into the freezing cold, and caught my first glimpse of something so amazing that it doesn't even let itself be captured in pictures.

Now I know that it was only really flurries falling from the sky. Hah, listen to me. "Flurries." You know, I could sit in Miami Beach and identify different kinds of sand and seashells on the ground, tell you about the types of tides and the many marine animals that wash up on the shore, but I have the vocabulary of a 4-year-old when it comes to snow. Regardless, it snowed long enough for some of it to accumulate on the ground, and I did something for the first time at age 20 that most people grow out of at age 12: created my first snowball.

Fabiana and her first snowball!

A couple of weeks later, one of the Alumni in Residence (AR) at the RAF (Residential Academic Facility, remember?) organized a walking tour of Georgetown. I'd try to explain to you how to get there, but I'll just give you this instead (start: 1005 3rd Street NE, end: Georgetown. Don't forget to click on "By public transit"! Unless you want to walk there. [You don't want to walk there.]). We all arrived in Georgetown, and after explaining to us how to get back home, the AR let us walk around and do as we pleased. After going into most of the shops to escape the cold and eating lunch at Serendipity, we met up with some more friends and decided to go ice skating. Ice skating. Like,...outside. IN THE SNOW. At first, I was completely resistant to the idea; I was already almost skating on the sidewalks, trying not to slip on the wet, icy ground. But when we arrived at the outdoor rink, got our skates on, and were so cold that our fingers and toes were numb, we had the time of our lives. The pouring snow was unlike anything I had ever seen before; the snowflakes were bigger, the ground was blanketed, and our coats were whiter than ever, covered with what what Annemarie and I naively called "real snow."

Since then, I've been describing that time the only way I know how: it was like a movie. It's easy to look at The Washington Center website and see all the interns dressed in suits and ties, blazers, stockings, and heels and think that this is just a professional program, leaving us no time to do anything else; but don't forget about the new, exciting experiences that D.C. has to offer, and that TWC organizers really want you to get to know: the monuments for the history enthusiasts, the science museums for the aerospace engineers-to-be, the metro for those who have lived in small towns all their lives, and snow for someone who has never seen it.