Snowfall in the city of Helsinki in November.
One early November evening when it suddenly started to snow in Helsinki, Finland, I saw three older ladies transform into little girls.
Lugging heavy suitcases, they prepared to get off the tram after having pored over Google Maps for 10 minutes, trying to determine their exact destination. As they waited for the tram to stop, we all noticed the rain ... except the droplets looked a little bit “thick”.
Wait a minute, I thought, this was not rain, this was snow!
The ladies jumped off the tram when it stopped and looked up at the skies, laughing, giggling, their arms outstretched and their palms open, catching the falling snow. Their suitcases – neon green, silver and powder blue – stood on the pavement, “witnessing” this magical moment.
I guessed this was their first snowfall. All of them looked like they were in their 50s, but I guess they spent most, if not all of their lives, in hot and sunny South-East Asia (they sounded like they were from Singapore but I could be wrong), where “winters” are just a little cooler than the “summers”.
And even then, the drop in temperature is thanks to the year-end monsoon season, where it gets a little too wet.
That night, on the streets of Helsinki, I saw the ladies happily experience real winter as they danced in the snow, jumping up and down, giddy with excitement.
Looking at them from the tram window I thought about how I was just like them, only a few days ago when I saw white fluffy “cotton” descend from the skies for the very first time. This was a thousand kilometres north of Helsinki, in the Finnish Lapland.
I knew exactly how they felt.
Later that evening, while walking back to the hotel in Helsinki, the snow flakes descended on us again. It reminded me of the wispy pieces of cotton wool that I’d use to decorate my toy Christmas tree as a child. Only this time, the cotton melted into little water puddles upon making surface contact.
The snowfall was pretty heavy I thought but hardly anyone sought shelter. The locals opened their umbrellas and carried on walking. To them, this was a usual thing. They were even prepared for it with their umbrellas.
Meanwhile, us tourists from the tropics were a different story. Although we carry umbrellas too back home, it was more to shield ourselves from the sun or the rain. Here, there was neither – at least not at this time of the year. Instead, there was snow. It made us want to stand under the open skies without protection and let the snow touch our skin and melt.
But this was exactly what we had travelled all the way to experience. We flew halfway across the world for this and I don’t think any of us regretted it.
We stopped to fully embrace the experience, taking videos and photos, and singing Christmas songs in our heads as we raised our hands up towards the dark Finnish skies to catch the snow. It was silly, maybe, but magical at the same time.
When we reached our hotel, we stood outside the door for a few minutes to dust off all the accumulated snow from our heavy jackets, gloves, hats and especially from our shoes.
The writer and her husband decked in heavy winter jackets, enjoying the snow. — Photos: SAYANTANI ROY
Suddenly, the hotel door flung open and a man rushed out, still in the process of covering his head with a woollen cap and wrapping a scarf around his neck. Behind him in full speed emerged a young woman.
They scampered up to the streets and started jumping with joy as the last of that evening’s snow fell. Within minutes it stopped, but by then they had managed to take some photos and videos.
For the second time that night, we watched someone experience possibly their first snowfall.
At some point the guy turned towards us. He had a big smile on his face, his eyes wide with amazement.
He caught us looking at the both of them, smiling. He started to laugh, gesticulating towards the skies.
I said, “So lucky, you just caught it.”
He responded, almost breathlessly, “Yes, we almost missed it. We came running the minute we saw it from our room window.”
From his accent, I could tell that he was probably Filipino. Another tourist from the tropics, I thought, here in this little “snow globe”, just like us, just like the ladies, all experiencing the magic of snowfall for the first time.
The views expressed are entirely the writer’s own.
