Snowflakes

This morning, I went with Roman to take Ema sledding. (No, the picture I've posted has nothing to do with the entry, but it's Prague looking pretty at Christmastime. What more could you ask for?) We got all bundled up because it's -7 (that's 19 degrees Fahrenheit) or something out there (it was -10 earlier but we waited and it got a teeny bit warmer).

We trudged out - don't you love that crunching sound of snow beneath your feet? - to a little hill covered with kids. I stood on the hill while Roman went down with Ema, and watched.

At some point I looked down and gasped. Hundreds of little snowflakes were clinging to my black wool coat. Not the snowflakes like we get in Portland - little wet clumps of snow - but real snowflakes, that looked like the kind you cut out of paper! And, because it was so cold, they stayed like that: 6 little hooked arms radiating away from the center. I couldn't believe how pretty they were, and I can't remember ever seeing snowflakes that looked so much like, well, snowflakes.

I do remember, one year long long ago, when we lived on Morrisson street, and it was snowing, we ran for the microscope. We caught the flakes on plastic slides and slid them under the lens quickly, trying to catch a glimpse of their shape before they melted. (You see? Another random memory that I haven't thought of in years, and here, today, in PRague, it comes back to me.)

But these ones, today, were so much bigger!