[Student View] My first experience of snow!

Ever since I came to Cardiff, I have been dying to see snow.

Hailing from a city like Delhi, where the average temperature never goes below 30-degrees Celsius for the better part of the year, I was confident that my eternal dream of seeing a soft white quilt spread across the courtyard would finally come true here.

The dream was on the verge of getting trampled when the inhabitants here told me that it "rarely snows in Cardiff". Everytime somebody would say that the winter was going to be “warm and wet”, my heart would plummet further. This year, however I have been lucky.

I saw snow. I felt snow. I walked in it. I trudged in it. I slipped on it. And I experienced all kinds of it.

One winter evening in December, while walking back from the shopping centre, small white flakes began to fall on me. I thought it was dandruff! And then I thought it was rice crispies. And then, my friend who had accompanied me, exclaimed "Its Snowing!" And my reaction was "THIS is SNOW!" I had a very different version of snow in my head. Anyway, I captured as much as I could.

That was my first. And then it never ended. The little rice flakes would fall in great numbers and form a blanket, which would soon turn hard ice, which would soon melt into sludge (thanks to the bright sun the next day!).

As December grew on, the weather became quite changeable. The mornings would see bright sunshine and a chilly breeze and the evenings would witness snowfall. At one point, in a span of an hour, I saw snowfall and the sun, each 'phenomenon' lasting for fifteen minutes alternately.

January 5^th was a momentous day for snow-seekers like me. It snowed. Big, fat flakes of snow. And when the snow fell down, it wasn't hard as ice. It was soft, flimsy like candyfloss. Everyone was out: making snowmen and throwing snowballs.

And the next morning, I saw my dream. A white blanket of soft snow right outside my window.

The snow experience in Cardiff has been an immense delight for me so far.

 Supriya is an international student from Delhi, India
She is studying MA International Public Relations

You can read her first blog post here.

[Fun] The International Office builds a snowman!

It snowed in Cardiff last night so the International Office built a snowman today! Building a snowman is a traditional activity in the UK.

It doesn't snow very often in Cardiff but recently we have had some wintry weather. It's exciting and lots of fun for international students. Many of our students have never seen snow before so it's a great experience for them.

Are you a current student? Do you have any pictures of the snow in Cardiff? We would love to see them, e-mail: international@cardiff.ac.uk with your photos or post a link in the comments section.

Stuart