Travel

A Year Wrapped in Snow – One Winter at a Time

Posted on March 1, 2025

I come from a country where it is summer all year around and winter is just a slightly cooler summer, and where snow exists only in movies. But on the first month of 2024, that changed.

Uludağ, Turkey was my gateway to a world I had only imagined. It was the first time I saw snow – real, powdery, untouched. I had seen snowflakes in pictures, but watching them land on my gloves and disappear was something else entirely.

However, I did not know then that the year would come full circle, ending in another snowy embrace.

You know, snow has a beautiful way of marking time. In Turkey, it was the excitement of a new year, of new beginnings. I remember sipping hot chocolate in a tiny café on top the slope, the steam warming my face as I watched children hop on the ski lifts. They were rushing, but I also saw peace – like a pause before the rush of the year ahead.

But time does not stand still. We came back home. The seasons changed, and so did I. As the year unfolded, life swept me up in its usual rhythm – work, studies, and endless fun.

Yet, as the year drew to a close, I found myself once again surrounded by white, this time in Gudauri, Georgia.

The snow, once unfamiliar, had become a friend. We had come to celebrate the end of the year, and fittingly, our birthdays too. The snow in Gudauri was wilder, and untamed. The air was sharper, and the overall atmosphere was more intense. As we rode down the snowy mountains, I could not help but marvel at how far I had come, and how far we had come – not just across countries, but through an unforgettable year.

Despite the contrast in the adventures of Uludağ and Gudauri, there was something familiar. The way snow softens everything, and the way it slows you down just enough to notice the beauty around you. Despite the cold, I felt warm inside, just by thinking of where our year had started and how, in some ways, had come full circle.