The sunlight filtered through the pines, heavy with snow. From the little window, looking out on the world below, I greeted a new day. Even though the day had long been underway, the mountains kept the sun away. The days were so short. The evenings so long, an endless darkness. The shock to the system was softened by my stop over in my new home in the Netherlands for a few days before leaving one snowy place for another. This new snowy place, however, was the snowiest I have ever seen the world. Fresh from high school, packed with all the old and new that a little town in South Africa could impart, manage to withhold and failed to fully cover up, out in the wide world.