By Katie Donovan

At the beginning of every week, I check my weather app on my iPhone to see what the week has in store for me, and my fellow New Yorkers. While last week showed that Tuesday should have snowed, it barely did. I must have missed the memo about the abundance of snow that was to shower down upon us on Thursday, because it was largely unexpected.

In the early afternoon, my girlfriend, also new to New York, made the announcement that it was in fact, snowing. I figured her excitement was similar to mine at first, seeing flurries and getting pretty enthusiastic. I went to the back window and it was coming down pretty hard compared to most days I’ve seen thus far.

Neither of us had ever been to Central Park before and we had been planning to go for weeks. We quickly built ourselves up with layers of clothes, gloves, scarves, and hats and made our way to the L train towards Manhattan. With ease, we took a connecting train and were on our way to Central Park. Exiting the subway hole in front of Southeast corner of Central Park was one of the most exciting and breathtaking scenes that I’ve yet to experience in New York.

We made our way across the slushy street and into the park. Laughing and taking pictures, uploading videos to Snapchat and trying to not to fall, we couldn’t believe how much snow there was compared to our side streets back home in Brooklyn, less than two hours away. We climbed a small snow covered mound (mountain to us), and I lost my footing and went back down. My already cold legs were frozen and my warm gloves were soaked. I was having too much fun to notice.

Our attempts at a snowball fight fell short, as we couldn’t get the snow to compact tight enough. Every time we through the ball, it exploded into flurries mid-air — lessons learned, yet again.

The park was completely white. The trees, the lakes, the ground, and the walkways were all covered in layers of fresh snow and the city buildings shined through the overcast sky off in the distance. The energy we brought was unparalleled to the size of the park and we found that we’d exhausted our bodies and covered a whopping one-mile radius. Not quite the distance we’d plan to cover, but we felt satisfied anyhow. We vow to go again in the spring so we can see the park in its natural state.

After taking a few more photos, soaking up every ounce of our touristy intuitions, we made our way back to the subway. We stopped in Herald Square on the way home and had dinner. The urge to shop was strong, as we were surrounded by some of the best stores in the area, but we were too tired.

Central Park, even covered in snow and ice, is one of the prettiest things I’ve seen in New York. It really did look like the pictures were scenes from a movie and I’ll never forget the way I felt standing on the small bridge and seeing it all for the first time.