Glorious! Brilliant! Sparkling, swirling, soft big intricate flakes come swirling down around me in a rainstorm avalanche of sweet powdering perfection. It is snowing! At last! Like rain falling after a long drought, the snow comes pouring down unexpectedly one afternoon. Suddenly the sky is full of clouds, and then, as I ride up the lift alone for another afternoon of teaching myself to ski, I notice that the clouds surrounding the Zugspitze look terribly ominous and then, suddenly I see my first snowflake since I have been in the Alps. And then there are many of them. I tear off my goggles so that I can see the full brilliance of the whiteness of the white snow. Then I put on my headphones blasting Beethoven's Sixth Symphony and barrel down the hill through swirling eddies of snow, which flies into my eyes as my poles slam into the snow in perfect time with the brilliant rolling rollicking happiness of the third movement of the fantastic music. What could be better?