Then the magic began. Once those thousand — what am I saying, thousands, millions, none of us with frozen fingers could count that high anymore — Christmas lights switched on, the park quite literally lit up.
The cold, mind you, was merciless. Noses turned a suspicious shade of red, not unlike Rudolph the reindeer's, and steam poured from our mouths like from old steam locomotives. But that was exactly the charm of it! Since we absolutely had to warm up somehow, an entirely spontaneous, wonderfully romantic bout of huddling broke out. Under the pretext of "oh, my left elbow is freezing," we squeezed under each other's arms, warmed ourselves against each other's bodies, and discovered that winter romance is, in fact, an excellent team sport.
Uroš's magic and the Milky Way on earth
All that romantic shivering, of course, had its supreme conductor. Under Uroš's leadership, our frozen march turned into a genuinely intimate experience. Mixing determination with humour, Uroš steered our group through the light tunnels as if leading us through a tropical paradise rather than a frozen park. His energy created such a magical atmosphere that, for a moment, you genuinely forgot you still had toes.
The view of thousands of lights reflected in the winter darkness was indescribable. It was as if the Milky Way had descended straight down to earth and spread itself out among the trees of the Arboretum. Our souls were fed on pure romance, our eyes full of glow, and our bodies... well, our bodies were in urgent need of first aid.