Ankara'da çok kar var!

Of the places I've taught in (which, only really totals Canada, England and Turkey), I never would have suspected to have school cancelled due to snow in....Turkey?  But yes, that is what happened.  Unfortnuately, I do not live in Mediterranean Turkey, or even that close to it.  I live in Central Anatolia, where it actually gets quite cold and snowy in the winter.  Now, when I say cold, I do not mean cold as in Canadian cold.  The temperature rarely actually goes below zero degrees here, and tends to hover in the positives for most of winter.  I thought winter was pretty much over (Didn't someone tell me that March 1 is the first day of Spring?  Wouldn't we then assume that after that day weather would get warmer and, um, well, less winter-like?)  But no, and no, this is not the case in Ankara, the city that tends to benefit from both extremes of weather...scorching dry heat and cold dry winters.




Where am I?  I thought I moved to TURKEY!  Why is there SNOW here?


On Tuesday, the students and teachers were dismissed a half hour early from school, that is, classes were cancelled at 3:00 instead of the usual 3:30.  While making this announcement, the announcement that school would be cancelled for Wednesday was also relayed.  Sweet!  A day off!  Yes!  When we heard this, I immediately started making snow day plans for myself and the other teachers.  We planned a movie and ordering food night for Tuesday and cookie baking for Wednesday.  Well, the thing with days off work due to snow is that beyond the age of 8 playing in the snow loses it's appeal.  Unless you are Miss Mandy, of course (I say this with love, Mandy).  We quickly learned that: A) no sane food delivery places are willing to go out in a blizzard to deliver food to Bilkent. B) Our alcohol supplies are running dangerously low and C) Mehmet (the man who runs the canteen beside my flat) WAS actually open today, so we could stock up on the essentials (water, milk, chips and cookies).


Mehmets Bufet and the man standing outside who I practised speaking my baby Turkish with: 'Çok kar! Ben Kanadaliyum ama kar istemıyorum!  Kanada'da çok kar var!' Which translates to: 'There is much snow! I am Canadian but I don't want snow! There is much snow in Canada!'

Eilidh and I made a super brunch for lunch, and we have discovered that no matter how many times we make brunch, which is alot, we can never seem to have it cooked in under two hours.  Now, that said we had to do everything from scratch, including peeling and chopping fresh potatoes to make hashbrowns, but still, it's never happened to be any quicker than that.  It was a classic Western breakfast: fried mushrooms, roasted potatoes, tomatoes, poached eggs and toast.  The only thing missing is the bacon, but lets not talk about that sore subject, shall we?  We sat around for the early afternoon eating and drinking coffee.  It was really nice.  Then we pulled on our snowboots and trekked one appartment down to Mandy's place where we enjoyed making and eating chocolate chip cookies, Kraft Dinner and a watching a movie.

View from my snow-covered balcony.

We find out at midday that the primary school I work at has cancelled school for tomorrow as well, and we're waiting to find out more about Friday...so any suggestions for things to do during my snow days?  I've got alot of time and not much to do with it :)