Winter blues...

Sam and I have been keeping it pretty low-key this winter. Despite our trip to France (which was also colder than a witches tit), we have been staying inside and out of trouble. Both being from warmer southern climates, the harsh reality that snow and below freezing temperatures exist more than one day a year hit us like a ton of bricks.

The first day of snow was great. I have never seen snow like this before... Huge white flakes falling from the sky and walking around in snow up to my mid-calf were a marvel. The drive through the mountains where our school is was absolutely gorgeous. You go out and run around in the snow, build snowmen, have snowball fights until your fingers are numb.

Playing in the snow with my students before the hate set in...

Plus, we still had naive hopes of getting a snow day and not having to go to work.

Flash forward two months later. It turns out that the new mayor of Istanbul is from Eastern Turkey and they get snow like this all the time... or much worse. So, no snow days for us. Snow just isn't quite as pretty when you're not laying around with a hot cup of tea in your pajamas. It isn't quite as pretty when you're standing out in the cold for twenty minutes with a persistent cold (from standing around in the cold for 20 minutes a day) waiting for the school bus to come and pick you up.

You start to resent it.


If it weren't so cold I could go out for a walk or shopping, you mutter to yourself while layering every piece of clothing you own onto yourself and hiding under all of the blankets in the house. If the sun would shine for just a minute we might be able to make it to the European side in less than two hours, you think as you gaze out at the grey and bleak world that you have not had a chance to see in months.

So you stay inside. You drink obscene amounts of tea and coffee. You knit, paint, read, and dream of the days that used to be filled with sunshine. You stare at the people outside bundled up in coats and scarves and say to yourself, "How does anyone LIVE when it is this cold?" You nurse your cold with medications that just don't quite do the job... and you wait for the spring.

It's been snowing on and off all day. Sam and I spent the day cleaning, doing laundry, knitting, eating, etc. We were going to go to Bağdat Avenue to get some frozen yogurt and find me some new shoes, but the cold has kept us inside. I'll end this post with some pictures one of my coworkers sent me of my class playing out in the snow before we all started to hate it.