spring is coming

really!  i can feel it.  the snow has melted and the temperature in ankara has been quite mild, even warm.  spring is definitely my favorite season in turkey- the air changes and suddenly it feels... fresh.   this morning i confirmed our next visitor- verna will be spending a week with us in april.  by then it will really be warming up, and we will probably go down to the coast for a weekend on the beach.  planning a trip to the beach definitely means spring.

to celebrate the change in seasons ben and i have been getting back into our routine at the gym, which feels really good.  after our workout we had a nice saturday afternoon yesterday.  we went downtown to run some errands and then stopped by mickey's, our friend's bar, for some celebratory cocktails on the deck.  we spent the evening on the porch, listening to music and enjoying the sunset, then cooked a delicious steak dinner with some incredible asparagus i picked up at the market.  asparagus in ankara?  another sign that spring is coming!

this thursday i'm off to london for a week with my dear family/friends, the sabaneghs.  sarah will be there, too, and we'll spend a week catching up all together as we wander the city.  i'll be sure to post some pictures when i get back.  until then, enjoy the signs of spring!

snow day!

blog access has been restored, thanks to ben's resourcefulness (out-smarting the internet).  turkey's still blocked but ben has devised a handy-dandy way for me to get around that... though i won't reveal our secret on here : )  on that note, a new blog post!

today is a snow day in ankara... the first since i moved here!  most everything is shut down, including our office.  last night we left at 5pm on the dot and narrowly avoided being caught in the 2-hour commute everyone else experienced as they tried to get around the accidents & cars blocking the roads.  snow means something a little different in turkey- as there are few plows, and plenty of cars that have no business being on the roads even in the best conditions.  on top of that, ankara doesn't typically get much snow (this is, by far, the most we've ever seen), so people aren't very good at driving in it.  last night we took an alternate route home, since the main road leading to our house climbs approx. 1,000 feet from the base to our road, and tends to be bad in snow.  we saw an accident, and many cars pulling crazy maneuvers (u-turns in front of coming cars) when they realized their vehicles could not get traction going uphill.  one of our friends who lives up near us spent 2 hours trying to get out of the down-town valley area, only to give up and wait it out at a restaurant downtown.

this morning ben and i woke up to find it was still snowing with no end in sight (they're predicting it will last into the weekend).  we've got a major meeting next week & lots of visitors arriving from ny this weekend, so we're hoping it ends sooner than later, in time for things to get cleaned up.  i know our visitors from ny were hoping for a nice change from the weather they've had all winter, but it looks like that won't be the case!

view from our apartment, looking down on the road

our crv from above, which will be staying put!

blocked!

if you're wondering about the lapse in blog posts, it's because i've been blocked from blogging : (  turkey has blocked all access to blogger sites from within the country.  somebody posted some sort of copyrighted content, or something like that.  i'm only able to access it now through a web app, sooo annoying!  this seems to happen from time to time (we only recently regained access to youtube after someone posted a video slandering ataturk). apparently it's a court ruling that can only be removed by google.  until they remove the block, i'll do my best to find sneaky ways to access my site, but uploading content (pictures, etc.) will be nearly impossible.

let's just hope it doesn't last too long... stay tuned!