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!