October Snow

A Bit of Magic

Note: This was written on Monday, thus the reference to dorms, I have since moved to a wonderful host family!

 
I was watching Ellen DeGeneres dubbed in Turkish wehn I heard sceaming coming from the next dorm room

"Eeeeee Ahhhhh" (yes it actually sounded something like that)

Having become accostomed to the fact that Turks are, in general, louder than American, I thought nothing of it until Tugce came running in, looking lke a child on Christmas morning.

"Kyla! Gel Gel!" she implored "It's snow! snow!"

I was pulled into the dorm room, where I looked out the window.

I could see where their confusion came from.  The Precipitation falling from the clouds certainly wasn't rain, but it was a far cry from snow.  Turkey was going to have to do a lot better than that to impress this Alaskan.

By first period, I decided that it was sleeting.  The rest of the class, however, inisted that it was snowing, and, of course, that meant they couldn't possibly pay attention.  The teacher attempted to close the curtains to regain some order, only to have them yanked open again.

"Kyla! Snow!" various classmates chorused throuhout the day; and,  at the begining of third period, I finally gave it my official Alaskan seal of approval.

Someone in the class began a heavily accented version of "Jingle Bells" as the snow fell thicker and began to stick.

"This is the biggest snow we have ever seen!" Burak explaineed to me, the normally serious and "cool" sixteen year old bouncing in his seat like the rest of the class.

I had to admit, even by my standards, it was snowing pretty had. Huge wet flakes stuck together and fell quickly to the ground covering cars and rooftops on their way down.

"Maybe you bring snow" Burak joked. The rest of the erupted in laughter along with the teacher, who hadn't even bothered to start trying to teach anything.

I started to worry about how the driving conditions would be.  Driving is scary enought in Turkey without icy roads adn windshields. Butt, as it turns out, there was nothing to worry about. There was no sign of the fluffy white stuff by lunch.  Students stared disparinglyout the windows at dripping trees and muddy puddles, the only reminder of that morning's snow.

At the end of the day, the huge fluffy coats and scarves grabbed hurridly that morning were dragged home again to be filed away in closets and drawers for another day.

I was secretly relieved,  I didn't come to Turkey because I wanted snow in October.  But I was glad for the short-lived flurries.  Although they were but a distant memory they left behind a bit of magic.

In other news:


I think this is the third time I have written this, but it's worth repeating. I have a new host family! I have gone from the oldest of three girls is Alaska to the youngest of three girls in Edirne. Actually, I have four host sisters all together, but two of them are grown, and live in Istanbul.

I attended my first meeting for Model United Nations Club on Thursday, and it sounds like that will be a lot of fun. The whole competition is in English, so I'm hoping that will work to my advantage.

A school trips to Istanbul is also in the works.  It will mostly be touring Universities there, but I have heard there will be shopping as well.