Arriving in a Winter Wonderland

Forgive me for not being able to wax eloquent today, but I've just returned from an insane week of travelling work and my brain is no longer functioning. I'll begin posting about the trip tomorrow. But I wanted to speak about today's sensation while it's still fresh.

I left Istanbul last week among rumors of snow. I arrived in Frankfurt in the midst of a rare snow, which melted quite quickly. But the disappointment that I was going to miss Istanbul's snow melted with that touchdown, as I got a few moments of icy delight.

Today produced a twilight zonish feeling with the touchdown of the plane. We'd left a crisp, clear, sunshiny Germany early this morning. We flew above the clouds where it was also clear and sunshiny. Our minds played tricks on us and we expected it to be clear and sunshiny in Istanbul. As we were about to make our descent, we noticed the clouds we were flying over, and commented on how we'd never seen clouds quite like that. As we descended and landed, we understood why--they were snowstorm clouds!

The plane landed and began to gently rock back and forth, as if we were riding one of the boats on the Bosporus. We looked out the window and saw the snow was blowing horizontally--the wind was that strong that it was rocking our plane! With what looked about 8 inches of snow on the runway, the captain said in broken English that we needed to wait until we could progress forward to the (what's it called?) tarmac?

The city I entered today seemed so different than the city I'd left a week ago. Covered in white, quiet and still. Did snow introduce a new Bayram? We asked our taxi driver how long it had been snowing--4 nights was the response. Wow. There were hardly any cars on the roads, and the ones that were there were driving miraculously slow and cautious! I like the effect snow has on Istanbul even more than that a holiday has on it.

And now...the bed calls. Good night from the winter wonderland.