Do you want to build a snowman?

It’s a snow day in Istanbul. This “Girl Raised in the South” had no idea what a snow day really meant. I thought it was restricted to kids in school, but when you work on a very steep hill, it makes it very unsafe to get to work so we didn’t have to go today.

The snow’s been phenomenal. There’s been something like a meter and a half, and it broke a record set in 1987. And it’s still snowing. The airport has pretty much closed down (much to the chagrin of a colleague trying to get to Sri Lanka) and not much is going on.

The mall, however, was open as usual, so a couple colleagues and I went to see “La La Land,” which cleaned house yesterday at the Golden Globes. It wasn’t quite what I expected – I was thinking it would be almost nonstop music like “Chicago” or “Grease,” but I liked it.

Moroccan

After we got back, I played in the snow with a colleague, a neighbor and two dogs. Had so much fun. I’d mentioned to my colleague that I’d never built a snowman, so she set out to show me how it was done. We wound up putting together a little guy about a meter tall. My fingers were completely numb but it was so much fun.

We grabbed some cardboard and tried to fashion sledding, but our driveway, while too steep to drive, wasn’t really steep enough to help us accelerate downhill. Plus the dogs kept jumping on us. There were a couple other neighbors wandering around and I’m sure they were completely amused by the three foreign adult women playing around in the snow.

LL Bean

The pups loved it. Britta, the Doberman, loves fetching snowballs. Somehow, she managed to nail me with one. I’m still figuring that one out.

After building my first snowman, I tried to do a snow angel. My first attempt turned out well but them Britta pounced on me, ruining it before I could get a picture. So we moved on to another area of the apartment complex and I fell backwards with a thwomp – and then realized not only was my butt super cold, but the snow was way too deep to move anything to make an angel. I was laughing so hard I couldn’t coordinate with my extremities anyway. Too bad the phone totally froze up – I’m sure the video could have made me famous.

Since the snow hasn’t stopped, we’re having another snow day tomorrow, although I will probably go in at some point. Since I walk to work, I figure I might as well try, and there’s some stuff I’d like to do at work. There are no other movies showing that interest me (Hidden Figures isn’t here yet) so I need to come up with something to do.

Pakistani, from Sarajevo

Next weekend, I’m supposed to leave town again and I am just hoping that it works out. It’ll be the second time I’ve tried to get to this destination and if something happens I’m going to call it off. Fate might not want me to go to Moldova.

Even though I went last weekend, I might be adding Sarajevo on the “go to” list again. It was that cool of a place, and it’d be worth going again in the spring or summer.

I bought a rug there totally on the spur of the moment. It’s a small Pakistani rug, about a meter square. And I swear, the cost of the flight, the hotel and the rug probably cost less than the same rug would have cost in Istanbul. So I figure I go back and get a bigger rug and therefore save even more money.

Funky Turkish, from Cappadocia

When I got home with the rug – handmade rugs fold right up and I put it in my carryon – I put it in a little hall where three rooms meet and kind of stepped back and looked at my rugs collectively. I realized they pretty much all look alike. I like the Aztec-ish diamond prints. Very tribal. I have a Moroccan blanket and it’s also got Berber tribe markings.

At some point, I am going to have to buy a house, and hardwood, laminate or tile floors is going to be a requirement. Almost every square inch of the floor will be covered with some rug that I’ve bought somewhere. I really like textiles. I could buy rugs and blankets all day long.

I have a big light rug that I bought in Morocco, used, for about $20. I love this hall rug I got from LL Bean, too. I have two little rugs that I guess I bought at some secondhand store, probably in Detroit, and now the little hall one, plus the 4x6 Turkish one I bought, only it’s unlike any Turkish one I’ve seen so far. It’s stripes, not flowers. And I really like stripes!