Ha. Don't be fooled by the pretty pink and white flowers blooming on the trees in Ankara. As a fellow Fulbrighter, Michael, was told by one of his students: You can't rely on March! Apparently, you can't rely on April either...Yesterday, it was chilly but generally beautiful [i.e. sunny]. My GIS class started circa 1:40 pm [sunny] and ended circa 4:30 pm [still sunny]. I was going to a seder at a friend's house post-class, so I caught a dolmus to make my way over there.
The ODTU campus is seated quite high relative to downtown and when you're leaving on the dolmus you can see down into the city center. Like I said, it was pretty sunny on campus but do you remember how I mentioned microclimates? Well, apparently Ankara itself has a number of them. Looking into the city as we passed through Kapi 4, all I could see was brooding, angry, one might say 'one seriously pissed off bull'-like, pitch black clouds. "Oh shucks. It's raining." I thought. Unfortunately, I was sorely mistaken...
As the dolmus made it's way into the city center we gradually went from 1. sunny to 2. cloudy to 3. drizzling to 4. torrential downpour to 5. HAIL to 6. SNOW to 7. BLIZZARD CONDITIONS. For heaven's sakes, it's APRIL! And, as per usual, I was wholly unprepared.
As a sidenote, apparently I really shouldn't listen to the weatherman who speaks Turkish but sounds like Sean Connery--he lies when he tells me that it's going to be a balmy, sunny 64 with only a slight breeze that will flow through my hair and make it whisp around in an appealing way to onlookers and will be nothing but pleasant. No, no, Mr. Wannabe Scottish Turk Man. Check those radar screens again or maybe consider retiring...a legitimate option seeing as you're pretty old at this point. Ach! Damn you scottish accents, wooing me into blind belief!
Anyway, back to my unpreparedness. You see, I have these great moccasins. They are black and I love them and I wear them all the time. And, I discovered a few weeks ago during a rainstorm, there is a hole in each of the soles. Well, surprise surprise, I was wearing them yesterday too. The weatherman PROMISED me I would be ok! There was no indication of impending wetness in the weather report!
So, long story short, I get lost trying to get to my friend's apartment, have a migrane, and manage to soak in so much water through my feet that my skin gets waterwrinkles up to my knees.
Sure snow insulates, until it melts! I can not even begin to tell you how cold I was. And if you know anything about my relationship with the cold you can only imagine how very unhappy I was. In the end, I arrived where I was going much too early and so ended up at the nearby mall drinking coffee and thoroughly reading [i.e. flipping pages] of Turkish Cosmopolitan...which was entirely incomprehensible to me. But, I did learn something useful--I can tell you the colors for First Season's fashions: blue [cobalt], yellow [bright, bold], gold, silver, white, black and white, and sporty...because 'sporty' is a color apparently.
From all of this I have decided that I am just never believing anyone about anything ever again. You may think I'm being rash. Well, you're wrong. I've also decided to buy new shoes as I believe it may be the key to solving all the problems that I ever have in my life. Yes, all of them.
Springtime my butt. I am so gullible! I was always taught that you can't trust trees and men with fake scottish accents. I was just too weak...I sure as heck won't make the mistake again.
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