Winter wonderland indeed

Greetings to all from the land where the holidays never end! No, I'm serious – Meltem and I sat in a Starbucks the other day and listened to Christmas carols over the PA system. Hey, when you don't understand the lyrics, the songs never get old. There are also twinkling lights still hanging all over town. And, to cap off our (post-) holiday cheer, we've had some real live white stuff. It started as a cute litte flurry:



... but soon got more serious, as our balcony flowers can attest:



And it just kept comin':



The next morning (yesterday) I was even awakened by howling winds as the deluge continued. The main storm dumped a couple of inches, which promptly turned to ice overnight, and it's been slowly accumulating via incessant flurries all day. It's all very pretty to look at from the safety of MelbaBlog Central Command HQ, and it gives me cause to exult once more in the full meaning and implications of the term "walking distance," as in how far it is for me to go to work.

Speaking of that, I actually sampled how the other half lives yesterday morning. I got a late start out the door, so I decided to take a taxi to work. This usually takes about 5 minutes and costs 5 YTL (new Turkish lira). We called a cab, and it showed up about 15 minutes later. Then, since the back streets were impassable, the driver was forced to get on the main road, which was a combination parking lot/skating rink. I bailed out when the meter had hit 5 YTL and we had traveled maybe a hundred yards from home. I got to work late and wet, but with a new anecdote for the blog under my belt.