New Year at Snow

A white Christmas was tantalizingly close last year. The snow was coming down thick and fast on the way back and I was sure that I would wake up to a magically transformed landscape. I bounded out of bed that morning and went straight to the window. Hopes dashed. But I did have that one gorgeously sunny day with clear blue skies instead, so I'm not complaining.

Instead, I got a gorgeous white New Year up at Kars, which means snow in Turkish. It's right on the Turkish border with Armenia and Georgia, and it's also, quite aptly, the setting of Orhan Pamuk's Snow, the 2006 Nobel Prize winning novel. Now I regret not reading it before I went.

Merve's family and I flew up to Kars on New Year's Eve. That night, the hotel we were staying at had planned a massive New Year's Eve party, complete with shiny paper hats and glittery masks.

The staff even put on their local costumes and performed these awesome dances that was sorta like the Turkish version of Irish fire dancing. Lots of fancy and fast footwork, with some spinning and whirling thrown in. At one point, one of the guys was playing with these lighted torches that turned out to be knives, which he then threw at one of his colleagues who was covered with a wooden board. They wanted to repeat the trick with a member of the audience, and guess who they picked? Merve's parents almost had a heart attack.

It was a really cool night though, filled with lots of laughter, dancing, and a massive bonfire. It's weird standing in front of a bonfire in -15C weather. One side feels like it's roasting gently while the other side is freezing.


After that, we spent 3 wonderful days skiing. I managed to pick it up after a morning of lessons. That feeling of freedom and exhiliration when you're flying down the slopes is breathtakingly awesome. Of course, it would have been nice if it were slightly warmer on the mountain. We were facing -15C temperatures, which probably dropped to -25C with wind chill on the last day. I was freezing even with four layers on. But don't worry, I still have all my toes. I counted. And no, I didn't break a leg :P I wish I had pictures of the snow, though. My camera broke just before we flew there. Sigh.