CP #4 Snow, "Trick-or-Treating" in Turkey, and Ankara's version of "Cat-O-Ween" - Stephanie

Ankara has a lot of trees and parks, but it's not a 'green' city like Tallahassee is.  Many of my Turkish friends, including Seher, have commented on how green Tallahassee is and how much they love "living in a forest."

While my friends from Istanbul don't notice a huge difference in the weather, Serher (and others from Ankara) do notice a big difference.  For starters, Ankara has 4 seasons, unlike the hot/not-so-hot seasons of Tallahassee.  Ankara also has very cold winters filled with lots of deep snow.  I asked Seher what she missed most about the weather back home and she said it was the snow in the wintertime. 

Serher loves the snow and misses it very much.  She makes snow angels almost every year.  Most of all however, she just misses how pretty and scenic everything looks when covered with a glistening layer of white snow.  They get most of their snow from December to January, though the last 4-5 years haven't had a large snow fall.  Spring starts in late March or early April.

I asked her what she was thinking when she first arrived in Florida.  She replied that it was shockingly hot.  She arrived around midnight in the month of July and she says she will always remember just how hot the air was outside.  She also thought she'd stepped inside a sauna.  Ankara has some humidity in the summer months, but it's nothing like the sauna-like humidity in Florida.

Perhaps it was because of the upcoming Veteran's Day holiday -and the joy of having no school on Monday- that let led us to discuss our favorite holidays.  Dog-O-Ween came up again, Serher saying that her friends and family back in Turkey loved the photos and stories.  Her sister mentioned that Ankara had recently had a very similar contest, except they dressed up cats instead of dogs and of course, this contest had nothing to do with Halloween.  It must be a fairly new "tradition" because Seher admitted she'd never heard of this when she was in Ankara, but she was quick to add that she would see it next year and see how it compared to our Dog-O-Ween.  For my part, I kept imaging how much more fun it must be to see so many grumpy and unimpressed felines waddling around in little dresses and suits and all things bizarre.  Dog-O-Ween will never be the same.

Continuing on with the Halloween-themed discussion, I wondered if they had any holidays where children went door-to-door to receive candy.  And they do!!  It's a religious holiday known in Turkey as Byram.  There are no costumes involved, but custom dictates that children go door-to-door and knock on doors to wish the occupants "Happy Byram."  In return, the occupants give each of the children some candy.  Much like our Trick-Or-Treating, the children tend to stick to their own neighborhoods and it doesn't matter if they know the people living in the houses or not. :)