Snowy and cold January in Bursa

If to follow my plan I had to visit one city in one month, so I was plannig to visit Ankara, but the weather didnt like my plan that much, so I had to stay in Bursa at least untill it wont get warm.
So I ll just tell a bit about my life since I came back to Turkey and how Bursa is surviving cold winter.
As I still wanted to see snow in winter (but not now, i saw enough snow for this winter, actually its enough for 2 winters ahead) and hadnt visited Uludag, I agreed when Elmaz offered me to join their Uludag trip (yeah, she was here for New Year, so we decided to catch up when I m back to Bursa). It was nice to spend time with her, but again I cant live without adventures.

A little bit about weather here. Turkey is not used to a cold winters, usually the lowest temperature here is around +2 - +3 degrees in Bursa, but this winter is severe. So people are just not ready for it. So here is the result :
1. Gas - Turkey ran out of natural gas resources, actually not ran out but they overused the limit, and if to count that the gas is imported it is very expensive. So government even made some companies to use different fuel, oil or electricity.
2. Houses - I guess they were built only for nice weather, because the walls are so thin and it is so cold inside. You cant imagine, it is a torture to use a bathroom, because it is the coldest room in the house without heating at all. So its funny when you are taking a shower with very hot stream but your nose is still icy.
3. Cars and traffic - as winter is always short here, people just dont bother themselves with winter tires. And thats the worst thing and cause of all accidents.
So coutinue the story with Uludag, we were in the car Of course without winter tires!!! At fisrt it was ok, but when we were going up, the road just became slippery aтd the car simply slided down and bumped the other car that was also stucked there. It wasnt very big accident and it wasnt very scary ( in fact it should be because down is just a cliff) but anyway its one of the example of peoples carelessness that can couse a really bad outcome.
So we waited for 1 hour while some workers brought us chains for car and then went home. That was the adventure.

January for me here is a meeting of Simferopol people in Bursa, because later Valya, who is now on internship in Izmir, visited me. Though the weather wasnt that perfect but weekend was quite nice. We had a tour around the city center, I had my first fish in Turkey (and I really liked it), we ate strawberries, visited a 700 years old tree Cinar that is on the way to Uludag, played bowling and had fun. That was great time with you, Valya :)

Yes, I forgot to tell a bit about my house and about my new flatmates.
On 16th of January we had a celebration as it was my 4 months in Turkey holiday :)


It was quite cute and nice, I prepared some cocktails, we talked a lot and played and had a nice girls night :)

So about my flatmates -

Gülay - wonderful person in everything. She was so kind to me from the beginning, helping and supporting. She is 29 and for 8 years lived in Switzeland, so she can understand me quite well - how i feel broad and what do i need. She speaks exellent German (unfortunately not me) and good English, so we dot have any problems in communication. We have lots of things to talk about and I love to spend time with her.

Nilay - her younger sister. She is also 23, but behaves a bit childish some times. Anyway I love her too, even if to take into consideration fact that she doesnt know English :) At fisrt it was impossible to communicate with her, but now as I know the basics of Turkish, we found the common language and even go out together sometimes.

I am enjoying my new home and new friends, so I can say that the start of 2012 was awesome :) I still have 1, 5 month of my internship. Lets see what will be later :P