The first stage of our international relocation is complete: we are physically back in Minnesota. Our belongings are making the trip more slowly, arriving over the next few months.

We got out of Istanbul just in time. A few hours after our flight left, the city was hit with a snowstorm. Snow in Istanbul usually melts the same day (think Washington, D.C.), but this accumulation lasted for several days, snarling traffic, closing schools and businesses, and weighing down unaccustomed tree branches.

We didn’t see any snowflakes on our travels. New York, where we stopped to visit Greg, was completely clear. Minnesota has several inches on the ground but it fell a month ago.

The view from our New York hotel was strikingly reminiscent of our Istanbul manzara. Perhaps a final goodbye, as we won’t have a water view in Minnesota.

I read a wonderful memoir last year, The Hare With the Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal. It centers around Japanese ornamental carvings brought to Europe in the nineteenth century, and the effect they had on their new owners. Thinking of our years in Turkey and the several dozen friends who visited us, I wonder what influence the artifacts–and the new customs–we’ve collected will have.

I plan do some writing on this topic, so Sue’sTurkish Adventures will continue. But until my brain catches up to Central Standard Time, I’m simply going to show you a few items that we’ve brought home.

Angela paid bargain basement prices for this sweater, leggings and boots at a Tuesday street market called Dort Levent Pazari.  We shopped on Christmas Day as that was her only Tuesday in Istanbul.