I travelled to Turkey. It was a long go. After four plus hours flying to Toronto, then five plus hours waiting, I flew to Munich. In Munich, I got off my flight, and immediately got in line to board my flight to Ankara. Fortunately, my luggage also made a quick transition. After a little delay, we flew to Ankara. I was a little worried about getting in Turkey, mostly because I didn't know what to expect. It was hardly worth worrying about. I quickly got my visa, and almost as quickly was through immigration. I actually waited longer for my luggage to show up after that.
Tina came to meet me at the airport. Unfortunately, we had somehow ended up with different versions of my itinerary, and she came for five, but I had landed at 3:30. I knew I was early, but I didn't have any turkish lira, and most importantly, I couldn't find a phone to call her and tell her I was already there. It didn't really matter, because she was about an hour away anyhow. After almost a day of pretty much waiting, an extra hour or so was no big deal.
From the airport, we took a bus (Havas, pronounced Havash) most of the way into Ankara. Then we took the metro into the Kizilay district. There from Guven Park, we took a dolmush (DOHL-mush) (I don't know if that's spelled right) to the university, ODTU (That's the turkish abbreviation).
There we settled me in a little and then met Tina's friend for cay (ch"eye", that's turkish tea.) and we had dinner. Mmmm.. mmm good.
The next day, We slept in a little, and then after some errands, headed out to Anitkabir, the mausoleum for Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the father of modern Turkey. We went back to Kizilay, and then one stop on the metro and then about a fifteen minute walk to the grounds. Along the way, we happened upon an excellent example of how Turks make use of space for parking.
Once at Anitkabir, I took some pictures. First, the mausoleum, itself. It is an impressively large building.
Inside, there is a symbolic sarcophagus, that is a single piece of marble that weighs 40 tons. So, of course, we took our pictures outside. First, Tina.
Then, me.
There's a large plaza in front of the mausoleum, with buildings surrounding it. There is also a large flag pole flying the turkish flag. See?
There are two main ways off the plaza. The Lions' Road, which is line with some carved lions from the Hittite days, as seen here from the plaza.
And there are some steps down to the green areas around. At the base of these stairs there is a nice large flower bed with the Turkish flag represented with flowers.
After we finished there, we walked back to the metro, had a little to eat, and then went to Ankamall to meet Tina's friend Naci (Nah-gee). There we had some more food, looked around. It is like pretty much any other mall I have been to. Well, some of the chains are turkish, and some are turkish variants on the global headmasters. For instance, it is "The Sony Store" in Canada, but "The Sony Center" in Turkey.
Then we headed back to Kizilay for some cay, and desert. There were a bunch of merchants out still selling their wares, and people still looking to buy until about the last call to prayer.
We managed to find a alright place to have some traditional turkish desert and cay. I had an actual turkish coffee, and now that I have, being not much of a coffee drinker, I don't ever have to again. Here's Tina and Naci in the restaurant.
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