2010 - Turkey - Day 11 - Ankara

We left our hotel in Cappodocia at 7:30, heading to Ankara, the nation’s capital. We had a bathroom break around 9:30 and lunch break at 11:30. We finished off our tuna sandwiches for lunch. We arrived in Ankara around 3:00 and Hakan pointed out some places of interest in the city. He also talked about the first president in Turkey since our next stop was going to be at his memorial. I however, missed all of that because I was sleeping and didn’t wake up until we arrived at the monument. The monument was huge! I’ve never been to D.C. to see Abraham Lincoln’s memorial, but I’m sure it isn’t near as big. There is a huge courtyard and his memorial sits atop a staircase. All the side buildings are a big museum, filled with pictures and memorials of his life, and depicting all the wars he was in before he became president. His actual burial place was on that level, and there was a live cam feed for that room. On one side of the courtyard was a long walkway with statues of lions on each side. It reminded me of the sacred way in China. We then went to the Anatolian museum. It’s a historical museum, dating from prehistoric times, to the Roman/Greek period in the 13th century. Most of the items came from archeological sites in a city about an hour away from Ankara. Most of it was Hittite, with some Assyrian and Phrygian. It was very interesting. The rest of the evening was on our own. No dinner was provided tonight. We walked down the street from our hotel and stopped at a little diner of café. I ordered a pizza, and mom and Josie had burgers. The café workers couldn’t speak English, but there was a man sitting by our table that translated for us. We gave him a tip for helping us. As we came back to the hotel, Hakan and a few others from our group were going to a pub and invited me and go along. Mom quickly spoke up and said I was tired. After they left, I asked her what she would do if I had said yes, and she said she wouldn’t have let me go. Good thing I really didn’t want to go anyway. :D The population of Ankara is 4 million.