A quick morning drive from Capadocia to the capital, Ankara. A quick four hour drive....which for the past couple days is a quick bus ride for us! A stop at the Salt Lake and right to Anitkabir, Ataturk's mausoleum.
This thing is massive and the scale follows the national sentiment for him. Lots of patriotic music playing and hero portraits and artifacts from his life. We also got to see the changing of the guards which was cool to see as I have never seen any guards changing regardless of the nation.
From there we drove close to our lunch site, but there was road construction and the bus couldn't get up the hill and the narrow streets which was the only way we could get up to the restaurant.
TCF kind of solution? Load us all in taxis and metaphorically hit the horse's ass....and we are off to the races. It was quite warm and the taxi driver the four if us got considered red lights and one ways mere suggestions instead of traffic regulations. I giggled the entire time, remembering Ken getting sideswiped by a taxi whilst he was trying to cross the street. They don't play in Ankara. Ken was fine and suffice it to say, he only made that mistake once.
The restaurant had an outdoor patio that had a gorgeous view from the old part of town, but due to the fact that it was the temperature of the sun in Ankara and we were under a fiberglass roof (essentially creating a greenhouse effect) it was.....warm? There were very few who enjoyed lunch that last day, including the speaker who had had to wait for us to arrive.
He represented the German Marshall fund of the United States. He is a Turk. He was fasting for Ramadan....which no food and no beverages And it was hotter than hell. He patiently suffered our questions and then put on his wool blazer as we walked down to the Ancient Civilization museum.
Do Turks not sweat?!?!! We were all so completely disgustingly sweaty and wilted.
The last speaker was canceled because of the heat and time delays. Many were looking forward to this speaker from the Turkish ministry of foreign affairs. The last day and wrap up was the present and highlight modern, current Turkey's position in the world.
But many others were also looking forward to showers.
The final dinner then an early night to pack and mentally prepare for the 3 am wake up call.
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