Ankara

December 25th:
This post describes the travel from Istanbul to Ankara and our experience in Ankara.

December 19th: We were planning for an easy trip on this day. We were supposed to just fly from 9 to 10 in the morning and then be done with it. What we didn't take into account was Kurban Bayrami, the most important public holiday for Turkey. All good Muslims are supposed to travel to Mecca to pray, and this made travel very traumatic. We got to the airport in Istanbul an hour and a half early, but our spots were still lost due to overbooking. Luckily, they were able to get us a later flight over, but we only had time to eat dinner in Ankara that night, even though we had a full day planned. We had one mishap in the restaurant that night. I got overconfident, and making a show to my wife, I plopped my feet up on the dinner table with my feet facing the table next to us. Apparently in Turkey, pointing the sole of your foot at someone is a grave insult. In short, I got my ass kicked, then, in the spirit of Turkish hospitality, he bought me a cup of string tea. Turkey only has two other public holidays: Seker Bayrami, the three-day festival at the end of Ramazan, and National Sovereignty Day on April 23rd, which commemorates the first meeting of the Republican parliament in 1920.

December 20th: We wanted to take care of some of the obvious tourist attractions before we got to just enjoy ourselves in Ankara. It's all well and good to absorb the culture, but while you're there, you might as well see what the place is famous for. The first one we went to on this day was the Ankara citadel, which also has some historical significance. It is the oldest part of Ankara and has lots of old architecture. It was very cool how the citadel is located right above people's houses. You're walking along the street, and all of a sudden you see this giant citadel rise above the houses. It had amazing walls and an interesting inner castle. Next, we went to Bogazkale, the ruins 3000-year-old capital of the Hittite empire. This was very interesting and took us the rest of the day.

December 21st: On this day, we finished up the historical part of Ankara that we wanted to see by walking along the Silk Road. This used to be a caravan path from Asia to Europe, and it is dotted with Seljuk Turk caravan stops and mosques. Later that day, we saw a man walk up to another man and hug him and kiss him on the cheek. A person next to us must have noticed our facial expression because he told us that this was very common in Turkey and other countries in southeastern Europe or the Middle East. When my wife asked if public displays of affection were acceptable, he simply raised his head up sharply. We weren't sure if we had offended him and quickly moved on, not wanting to aggravate him further. Later that night, I looked it up on my laptop and found out that this gesture can mean no, and he probably meant no anger in his movement.

December 22nd: We wanted to go to a museum today, and we decided on the Museum of Anatolian Civilization. I learned a lot, but it was REALLY boring. We kept joking loudly, and I thought that the employees would kick us out, but their stereotype of hospitality was actually true. They just smiled and tried to politely tell us to quiet down.

December 23rd: We had wanted to fly on one of Turkey's famous hot-air balloons, but we found out when we got to Ankara that they don't usually run in the winter. We were very upset by this, so we found a company that organizes hot-air balloon flights and offered to buy a hot-air balloon from them. Although they were reluctant at first, we payed them enough to keep them happy. This was our trip's souvenir, and we planned to use it once we got back to Austin, where we had it shipped.

December 24th: We had a relaxed day on this day. We slept in until about ten, and then were surprised to find that the hotel stopped serving breakfast at nine. They said that most people eat their breakfast at about seven and get started early. After that, we took a bus and hiked up to Lake Karagol and had a romantic picnic by the beautiful water.