March 30th: Ankara was a bit difficult for us.

Some days are not as easy as others. . .

Today we came from Kayseri to Ankara without a problem.  Then we had problems.  The highlight of our day was seeing the Museum of Anatolian civilization, or at least the quarter of it that is open at present.

I had a flaky connection last night and couldn’t put up pictures properly.  I’m going to do that now.  Why not look at the rest of March 29^th?  Then come back and see our museum pictures.

The weekend before we left home, I got an email from Expedia informing me that our flight from Kayseri to Ankara that had been rescheduled to 8:50 from 6:50 would now be leaving at 11:15.  I was very upset, as this is the tightest day of our trip, and I wanted to spend the entire day in the Museum of Anatolian Civilization, our main reason to come to Ankara.  “It’s the most important museum in Turkey,” I told the poor agent when I finally got him on the phone.  I made such a fuss, and told him we had already been bumped once, that he finally managed to get us back on the 8:50 flight.  “But we won’t get to the museum until at least 2:00, maybe 2:30,” I wailed to Ian on the phone.  “Is there any point in going at all?”

The day started very well, although I overslept a bit and caused us to miss breakfast.  Let me tell you, I wasn’t complaining about a 7:00 start instead of a 5:00 start this morning!  We got a taxi right away, had a smooth flight to Istanbul, a smooth flight to Ankara, and I was telling Ian that he was getting so good at arranging trips that he should quit his day job.   Then my luggage didn’t arrive.  When they turned off the conveyer belt at the luggage carousel, Ian and I looked at each other and simultaneously mouthed a very bad word indeed.  Over at luggage claim, an agent led us around the whole baggage claim section looking for my suitcase, checking the claim ticket against every piece on every carousel, and when we got back to lost luggage, my suitcase had been found.  They sent it up on its own lordly carousel – but one of the handles was torn.

We went off to get our rental car, and Ian had to face his biggest fear of the entire trip:  driving in Ankara.  I had to face MY biggest fear:  driving with Ian in Ankara.  However, I’m never with Ian when he is travelling, and he travels a lot with his work, so he handled the drive into Ankara like he’s been driving in Turkey all his life.  And let me tell you, people drive strangely here.  Many people drive straight down the white lane markers, or way over to one side or the other, or change lanes for no apparent reason and without signalling.  Taxis, and even buses, stop in the middle of the curb lane, and even the intersection,  without warning.  Pedestrians cross anywhere, singly, in little groups, or in oddly-spaced procession, although to be fair, there are very few marked crosswalks.  Through all this, Ian kept his cool, maintained his speed, and drove straight to the destination, as directed by the Gimli , which is what I call the GPS (I read "Garmin" wrong when we first got it.)  After 33 years of marriage, I couldn’t have been more surprised if Ian had suddenly started speaking fluent Cantonese, or revealed a talent for playing the zither!

The only problem was that the address the Gimli had given us was nowhere near the hotel.  I felt awful, because I thought I had followed Ian’s instructions exactly in getting the address for non-existent places from Google Maps.  Anyway, we used the Kindle to go on to Google Maps, found a likely looking cross street, entered the cross street  into The Gimli, and a mere 45 minutes later we were at our hotel.  Ian paid 20TL to park, and we headed to reception.

We had a bit of trouble communicating who we were and what we wanted at the front desk, but got out our passports and pointed to our names.  For the second time today we heard our name pronounced the way it looks to a Turkish person:  kar-ma-SHEEL.

We raced upstairs, dumped our stuff, and headed out without even looking at the room.  Just as well.  We asked where the museum was, and the duty manager waved over his shoulder.  “Walking, five, ten, twenty, thirty minutes!”  He told us.  We wandered out into our rather rough neighbourhood, got out the Garmin, and got it to find the museum.  Of course, it was giving us driving directions, so I felt free to change the route.  I led us up six blocks of steep streets, and finally to the bottom of a staircase near a park.  Above us were billions of steps, and I had no idea where I was.  Well, the Gimli said I was in a park, but that was it.  I was near to tears and asked Ian if there was any point in going into the musem for twenty minutes when we finally found it, and whether he would let me see it in the morning, and several other things about airlines that change tickets and hotels that have the wrong address in Booking.com.

We went up all 112 steps to the nice Poliz officer at the top, who recognized Anatolian Muze in my horrible Turkish,(made worse by the fact that I was puffing and blowing and trying not to collapse) and pointed us in the (thankfully) right direction.  Hand gestures are wonderful, because his actual instructions to us were “Arsh. Big.  Park.”

At the top of the park there was an big arch (aha!), and just beyond that was the museum.  We bought our ticket, and I was thrilled to discover that the audioguide was only 5TL, or about $3.  I was less happy when she told me that the price was reduced as most of the museum was closed.

I guess I am a sucker for a museum, because as soon as I went inside, everything was okay.  Yes, three-quarters of the museum was closed, but all of the important artifacts were on display in the halls that were left open.  In fact, all of the things I had longed to see, thanks to Dr. Jennifer Tobin and her courses, were right there before me.  Ian and I were just talking about the amazing things we saw:  textiles that were from 6000 BCE; wooden tables from the Gordium tombs, made without any type of nails;  Mother Goddess and flint tools from the paleolithic period that made me think of Clan of the Cave Bear; gold diadems, Hittite stone carvings; and wonderful animal figures made of iron.  It took just over an hour to see it all.  Some of it twice.

I love this beautiful round bronze bowl from the Hittite civilization.  After seeing so many ornate ceramic bowls, it's elegant shape and smooth surface seen so sophisticated, somehow.  I wanted to stroke it.

Ian and Margaret when they found the museum.  (Actually a Hittite stone carving.  The Hittites decorated their buildings, combining art and architecture.

This looks like fabric, but is actually inlaid wood from a piece of furniture found in the Midas tomb at Gordium. 

This wonderful group was attached to a pole, we think, and used in procession.  When one drives into Ankara there is a huge reproduction of this on Attaturk Bulgavi.

The famous Mother Goddess, both a symbol of fertility (some believe that she is giving birth) and of power, as she is sitting between two lions.  The entire thing is about 6 inches tall, and one of the leopard's head is a reconstruction.  Makes me fell happy.

From a tomb, 8000 year old textile (fabric).  Can you imagine?  How on earth can something that we wear out and toss away without thought last for so many years?

Not having eaten all day, except for a cheese bun on the plane, we decided to look for a restaurant as we walked back to our hotel.  We couldn’t find one!  There were lots of people selling food, but I was nervous about buying food from the side of the road. 

We walked all around our hotel, and it is in a sketchy neighbourhood.  We finally decided to go to the supermarket.  We have decided to blow town early tomorrow, so that we can spend more time at Gordium.  This hotel doesn’t have a shower or tub – well, it has a tap in the wall with a hose attached, so I guess you could sit on the toilet and pretend you were in a camper -- and tomorrow night is a Hilton!  It had also better be a laundry night.

And so to bed.