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Published: October 22nd 2017
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Dinner
Alex was very impressed with Josh's ability to polish off a giant plate of pasta (Alex only mangaged about a half). Josh proclaimed that, "No spaghetti is safe when I am around!" Geo: 39.9439, 32.856
We managed to figure out how to get a trickle of electricity to the computer, so I'm up to about half power. We slept 12 hours and had a very good first day. After getting dressed, we ventured out to explore the neighborhood a bit. Our first stop was a street vendor selling simit, which are pieces of bread, some of which look like pretzels. They are 4 for 1 lira, but she gave us an extra. One lira is about $.75 at the moment. Then we stopped at a small urban grocery and bought some juice boxes and nutella (a chocolate hazlenut spread). The variety of juice boxes was pretty impressive. We all enjoyed our bread and spread.
Continuing around in a circle, we came to Genclik Park where Josh tried out his bargaining chops. He spied two men selling sunglasses and watches and decided that he needed some shades. So far we have memorized our numbers 1-5 and 10, so I felt pretty limited, but Josh was all over it. We started at 10 lira for one pair and ended up getting a pair for Alex as well for the 10 lira. I've read and heard that
Playing chess online with Grandpa at the airport
We got to know lovely Terminal One at JFK pretty well. Turkish sellers are relentless and will bother and follow you down the street, but that hasn't been true for us so far. I would imagine that this has to do with the fact that Anakar is not a big tourist town. Of course, that cuts down on the number of people who speak English.
My Turkish pretty much stinks, but we navigated the subway (including train change) to visit the Ataturk Mausoleum. Several people who noticed that we looked clueless helped us along the way. When we got to the stop, we relied on the kindness of several stangers to help us find the monument. Along the way we stopped and played on a playground for a while. When we arrived we had to go through security, check my backpack and trek up a hill. Some people were pretty bitter that their mother didn't know about the tram that could take you to the top. Anit Kabir (the mausoleum complex) is very majestic an sits on top of a hill looking down over the city. The area includes some museum buildings, a mall and a (surprise) gift shop. I was this close to buying Mike a very nice tie with
Political rally buy Tundogan metro station, Ankara
I believe these flags show the name of a political party and the candidate's picture. Of course, I could be woefully mistaken. It looked a lot like a political rally to me. a picture of Ataturk on it. After the museum we trekked back down the hill, retrieved our stuff and found a cafe that looked relatively full of Turks. After we got our seats and navigated our way through our first Turkish menu, the place started filling up with men drinking tea. Next door what looked like a political rally was kicking off. We enjoyed listening to the music and watching the activity. Josh and Alex got big plates of pasta, Kate ordered a cheeseburer and I had pizza. I was actually hoping for my first kebap, but they weren't on the menu. Eventually, we paid the bill and started to make our way over to the station. Alex reminded me that I promised watermelon and Kate wanted baklava, so we popped into another store and made our purchases. Granted, the watermelon wasn't very large, but Alex juggled it most of the way home and I was impressed. We ate it in the hotel room with my Swiss Army knife.
It still seemed kind of early to go to sleep, so we took a taxi to Ankamall, the largest mall in Ankara on a quest to find a power transformer,
The candidate speaks
After a big build-up with lots of loud music and a guy banging a big drum, the candidate got up to make his speech. There was some cheering, but it didn't get too rowdy. but no dice. Bummer! I was impressed, however, with the fact that there were very few stores that I recognized. There were two Starbucks though.
Kate's favorite part of the day: Walking around Anit Kabir: Ataturk's final resting place.
Josh's favorite part of the day: Making his first purchase via bargaining--a pair of "sporty specs."
Alex's favorite part of the day: Getting sunglasses with Josh and riding on the metro.
Mom's favorite part of the day: having dinner while watching the big group gathering for the rally and listening to the music. Hopefully we'll be able to tell later who the rally was for. Here is a picture of the candidate speaking:
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dennisreeder
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Finally On! Hey Bridge, Good luck w/the power (remember they have FedEx, if you want me to send something). Enjoyed the accounts and the pictures. Booked our tix yesterday. Keep havin' fun! Dad PS Happy Independence Day to all