But more on that later. Now that I've finished my report (though I haven't presented it yet... more on that later) I have time to catch you all up on my visit to Ankara, the Paris of Central Anatolia.
Ok, so nobody's ever called it that, but it is the birthplace of Joe Strummer:
Seen here wondering who put those stickers all over his guitar.
Although Strummer is better known for his association with a different world capital,
and property damage
Ankara still has lots to offer. The city was founded way back in Roman times, or Greek times, or whichever came first, but from what I can tell it was essentially a collection of huts in between some hills until Ataturk decided to do his thing. Actually, that can be said of a lot of Turkey. Anyway, Istanbul was the Ottoman capital, and as I hope I've shown in this blog it's a very nice place from which to run a country, but Ataturk wanted to move the capital of his new republic for a few reasons. First, as I hoped I showed in my research paper, Istanbul isn't exactly the best in terms of natural defenses. It's the price you pay when you center your empire around a small peninsula jutting out into waters that have been fought over more or less continuously since a little before the time of Odysseus (and probably before then, who knows?). Second, Ataturk was very deliberate about moving Turkey away from the Ottoman legacy. He even banned the fez, although that might have just been because he was more of a top hat guy:
He's usually compared to George Washington, but he definitely has an Abe Lincoln vibe in this picture.
Anyway, in addition to kicking out the sultan and updating the hat codes, moving the capital away from Istanbul, a symbol of Ottoman decadence and stagnation, and to a central location was pretty important to Ataturk. That's why, shortly after Turkey won its independence (from Greece, for some reason. History is confusing.) the capital was moved to Ankara. And shortly after that they started making Ankara, you know, a city.
The result is a city that's totally unlike Istanbul, except they do speak Turkish there. Ankara is a city of wide streets, streets on which multiple cars can fit comfortably at a time. There are plenty of mosques, of course, but the skyline isn't dominated by ancient domes like the Hagia Sophia and the Süleimanye mosque, and it's anything but a water world. I was going to Ankara to visit a friend, so I got up early on Saturday and took a six-hour bus ride in a giant, surprisingly comfortable bus to Ankara, in the center of the Anatolian peninsula.
view of the Bosporus, leaving the European side of Istanbul
and in the other direction
and that's what the rest of Turkey looks like
I was stuck by the fact that everything seems more relaxed in Ankara. This could easily have been because I got there on Saturday afternoon and left on Sunday afternoon, but still, it was quieter than any neighborhood I've been in here for at least the last four weeks. Even the larger streets were relatively quiet, something which it actually took a while to get used to. In Istanbul, if there is quiet it is usually just the precursor to something. There's a sense that the silence is about to be shattered by the calling of a street vendor, the honking of some taxi driver's horn, the call to prayer, obnoxious tourists talking too loudly, a ferry's horn sounding, or something along those lines. In Ankara, sometimes it's actually just quiet. My hotel was on a wide street near Kızılay, a district of large pedestrian roads and nice restaurants and bars, where I met my friend Ezgi, who's starting an internship in Ankara this week.
It's also greener there, which is great.
And the lack of people was cool, if not a little disturbing at first.
The first night, Ezgi and I got dinner and then wandered around this area. We also took a taxi to this really cool hill where you can't really see them but there are a bunch of outdoor cafes surrounded by gardens with water running through them and a bunch of swans, although I only saw a few swans. Our trip was abbreviated by the rain-that's right, for the first time since Reunions I felt rain! On the bus ride in I had been thinking about Virginia, since the more forested parts of the highway actually looked a lot like 64 as you head to Charlottesville, and thinking about how I miss those thunderstorms that always roll in at like 5 or 6 on a summer evening. I remember getting caught in one with some friends as we were leaving Brewster's on the South Side last summer and racing it across the river, arriving at home just in time to run inside and turn on the TV before the power went out. Apparently some higher power mistook this reminiscence for a wish, because dark clouds were following the bus most of the way to Ankara and they finally caught up as the sun was going down, bringing a fairly long-lasting, surprisingly cold rain that felt good even though it made the swan park less enjoyable. Still, it was just nice to feel rain again.
One interesting thing: twice over the course of the evening the relative silence of Ankara was broken by a line of four or five cars, honking profusely and with people holding Turkish flags leaning out the windows and yelling. Ezgi told me that this is what people do when they send a young man off to his mandatory military service.
Having had what Ezgi described as a "chilled" Saturday evening, we met up on Sunday, had a quick breakfast and began "the touristy stuff." The first stop was Ataturk's tomb, which, well I really can't describe, so I'll just show you.
Yeah. Turkey had very little money when Ataturk died, but from what I can tell they spent all of it on this tomb. That and shiny uniforms for the guards, who have a tradition of switching places every few minutes by
taking steps as drawn-out and elaborate as someone doing very careful stretches before a race. (Side note: Turkish women placed 1st and 2nd in the 1500m last week, getting everyone excited about the Olympics for the first time, as far as I can tell). Inside the buildings around the tomb they had pretty much everything Ataturk ever owned. There were rooms full of books, several cases of clothing, lots of hats (even fezzes), way more knives and swords than one man could use, and even things like hair brushes. A new life goal of mine is to become important enough that, when I die, somebody says, "Ok, go find his hair brush-we need it for the museum!" After viewing all these artifacts and seeing a hall full of really cool paintings of scenes from the Turkish war of independence, we left for our next tourist spot, but not before I observed an important tradition of my own.
I wanted to do the full Colbert pose, but I thought there was a chance I'd be shot if I got any closer.
From there we went to Ankara Castle. A lack of tours, signs, and museums led to us never finding out who built the castle, when, or why, but it was a very nice castle on a big hill in the middle of the city. We found some shade and drank some lemonade and had lunch, and I took the following pictures.
That green patch in the distance is the park around Ataturk's tomb.
Next, we dropped by a few more museums of the Turkish republic. One thing I like about Turkey that I think we should adopt in America is the practice of putting artillery outside of governmental buildings. Imagine how cool the Washington Monument would look if it were fortified. Plus, idiots like me could do things like this:
"Take that, forces of evil!"
We were looking for some Roman ruins, and though we did find the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, which was very cool and featured lots of ancient Hittite carvings, our search was hampered, once again, by afternoon showers.
We ducked into a mall to get some tea and wait out the rain, but by the time it was over we had to get back to the hotel to pick up my stuff and catch the bus home. So I had to settle for this statue of Ataturk on Ataturk Boulevard:
The inscription was written in Ottoman Turkish, which Ataturk banned. History is confusing.
So after Ezgi helped me navigate the process of buying a ticket (during which the person at the desk asked if I was German) and getting to the bus terminal, we said goodbye and I settled in for another ride. This ride was made interesting by the fact that Galatasaray was playing Fenerbahçe and we could watch the game on the bus's personal TVs. Again, the buses are very nice. The game was actually exciting, partially because I kind of actually cared who won and partially because 5 whole goals were scored, but much to this die-hard Fenerbahçe fan's disappointment, Galatasaray won 3-2. The refs were totally on Galatasaray's side though. Anyway, I got back to Istanbul at about 11 and walked from Taksim back to our apartment. On the way, I saw more celebratory reckless driving, except this time the flags being held out the car windows featured the red and yellow of Galatasaray.
So on Monday I came to work and put the finishing touches on my presentation. I got it done, practiced it, and went to bed that night feeling pretty good but a little nervous. I woke up, got out of bed, (didn't drag a comb across my head) and went to work on Tuesday ready for action. Katie was presenting at 10 and I was going after her, so at about 9:45 my coworker told me I could head upstairs. As I was leaving, he mentioned that I wasn't doing my presentation that day. I asked when I would be doing it, and it he said, "We will decide." Apparently the date was changed but I never got the memo. Anyway, I now know that I'm giving it sometime tomorrow, so I basically have all day to proofread my report and practice my presentation. Hence the longest blog post I've written thus far.
I'll put an end to my blabbering now, so thanks for hanging in there! I'll probably write some kind of wrap-up, but if not, thanks to everyone who has read and given me positive feedback the whole time I've been here. I've enjoyed writing and I hope you've enjoyed reading. Can't wait to see everyone soon and to be back in the USA!
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