Last weekend was our free weekend and we were thinking about going to the Greek island, Lesbos but then it was more expensive than we expected so as alternative nine of us in the group decided to go to Turkey's capital for the day. Ankara is directly east of Eskisehir as shown on the map below and only took an hour to get to by high-speed train.
We decided to take a train at 8:00 a.m. but the story really begins at 7:20 or 7:25 when Agne woke Qianqian and I up because we were suppose to be ready at 7:30. Needless to say we were quite flustered and I forgot to bring my camera with me (sorry Mom). So then we had to power walk to the train station but we managed to make it.
Our friend Baris was our group leader/translator and took us to all the places he thought we should see. I named this post "we are ten" because he kept counting us throughout the day and said "okay good, we are still ten." After taking a bus from one train station to another and then a taxi to another area we decided to grab some breakfast because we were quite hungry. I got a dish with eggs and sausage pieces, tea, and portaklal suyu (orange juice that's freshly squeezed). I'm a sucker for freshly squeezed orange juice over here because it's just so good! Florida's Natural orange juice back home may claim to be freshly squeezed but they're full of shit. Turkey's got it right when it comes to orange juice.
Any way, it was then time to go to Atatürk tomb which I was really excited about because people LOVE him. As I think I said before, Atatürk is considered the founding father of Turkey because he united Turkey after WWI when Turkey barely existed because the British, French, Russians, and I'm not sure who else claimed much of the land after the Ottoman Empire collapsed. But Atatürk wasn't having any of that and took over these places to form the Turkey known today. In addition he also made the country more European-like and forced everything to be secular. Pretty much all of the Turkish citizens believe that if he wasn't alive Turkey wouldn't exist today and I'd probably agree with them. Especially after seeing his tomb.
His tomb was giant and on a hill so it could easily be seen in the area. The large area that can be seen below is where his tomb is and he's buried about 25 ft below it.
The surrounding area on the left and right is actually a museum that has a bunch of Atatürk's stuff like clothes, swords, pipes and also has exhibits relating to the wars fought back in the day along with other important people of that time. You entered the museum on the right side and in the middle they showed a video of his casket. The casket was facing towards Mecca, in the middle of an octagon symbolizing something about the Ottoman Empire and there were jars of dirt from all regions of Turkey (at least that's what I got from what I read).
Anyway, we then headed to the downtown area of Ankara, walked around, looked at cheap sunglasses for a long time then eventually took another taxi ride to Atakule Tower. We grabbed some dinner before heading up and ate and had a great view of Ankara.
One of the reasons we chose to go to Ankara was to see the new batman movie in IMAX so after Atakule Tower we took another taxi and subway to get out to a mall and see batman in IMAX. I actually saw batman the night before and loved it in IMAX much more...even though the movie stopped three times because of something about a generator. But one thing about seeing movies in Turkey is that there's always an intermission and at first I really didn't like it but now I like it because it's a nice time for a bathroom break and to stretch your legs.
Last stop was at Baris' friend's place where we had a few drinks, played with their adorable puppies and just hung out for a while. But then the guys wanted to go to a club place so we went there and I actually mostly laid-low but it was still an...interesting night.
Then we took another taxi to the train station, a bus to the train station we had to go to, then took the 7:00 train to get back at 8:00 and we were pooped.
In other news:
- had a test in transportation today and I hated studying for it but it wasn't as terrible as I thought it would be
- I'm doing my best to make a blog soon about the food in Turkey but I keep forgetting to take pictures of what I eat and also the names of whatever I'm eatting...but I'll get on it! I promise, Mom haha
- Oh, it's Ramadan right now which means a guy with a drum walks down the streets at roughly 3:00 a.m. telling everyone to wake up and eat a lot before the sunrises. I was VERY confused/freaked out the first night this happened because I had no idea what was happening. Even though it's Ramadan though none of our Turkish friends are celebrating it except Noor in our MSU trip is somehow making it happen. Props to him for sure because I don't think I could do it
- And how could I forget? Agne, Qianqian and I had to move out of our apartment and into the one directly above us because our shower in the old one was leaking and causing issues for the new people that moved in below us. I was grumpy about moving but it's fine now.
Oook that was long enough, I'll post something probably after our next weekend trip.
Adios!
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