Antalya is a city on the Mediterranean coast of southwestern Turkey, and the capital city of Antalya Province. Situated on coastal cliffs, Antalya is surrounded by mountains. Development and investment, began in the 1970s, have transformed the city into an international resort.

History: It is uncertain when the site of the current city was first inhabited. Attalos II, king of Pergamon, was believed to have founded the city around 150 BC, naming it Attalia and selecting it as a naval base for his powerful fleet. However, excavations in 2008 in the Do?u Garaj? district of Antalya have uncovered remains dating to the 3rd century BC, suggesting that the city was founded earlier than previously supposed. Antalya became part of the Roman Republic in 133 BC when King Attalos III of Pergamum willed his kingdom to Rome at his death. The city grew and prospered during the Ancient Roman period.

Statue of Attalos II in the city center.

Christianity started to spread in the region after 2nd century. Antalya was visited by Paul of Tarsus, as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles: “From Perga, Paul and Barnabas went down to Attalia and sailed from there to Antioch after preaching in Pisidia and Pamphylia” (Acts 14:25-26).

Antalya was a major city in the Byzantine Empire. It was the capital of the Byzantine Theme of Carabisiani (???? K???????????, Thema Karav?sian?n), which occupied the southern coasts of Asia Minor and the Aegean Islands. At the time of the accession of John II Comnenus (1118) it was an isolated outpost against the Turks, accessible only by sea.[2] The following year, with the aid of his commander-in-chief John Axuch, John II drove the Turks from the land routes to Antalya and reconnected the city with the rest of the empire.

The city, along with the surrounding region, was conquered by the Seljuk Turks in the early 13th century. Antalya was the capital of the Turkish beylik of Teke (1321–1423) until its conquest by the Ottomans. The Arabic traveler Ibn Battuta who came to the city in between 1335-1340 noted:

From Alanya I went to Antaliya [Adalia], a most beautiful city. It covers an immense area, and though of vast bulk is one of the most attractive towns to be seen anywhere, besides being exceedingly populous and well laid out. Each section of the inhabitants lives in a separate quarter. The Christian merchants live in a quarter of the town known as the Mina [the Port], and are surrounded by a wall, the gates of which are shut upon them from without at night and during the Friday service. The Greeks, who were its former inhabitants, live by themselves in another quarter, the Jews in another, and the king and his court and Mamluks in another, each of these quarters being walled off likewise. The rest of the Muslims live in the main city. Round the whole town and all the quarters mentioned there is another great wall. The town contains orchards and produces fine fruits, including an admirable kind of apricot, called by them Qamar ad-Din, which has a sweet almond in its kernel. This fruit is dried and exported to Egypt, where it is regarded as a great luxury.

In the second half of the 17th century Evliya Çelebi wrote of a city of narrow streets containing 3,000 houses in twenty Turkish and four Greek neighborhoods. The town had grown beyond the city walls and the port was reported to hold up to 200 boats.

In the 19th century, in common with most of Anatolia, its sovereign was a “dere bey” (land lord or landowner). The family of Tekke Oglu, domiciled near Perge, though reduced to submission in 1812 by Mahmud II, continued to be a rival power to the Ottoman governor until within the present generation, surviving by many years the fall of the other great beys of Anatolia. The records of the Levant (Turkey) Company, which maintained an agency in Antalya until 1825, documented the local dere beys.

In the 20th century the population of Antalya increased as Turks from the Caucasus and the Balkans moved into Anatolia. By 1911 it was a city of about 25,000 people, including many Christians and Jews, still living in separate quarters around the walled mina or port. The port was served by coast steamers of local companies. Antalya (then Adalia) was picturesque, but ill-built and backward. The chief attraction for visitors was the city wall, and outside a promenade -a portion of which survives to the present. The government offices and the houses of the higher classes were all outside of the walls.

The city was briefly occupied by the Italians from the end of the First World War until the founding of the Turkish Republic in 1923.

Etymology

According to tradition, in the 2nd century BC, the Pergamum king Attalos II ordered his men to find “heaven on earth”. After an extensive search, they discovered the region of Antalya. King Attalos rebuilt the city, giving it the name “Attaleia” (Greek: ????????) which later became Adalia and then Antalya.

Tourism

Kaleiçi, the restored historical center of the city -with its hotels, bars, clubs, restaurants, and shopping- retains much of its historical character; its restoration won the Golden Apple Tourism Prize.

The city includes sites with traces of Lycian, Pamphylian, and Hellenistic -but mainly Roman, Byzantine, Seljuk and Ottoman- architecture and cultures.

Cumhuriyet Square, the main square of the city, on occasion features temporary open air exhibitions and performances.

Kaleiçi, with its narrow cobbled streets of historic Turkish and Greek houses, is the old center of Antalya- now mainly hotels, gift shops, and bars. New hotels, such as the Sheraton, stand along the coast above the Konyaalti and Lara beaches.

Festivals and events

A number of sports championships including motor rallies.

• Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival: Turkey’s largest national film festival, last week of September
• International Eurasia Film Festival: International film festival held annually
• Antalya Festival: September
• Mediterranean International Music Festival: October, 6 days
• Antalya International Folk Music and Dance Festival Competition: Last week of August
• Aspendos International Opera and Ballet Festival: June and July
• Flower festival May

Main sights

Antalya has beaches including Konyaalt?, Lara and Karpuzkald?ran. For winter sports, Beyda?lar? and Saklikent are both natural beauties of the city.

There are a large number of mosques, churches, madrasahs, masjids, hans and hamams in the city. Kaleiçi, the harbor, which the city walls enclose, is the oldest part of the city. Kaleiçi features many historic houses with traditional Turkish and local Greek architecture.

Historic Sites in the city center

Kaleici: the historical center of the city.

Ancient monuments include the City Walls, H?d?rl?k Tower, Hadrian’s Gate (also known as Triple Gate), and the Clock Tower.

Hadrian’s Gate: constructed in the 2nd century by the Romans in honour of the Emperor Hadrian.

Kesik Minare (Broken Minaret): Once a Byzantine Panaglia church, later converted into a mosque.

Yivli Minare (Fluted Minaret): Built by Seljuks and decorated with dark blue and turquoise tiles, this minaret eventually became the symbol of the city.

Karatay Medresesi, Ahi Yusuf Mescidi, and the Iskele, Murat Pa?a, Tekeli Mehmet Pa?a, Balibey, Musellim, Seyh Sinan Efendi, and Osman Efendi Mosques are other Islamic buildings in the city.

Museums

Antalya Museum: Prize winning archaeology museum.[citation needed]

Kaleiçi Museum[7]: Opened in 2007 by the Mediterranean Civilizations Research Center (Akdeniz Medeniyetleri Ara?t?rma Merkezi) see also their annual journal.

• Sites of interest
• Karpuzkald?ran
• Tünek Hill
• Karaalioglu Park
• Arapsu Bridge
• Major routes

The infrastructure such as roads and drains are struggling to catch up with the increase in population and tourists.

Airports

In 2007, Antalya Airport’s number of passengers on international flights surpassed the total number at Istanbul Ataturk Airport and Sabiha Gökçen International Airport for the first time, officially earning the title of “the capital of Turkish tourism”.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antalya

This is actually being written a few days into the trip on the way in to Troy. My initial impression of the Turks was based on films like Yol, Lawrence of Arabia and Midnight Express. The author of the Lonely Planet book on Turkey believes that we see a lot of anti-Turkish propaganda. I almost believed that Turkish officials ran a sort of xenophobic police state. It went to the extent that I encrypted parts of this log where I talk about the Turks for fear that the authorities would read them as I came through customs.

After a few days I am sorry that I took that attitude and I gladly shed it. Turkey is the best country we have visited off the Pacific Rim and it is in large part because of the Turks. While the Turks are probably as capable as any people of negative actions when they have power are, I find them to be among the most likeable people I have visited. My trip is full of incidents of complete strangers going out of their way to be helpful in ways I cannot imagine Americans would do. We hear a lot of negative things about Moslems and I think more people should come to Turkey to see how positive and life-affirming the Turks are.

As an example, lots of people in other countries have forgiven their one-time wartime enemies. Americans get along with the Japanese now, for example. But who but the Turks would celebrate the courage of their wartime enemy the way they memorialize the Anzacs who came to attack them at Gallipoli? That is like Americans celebrating the courage of the Japanese at Midway.

I rather expect that someone will write me for politically incorrectly liking the Turks too much the way someone complained when I was too positive on the Sikhs of India. It is possible I am misled, but I am sincere. The Turks strikes me as a good, fun-loving people who have their own extremely original view of the world. Where one sees a lot of militancy coming from the Islamic world the Turks represent a melting pot nation which though mostly Islamic seems highly tolerant of many peoples with many beliefs. And Islamic women choose if they will cover their heads or not, there is nobody in government to tell them. They value that freedom.

I just wanted to get that said. Incidentally, our guidebook explodes the whole myth of Americans rotting in Turkish prisons. Even the convicted drug smuggler whose story was supposedly told in Midnight Express says that telling contains major lies and even he defends the Turkish government. The real story of what the Midnight Express is a jaw-dropper. I repeat the guidebook’s explanation inside.

Now on to the trip log…

It is said that the Roman Empire fell for longer than most civilizations survived. When did the Roman Empire finally end? Well, there were people who were born under what was called the Roman Empire who heard in their lifetimes about the discovery of the New World. The last piece of the Roman Empire died in 1453 when Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks under Mehmet the Conqueror. 9500 years ago there was a tool-making culture in Turkey. Ancient Troy was in what we now call Turkey, the Roman Empire moved its capital from Rome to Turkey, and today Turkey is both a Middle Eastern country and a European country.

We are visiting Turkey at an interesting point in its history, certainly a time of change. Turkey for the last few years has been trying to appear to the world as an exotic European country. They were anxious to become part of the European Union. They would like to overcome the image in Europe as a source of cheap labor and a backward country. I remember in the last year or so seeing in my newsmagazine paid inserts showing how forward-looking Turkey is. But most of Europe has not given Turkey much respect for a lot of reasons. There are long-standing prejudices. There is the mammoth feud with Greece, one of the longest continuing feuds in World History. Turkey has a human rights record that is certainly non-stellar. And, of course, it does not help that Turkey is Islamic and not Christian. Turkey had its work cut out for it when it wanted to join the European Union. On December 17, 1997, the European Union rejected Turkey’s bid for admission. Now Turkey is probably going to turn to the United States for military alliances. Turkey currently is looking for better relations with the US.

Ironically, while Turkey is too Islamic for Europe, it is not enough Islamic for most of the Arab world, as it is willing to make alliances with Israel. Turkey was the first predominantly Islamic country to recognize Israel. That was 1949. And the two countries have remained friendly since. This has helped to make Turkey a pariah in the Arab world and among its own fundamentalists who want to take power. However, the Turkish Constitution requires a separation of religion and state. Constitutionally the state is secular. That is a rarity among Islamic counties and it must be a difficult balance to maintain. It keeps the country moving forward into the 21st Century while many of its Islamic neighbor countries are rejecting what we in the West consider to be modern ways. There is a war with the internal Kurds. They are fundamentalists, but also a separate ethnic group that wants to be their own nation. They have their own language and culture and would like to have a homeland of their own. In 1988 Iraq attacked its Kurdish minority with chemical weapons. The Kurds fled the country into Turkey increasing an already substantial population. Turkey tried to bring them into the mainstream culture, but they would not assimilate and still hold out the dream of being a separate country. This has led to a low-key civil war in the East. The PLO has allied themselves with the Kurds. That must put the Kurds in a peculiar position since they also allied themselves with Saddam Hussein in the war. But the Kurds must need an ally. The Turkish government, finding itself opposed by the PLO has even more reason to have military ties with Israel.

The methods being used by the mainstream are frequently undemocratic by Western standards. Political parties are abolished. Journalists are imprisoned. The Prime Minister promised to follow more democratic principles when he came to power. Journalists and editors have been released from prison, but to limited freedom and it they offend the government or criticize the military they will have to go back to prison to serve the rest of their terms. It may become necessary to destroy democracy in order to save it. It is a frightening dilemma. Consider that in Algeria the fundamentalists are in the minority but they still have the power to create the current bloodbath.

I suppose in the United States there are some Islamic Fundamentalists but they have not caused much chaos since we are a rich country, and we can afford Cadillac security. Where we have had terrorist acts like the bombing of the World Trade Center we could bring hundreds of millions of dollars to bear stopping one terrorist group. Terrorists are much less likely to attack in the United States because we can afford good security. This limits the number of terrorist groups and that means that even more can be spent tracking and stopping the ones that are in the country. Just from the point of view of economics it makes more sense to fundamentalist groups to chip away at poorer countries. Also in the poorer countries there is more discontent. For those who are poor and who have little hope fundamentalism offers an opportunity to be in the in-group. You may not have much comfort in this life and have little hope of getting it, but do things our way and you will have it terrific after you die.

Turkey is better off than many, but it has nowhere near the economic power of the US. This is not a defense of some of their tactics, but it is a fact of life. It is how the government will react. The poor will be drawn to fundamentalism. It also is very near Islamic states. Turkey is trying desperately to bring prosperity to their country because money is a trump card that keeps fundamentalists under control and allows them to be controlled in approved democratic ways. The prosperity will not come from a partnership with Europe. That was what Europe said last December. If the US rejects Turkey I wonder what they will do.

But as much as Turkey currently is hoping for the US friendship there also are tensions. There are alleged human rights violations in the war against the Kurds. Photographs allegedly showing soldiers holding the decapitated heads of Kurds have been shown on “Sixty Minutes.” Six leading members of the Welfare Party including a former Prime Minister have been banned from politics for six years. We try to pick countries to visit that do not have serious human right violations, though few major powers are free from accusations.

Well, our last day at work was a somewhat nervous one. You always wonder if things are going to work out or not. I did my usual trick of sleeping all of about a half-hour last night. A good store of fatigue, ironically, is extremely useful for transoceanic flights. It acts as a natural sedative for the nerves and makes sleep on the plane a lot easier. It is 3:17pm locally but 10:17pm in Turkey. The Garden State Parkway to Newark Airport is bumper to bumper. Oh, I am Mark Leeper and my traveling companion is my lovely wife Evelyn Leeper. Evelyn has done most of the planning for the trip. We are just going by ourselves. Nobody expects us.

I nodded off a little in the car. When I am sleep deprived I tend to have vivid dreams. I was picturing the driver with a long and narrow three-fingered hand. It was almost like something out of War of the Worlds. Often we talk to the driver. This time we drove in silence. I was either writing or dozing off. I have switched to Turkey time and I was trying to put the flights into my calendar entirely in Turkey time. Eventually I will have to change the flights back to New Jersey time. By the time I return that is what I will be using.

The line at Lufthansa is huge. Apparently the desk opened late and a lot of people had already arrived. The line snakes around the ropes in front of the counter then stretches more than half the length of the terminal. It blocks the path of people leaving the counters. People in different accents and ethnic backgrounds are coming up shocked saying “Lufthansa?” A German group starts a second queue at the inlet to the roped section. It is feeding in as if it were the official queue, though of course they just arrived. I think on our trip to Egypt we were cut in front of by people from every European NATO country. This trip they are starting early. The Germans try to let more cut in. I casually rest my hand on the rope, just incidentally blocking their path. One of the Germans who otherwise looks like an amiable man in his 60s gives me a dirty look as if I was the one being rude.

Now I thought it had been smart after I packed my photovest and decided what pocket everything would be in to take out every piece of metal and put it in a ziplock bag. I then put the ziplock in my briefcase. I was sure there was no metal on me when I went through the metal detector. At least I thought I did. Nope. Beeeeeeeeeep! “Take off the vest and chest pouch and sent them through.” I do and the human port lets me through without complaint. Must be the zippers. Well at least I know that there is no point in trying to put all the metal in my briefcase. I might as well resign myself to always taking the vest off. My last photovest fell apart on our Alaska trip. It was pretty tough finding more photovests for sale. I was all set to buy one over the Internet for something like $60. Literally I was going to order it after work when we were cooking dinner. With supreme timing as well as irony a catalog of hunter products was delivered in that day’s mail. They had a hunting vest with even more pockets for sale for $29.95. It has something like 22 pockets. The only problem is that it is a hunting vest. It is the kind of catalog that sells t-shirts that say, “This is your woodchuck.” [Picture of woodchuck]. “This is your woodchuck on hollow points.” [Picture of a little piece of woodchuck and body parts splattered all over]. “Any questions?” Really funny stuff like that. Jokes for the ten-year-old in all of them. When I ordered the vest they asked me “Survey question… Do you hunt?” “Uh, no.” How could I tell them I am a confirmed Bambiist? Good vest though. I call it “my vest of many pockets.” I just wish it didn’t look like a hunting vest.

Well, we are sitting in the waiting area and we are told our first flight has been delayed. But for now it is only 15 minutes delayed.

I have been pronouncing Frankfort “Vronkvort.” It is very cosmopolitan, very jet set. Take it from me.

History lesson: This is a history of the lands we call Turkey

Okay, you may need a thumbnail history of Turkey for what follows. Don’t try writing this on your thumbnail. The last person who did was caught and got zero for the exam. (This section has been revised as I have learned new history or thought of better jokes.)

There were inhabitants of Turkey as far back as 7500 BC. So like an iceberg that is 80% below sea, at least 80% of Turkey must be before C. About 1900 BC the Hittites were warring with Ancient Egypt, starting a long history of people in these lands warring with people who would be more dramatically represented in the movies. Hence they are almost always represented as the bad guys. 1250 BC the Trojans are fighting with the Greeks on their own home turf at Troy. The Greeks are, however, masters of PR and it is their side of the story that is remembered and once again the people of these lands, not really Turks yet, but of these lands, are labeled the bad guys. This in spite of the Greeks pulling that lousy stunt with the wooden horse.

1200-600 BC: more invasions and the Greeks are determining civilization in this area. 550 BC Cyrus of Persia invades to get a piece of the action. 334 BC it is Alexander the Great. It is painful, but nobody can stand up to the little brat. At least he has the courtesy to die young. By this point these guys have a reputation as easy marks and even the Celts invade them, believe it or not. 250 BC is the rise of the Kingdom of Pergamum. It has great warriors and great art but they fail to capture the public’s imagination and no films are made about them.

129 BC: Rome establishes Asia Minor as a province. There is little chance to beat Rome and no movies to be made so they sit it out.

330 AD: We see what sitting it out gets you. Constantine decides the Roman gods are false, switches to Christianity, but just in case moves Rome away from the Roman gods to what will be called Istanbul, but he decides first it will be called Constantinople. Istanbul will have to wait.

527-565 AD: The Emperor Justinian builds the greatest and most grotesque church in the world, Sancta Sophia, an undying tribute to Christianity. Undying, perhaps. Christianity, perhaps not. For nearly 1000 years the Holy Roman Empire rules but fails to achieve being holy, Roman, or an empire. None out of three ain’t so hot. Still they call it the Holy Roman Empire because it sounds good. For the first time it is commonly accepted that ketchup is a vegetable because that too sounds good. The rulers find the Turks to be good protectors. They live side by side with good friends the Seljuk Turks. The Seljuks raise armies and occasionally take Byzantine Emperors prisoner. But the Seljuks eventually fall. Well, it proves that Turks are no match for Europeans.

In the early 1200s Crusaders arrive to liberate the Holy Land from Islam. They plan to plunder Constantinople. “But we are Christian,” protests Constantinople. “You’re Christian??? That’s funny. You don’t look Christian.” said the crusaders. “No prisoners.” And the Christians won a much-needed victory against the hated Christian.

1453 AD: Mehmet the Conqueror, an Ottoman Turk, overruns Constantinople and turns the St. Sophia into a mosque, an undying tribute to Islam. He immediately foregoes Roman, settling for “Holy” and “Empire.” He begins almost 400 years of Ottoman rule under Sultans. With the Turks powerful under the Sultans and considered a threat to Europe, Turkey was once again the bad guys and the Greeks told the world, “I told ya so.”

For years the Ottoman Turks ruled well but corruption set in. Suleyman I brought the empire to its high point beautifying Constantinople (now Istanbul, but Europe refused to call it that) and rebuilding Jerusalem. But too many of the Sultans were clods, however, and the empire declined. Some would rebuild without democratizing; some were just weak. Subject countries with better press were kicking Istanbul’s butt.

Then pretty much on schedule came the 20th Century. The Young Turks were a group of, well, young Turks who wanted Western-style reform from the Sultans. They forced a constitution to be again instituted. They were young, bright, clever, politically powerful, and they picked Germany to win World War I. When the war ended things were as bad as ever with the Sultan, now the pawn of victorious Western powers. The Ottoman Empire was chopped up.

Greece, recognizing that its old enemy Turkey was now down, decided to let bygones be bygones, but also decided the time was right to start kicking it anew. The forces under Mustafa Kemal (later Kemal Ataturk-when you like what a boy does you say “attaboy”, people liked what this Turk did.) kicked back and harder. This made WWI commander Kemal again a hero. He went on to usher a new age into Turkey. Henceforth people would be loyal to Turkey first. No international organizations like the Communist Party or the Boy Scouts in Turkey. Religion is great like champagne. Politics is great like mayonnaise. Champagne and mayonnaise don’t go together and neither do religion and politics. Turkey would have a secular state.

Well, that is just a view of Turkish History from a very high level. About 20,000 feet unless I miss my guess. People who find the foregoing offensive, well, it was not meant to be taken seriously.

Breakfast was not ready when we arrived so we talked a little bit to Nico. First about the Camel ad. It apparently was used in a German film. The discussion turned to his battles with the Turkish government to preserve this area. He seems to have a set of abstract complaints and desires and I have not gotten a good idea of exactly what he does want. First he is saying that they want to buy the cone he restored and they should have been asking him six years earlier. Then he is complaining that they may not want to buy it. He wants the bus station and the stalls outside the open-air museum torn down because they were not designed by an architect. He complains they are “Door. Window. Door. Window. Door. Window.” He wants the government to come in and spend a lot on the town. I don’t know what exactly he wants things to be like.

We were worried the Olsons would miss their tour. They came into breakfast at 9, which seemed a bit late.

After breakfast we went back to the room to rest up from going back to the room. Evelyn asked me what I wanted to do today. Well, like yesterday it was already kind of a lazy day. I looked in the Lonely Planet and they had maybe two places worth going to. I dozed off a little, I guess and woke at 10am. Evelyn said the places I picked were really a bit far to go today. Okay, so now what? I suggested what if we were to check out and head for the less lazy area of Ankara. We would be going a day earlier than planned, but there would be more to do there. Evelyn said there was probably no convenient bus. Then she looked and discovered there was one about 12:30. So that was decided upon. The hotel never asked us how long we were staying. At least in this season things are a little loose. So we are off to Ankara. It took us about 15 minutes to me out the door. I cracked my head on the top of the door one last time on my way out. We had just flushed the toilet and we could not get it to stop so we just told one of the employees. Nico saw us and asked us a couple of times, “You’re leaving?” He was also sort of mumbling to himself.

We got to the bottom of the hill at 10:35 and it turns out one of the bus companies had a 10:45 bus to Ankara. The bus pulled up early and at 10:38 we on both the bus and our way to Ankara. It is hard to imagine timing getting better than that. We seem to be on the bus with a somber group. It is just a small bus, larger than a mini-bus but maybe two-thirds or less than a full-size.

The bus takes us to Nevsehir. Here we will wait for a half-hour for the Ankara bus. The time comes and we board. This is video-bus, our first. It was built by Mercedes-Benz. They start a film and I tell Evelyn it is safety instructions (like on a plane). The joke turns out to be quite true.

But then they do have a movie. The movie is Gunah. The plot must be more complex than this, but since it is in Turkish I may be missing some of the subtlety. An inter-city bus driver is a good guy whom everybody likes. A mysterious woman running away from her village rides his bus, and she fascinates him. He keeps seeing her in the city at the other end of his route. He finds out that she has become a sexy belly dancer. He wants to save her from this life. Eventually he kidnaps her at gunpoint, drags her onto his bus and takes her to the ocean where he washes the makeup off of her. She melts into his arms. She tells him what she was fleeing in her village but it is lost in the Turkish. Presumably they are very repressive. They hug again. Flash forward: they are engaged and deliriously happy. Even the groom’s mother agrees. They have a wedding ceremony. Everybody is happy. Then at the height of the ceremony the bride is shot dead by her family. In agony the bus driver grabs the dying body of the woman he loved.

Some of the things I learn from this film:

Some Turks eat like Indians, using the bread to pick up the food.

The life of a bus driver may be considered to be romantic in this culture like being an airline pilot in the US or being an engineer on the trains in Canada or India.

It is not unusual to see men holding hands and kissing each other on cheek. I have also seen this on the street.

Almost like Indian films ,they may often have songs for no reason in the middle of some Turkish films.

The approval of the groom’s mother is very important in deciding if a wedding can take place.

Brides in Turkey wear very Western-looking gowns.

Pretty much a whole village will celebrate a marriage. The men may have a dancing ceremony that has a mock fight with sticks.

There is still a great deal of tension between the fundamentalists and the more Westernized Turks.

I think you learn the fastest about a country the first couple hours you are on the street and when you watch your first movie from that culture.

We stopped for lunch break. I did not know how long we had. I went to the steward and pointed at my watch asking “On? Yirmi?” (“Ten? Twenty?”) He said, “Okay. Okay.” Well that was not much help. We bought a couple of chocolate bars and talked to an Australian couple about travel, etc.

At this writing we are approaching Ankara. This is a city known for taking that which is tangled and making it straight and that which is straight and making it tangled. In the first case it is the hair from Angora goats. The city was once called Angora, in fact and is the center of the Angora wool trade. And making the straight tangled is obviously the chief function of government and Ankara is center of Turkish government.

The town was a center of trade going back to the Hittites at 1200 BC. It changed hands to the Phrygians, Alexander, the Seleucids, the Galatians, and in 25 BC the Romans. The Byzantine held the town, but it was captured by the Seljuk Turks. Tamerlane captured it and its Sultan. But when his state collapsed it became a sleepy goat-raising town again.

Ataturk made it his government in 1920. After his War for Independence it became the capital of his new Turkey.

Well, we arrived in Ankara and the first thing we needed to do was find the bus to Ulus. Evelyn tried to ask in broken Turkish how to find bus 198 to Ulus. I told her to never underestimate the power of the written word. I wrote on a piece of paper “Otobus 198 -> Ulus”. I showed that to people and got conflicting answers but at least they understood the question. One man could not tell us where to go so walked us to the place to buy tickets for the bus and waited there with us until the ticket-seller arrived. We told him he could go, but he insisted on waiting with us. The Turks are a very hospitable people. We really should have taken a taxi, probably. We are saving ourselves a few small dollars, but people here are willing to humor us.

The bus comes and it is a double bus. It is really two cars with a sort of turntable arrangement between so people inside don’t risk the floor turning under them and gaps forming.

We get off at Ulus. This is really a business street with banks, more up-scale stores, and crossing Cankiri Caddesi anywhere but at the light is taking your life in your hands. When you cross at the light it seems that all of Ankara is crossing one way or the other and perhaps both. We fight our way across. On the other side one street over we look for the hotel, the Yildez. Behind the counter there is a rather strange looking clerk with a falsetto laugh. Something has pushed his eye teeth forward of his other teeth giving him the appearance of an underfed and slightly swishy vampire. We ask to see the room, first he wants to see our passports. This does not sound good to me, but I insist on seeing the room before paying. The bellboy takes our stuff up to the room. Well, if he insists. The room does not look too bad. I test the toilet and it works. It is a reasonable room; it even has a TV. Okay, we pay for three nights on the room. I go back upstairs and start to settle in.

I tried flushing the toilet again. This time nothing happened. Terrific, we have now paid for the room and the toilet is broken. There was water in the tank the first time, but the tank did not fill. I memorized Turkish for “the toilet is broken.” Down to the desk.

“Tuvalet yanmiyor.” The desk clerk smiled at me. “Yes.” That’s it? Yes? “Tuvalet yanmiyor.” “Yes.” But this time he was searching for the right words in English. “Seven.” “It will work at 7:00?” “Yes.” He bent his arm and made a muscle as if to say, “Be strong.”

We go looking for dinner and go to the Lahmacun Office, a pizza joint. It is decorated with a poster of Georgia O’Keefe and other flower pictures. We each get a different kind of pizza. I order Lahmacun, called Turkish Pizza. This is on a cracker-like piece of crisp bread, a circle about eight inches in diameter. On it is a think layer of ground lamb and tomato sauce. Then it is baked. Much more like pizza at home is Kiymali Pide. This starts with a crust a little thicker. It is covered with tomato sauce, cheese, and ground lamb. A rim is folded on the pizza from the top and bottom so it is no longer a circle but an eye shape. It is baked and then cut with parallel cuts the short way across. You get strips of pizza with rolled crust at each end. At this restaurant with each you get a little parsley salad, no utensils, but a salad. A slice of lemon is there as the dressing.

After dinner we walk around the shopping area. There are lots of more prosperous-seeming stores. Perhaps they are just more the style we see in the US and less like open and less formal mom and pop stores. You do have people selling battery-driven toys on the street. There is the car that drives to a wall, tries to climb it, falls on its back, and then rights itself. And runs in the opposite direction. There is also an electric dog that barks. There are sweet shops with open fronts.

We walk out into the square and there is a very large statue of Ataturk on a horse. Ankara, of course, idolizes Ataturk, at least officially. Here it is a punishable crime to show disrespect for Kemal Ataturk.

At the base of the statue there are kids playing soccer or hockey with an aerosol can cap.

We look in a bookstore window. I was surprised to see a Turkish edition of George Polya’s mathematics classic How To Solve It? There were novels by Dean R. Koontz, Stephen King, and especially Wilbur Smith. But we saw no science fiction. That was something of a surprise. There seems to be no market that I can see for science fiction in Turkey.

This is really the least touristy section of Turkey we have seen. We haven’t even seen a tourist since the Otogar. I also have not seen one carpet shop. There are no touts chasing tourists either. The closest you see is beggars who pick out foreigners.

Well, enough walking. We get back and the same clerk is behind the desk. I point out it is 7pm. I say “Yedi.” He responds only by giggling. We get upstairs and there is still to toilet. We can use the toilet only by filling the tank from the showerhead.

There is not much on the television of interest. I work on my log. I think I will treat myself to my last on-hand can of Cappy Cherry.

I have to be a little negative on Turkey for more than just the tout problem. Just about wherever we go the level of service is a bit dishonest. Now the hotel knows they the toilets don’t work and they basically lie about it rather than fix the problem. The desk clerk knew darn well there was no fix to the toilet coming. He just did not care.

I must have hit the sack about 10pm. I really don’t remember for sure. What I remember is that I got caught up in the log and decided to play one hand of solitaire. I have Klondyke on my palmtop. It worked out for me and I decided nothing better could happen to me today. From the next room I hear the monotonous of a computer video game. They have it turned up too loud. But it does indicate these things are available here.