Dec. 10 – Friday…continued

Today Wayne took off work so we could go out sight seeing together.  We had planned a trip to place called Beypazari.  It is out of the city a ways with hilly roads.  We scratched that idea when the forceast said rain and freezing temps there and went to the old section of Ankara.  It turned out to be a nice day in the city but by the time we headed home it started to rain quite hard and the temps were dropping.  So we were glad we had not gone to Beypazari since it was in the direction the weather comes from and would have been nasty all day.

View from the Roman Castle/Town

Instead we went to a museum of the Anatolian civilizations.  It had things that dated from 3^rd millennium BC (bronze age) and things which looked like Stone Age type tools and a lot from the Hittite civilization (9^th century BC).    Most of the artifacts were in excellent shape considering there age and what we have seen in museums elsewhere.  They were quite advanced and it was really interesting to see a piece of what we read about in the Good Book but have no idea really what they were like.  The Hittites did like to have lots of gods and kept adding to them for whatever reason was needed or convenient.  The museum was housed in an old bazaar (marketplace) building that was built in the 15^th century.  Turkey is so full of history and ancient things …it would take months to visit and explore it all.

After the museum we went to an old castle that was built during the Roman Empire days.  There was a great view of the whole city.  The contrast between the old houses surrounding the castle and the modern high rise apt buildings was interesting…not to mention the many mosque minorettes’ that were poking up all over the place.    

gozlume

We stopped for a snack at a place by the castle.  It was called gozlume and was delicious.  A woman rolled out some dough with a rod or dowel and made it thin like a tortilla and roasted it on a grill that looked like an upside down wok over coals…they filled it with onions and spinach and folded it over.  It was delicious!!  Pam made us taste a drink they have that is salty yogurt and supposed to be good for your stomach…I suppose it would be if you could stomach it.  We tasted it but it was way to salty for my liking.

Making Gozlume

We spent the next few hours going through the narrow streets looking at the shops.  It is so hard not to buy things when you are in a foreign country…at least for me …because they have such interesting cool stuff and it’s cheap.  But for the most part I have resisted, as we don’t have room in our luggage to carry it around the world.  I did find some fabric that has a very Turkish look about it and hope it goes well with the Italy fabric.  It won’t be easy to blend these together as I go because each country has its own favorite flare of colors and designs…I guess that is what will make my quilt unique!

Old Roman town on edge of Ankara

We stopped for a late lunch about 2:30 and had a typical Turkish meal.  I had rice with a leg of lamb on top of it.  The rice had tiny little black things in it which I found out were dried grapes and they had a kind of sweet flavor which was nice.  The meat was very tender and we enjoyed it..we as in Roger and I who were sharing our dishes so we got to try more.  He had some kebabs that was ground meat…not sure if it was lamb or something else and it was spicy and very yummy.  And flat bread…I could eat that all day!! 

We wandered an hour or so more before the rain started coming.  We could see the dark clouds rolling in and when it started it seemed as if it were about 7pm but it was only about 4:30.  We had to walk a ways to where we caught the bus and so we were following Pam who walks like…a woman on a mission…and she did not have a rain coat so that may have accounted for her speed but it was hard to keep track of her because she is short and it was dark and rainy and there were hundreds of people…but we made it just before the bus was heading out and were glad to be in a warm dry place. Of course we had the killer hill to face when we got off the bus and it had become a river as the rain ran down it.  We were all tired and after a nice salad and cracker dinner we read till 9 PM, which seemed like a legitimate time to head for bed.