Happy happy birthday, today’s Treanna’s special day! Happy happy birthday, in a land so far away.
We began our day bright and early, attempting to wave down dolmuses from the main road. Finally one stopped, and it was packed full of people. We were smashed up right against the sliding door, which slid quite quickly and nearly killed us twice. The driver, for a little extra cash, went off his route to take us all the way to the Antalya airport.
Ankara turned out to be beautiful contrary to what everyone said. Waiting for our baggage we received help from a wealthy businessman who then took us to see the city in the ten hours we had to do so. We went to Anitkabir, the mausoleum of Ataturk who was the first president of Turkey after it gained independence from the Ottoman Empire. This was a bit of modern Turkish history we had not learned in school or read about prior to coming.
Along the walls of the Ataturk museum were cases full of old books. We were told that upon changing from Arabic script to Roman script in the 1930s, Ataturk required the burning of all old books. The books in Anitkabir are supposed to be the only ones in the entire country published prior to the 1930s. He also changed the school curriculum so children only study Turkish/Muslim history, and made it illegal to identify oneself as anything but Turkish. For example, there are many ethnic groups throughout Turkey such as the Kurds and the Assyrians who are now prohibited from passing down their language to their children. It was shocking to see these types of laws and actions being glorified, when in the eyes of an American it looks more like a travesty of freedom. Due to American influence in this part of the world, there are efforts being made to bring back the ethnicities of Turkey.
After the Anitkabir we were pampered for five hours at a gourmet restaurant overlooking Ankara’s only lake (even though it was more of a weeded marsh). We had four authentic Turkish courses, birthday cake, wine and cocktails. The waiters were excited about how giddy and happy we were over cake, because they said that Turkish women are harder to please, asking for many gifts.
We had a great religious, and political conversation and the man bought us English Qurans and himself a Turkish Bible (that he said was from us). We promised to read them and continue our conversation online.
A reoccurring subject was how American women think that men just want something from them when they are nice, but really it is just Turkish hospitality. However, he soon fell in love with Emily, big surprise, and said he would commit to her if she said ok. He offered to fly her back to Turkey anytime she wants. After carefully weaseling her way out of this conversation, sticking hard to her love of her new job and how she has a “boyfriend,” we were able to get a ride back to the airport at 12:30 am, and are now on our 22-hour internet-less journey home.
Alas, the fearless duo is at the zenith of their odyssey.
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