Anatolian in Ankara

Ankara

If there is one thing to do in Ankara, Turkey's cosmopolitan capital city, it's whiling away a few hours in the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, housed in the restored Kuşunlu Han and old bazaar, uphill near the castle. The building itself is fantastic, with outdoor gardens and grapevine-covered terraces, dotted with random chunks of stone-- samples from hundreds of ancient sites throughout antiquity. Look left to see a Hittite gryphon circa 1200 BC, on the right 2nd century Roman statue of Cybele, over there a stela with illegible Lycian inscriptions from 400 BC ...


Welcome to the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations


Replica of a Çatalhöyük house (Neolithic 7500- 5700 BC); notice the dead buried under the floor


Hittite relief from Gaziantep, circa 1400 BC

After a morning at the castle, sitting on a bench in the park, and a few laps around the city, we hit up the central market for some fruit and photos. I love markets! Men calling out for buyers to come take their fish pulled us over, happily posing for pictures with us; other fruit sellers befriended us and chuckled when we insisted on using our own bag instead of their plastic ones.


Vibrant balik for sale in the market


Colorful, juicy mandarins


Bought some honey for our friend, Neşe

We stayed a long time at the museum, leaving only as they shooed everyone out for closing, then biked to a Gençlic Park, packed with families and couples enjoying views of the lake and spraying fountains, the water glistening as the sun set.


Water fountains at Gençlic Park

Tonight were couchsurfing with a computer engineer, Hamdi. He lives in a house not too far from the train station and university, near a lively street full of restaurants and foreign fast food chains, like Dominoes Pizza and Little Caesars. We arrived in the late evening (because we got utterly lost, googlemaps you failed us!), so the three of us went out to his favorite place for dinner. The theme of the restaurant is from a popular comic magazine we had seen at the Sundance hippie resort; I can't read it but from the cartoon pictures it's obvious that there's a lot of sexual humor involved. And I thought this is a Muslim country?


Dinner with the funnies

Over dinner we learned a lot about Hamdi's life and family. He studied physics and engineering, then got bored and got a job with his company as a computer engineer. His girlfriend also works with the company; she's currently in London for a few months of technical training, and in the process of interviewing for a job in Palo Alto, California. Maybe we will meet up again in America!