Entries about ankara

We crossed over from Asia to Europe today.

It was going to be another long drive, about four hours to Istanbul and another hour meandering the streets and getting to our apartment. We packed up and headed out of the country's capital, ready for Istanbul.

The landscape gradually shifted from busy city streets to rolling hills to flat plains. The highway was relatively new and smooth, and eventually everyone except my Dad had drifted off. A few hours later, we took a break and headed to a roadside pit stop that included a restaurant, a gas station, and a convenience store. We chose from a slightly overpriced buffet of basic Turkish fare, the likes of which were exceedingly average. The desserts were pretty good, though. One of them was kadayif, which was made of crunchy, wiry strings of dough, sprinkled with nuts, and soaked in syrup. We couldn't name the other one, but it was chocolaty and delicious. The restaurant was odd, spread over a large, open space that looked like it might've once been a gym. The chairs and tables were massive and wooden, like you might find... well, I don't know really. In a medieval lord's house, perhaps? They certainly looked very awkward in their current surroundings. We left satiated, pausing briefly to inspect a large case in front of the convenience store that was filled solely with fancily packaged chestnuts.

We drove for another hour or so, and finally came to the metropolis of Istanbul. As we crossed the bridge that arced across the Bosphorus, we waved goodbye to Asia and said hello again to Europe. The traffic was not as bad as we'd feared, and we soon located our last Turkish home. We brought our bags up the four flights of stairs to our apartment, which contrasted starkly with the rest of the building. The door is rusty and covered in old advertisements and stickers. The staircase is dirty and smells like mildew and garbage. But our apartment is bright and white and spotless and comfortable. Abby and I have to share a bed, but our room is big enough and we even have a vanity. There's a real shower with a mounted nozzle (which is always a treat in Europe, as you never know what you'll get), and a little dining corner away from the kitchen. The only real flaw is the lack of kitchen implements. But we've gotten used to this, and have actually become quite resourceful. Mom and Dad went to return the rental car, and then we got right to settling in.

We picked up some fruits and vegetables from the back of some guy's truck and purchased some essentials at the closest supermarket/convenience store. Abby made her best attempt at the lentil soup we'd learned to make at our cooking class, which turned out well considering the fact that we couldn't find all the ingredients and she didn't have a recipe. We planned some minor festivities for our halfway day, Day 132, when we'll have completed the first 50% of our trip. It feels like it's taken forever. It also seems like we were waving goodbye to Grandpa at the Victoria International Airport just yesterday. Istanbul's our last Turkish town. It's not going to be easy saying goodbye to the country after six weeks.

I know what some of you might be saying. “Enough with this Atatürk already!” If you are a Turk, it seems like you can’t get enough Atatürk and we are starting to understand why. Modern Turkey and Atatürk are truly synonymous.

Our main reason for visiting Anakara was to visit the Anıtkabir (literally, "memorial tomb"), the of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the leader of the Turkish War of Independence and the founder and first President of the Republic of Turkey. This monument to Atatürk took nearly ten years to complete and occupies a massive piece of real estate in Ankara. The whole monument is all about size and heft and a less about opulence. The architecture contains some characteristics of fascist and communist era monuments in regards to its expansiveness and reliance on hard clean lines. Somehow the whole complex just barely escapes some of the worst in propogandaesque architecture that typified German, Italian and Soviet architecture between 1920 and 1940. This is mainly due to its use of a warm reddish brown stone and the employment of mosaic work and painting patterns that herald from the ancient Hittites. The complex consists of a wide and long promenade lined with 24 lions that leads into a gigantic courtyard that can accommodate 15,000 people. The perimeter of this parade ground consists of open arcades which front buildings that have display space containing artifacts from the life and times of Atatürk. The huge square fronts a mausoleum of exaggerated height which contrasts with the rest of the complex which is excessively wide and flat. Although the memorial tomb has very simple lines it still makes loud statement about the esteem this nation holds for the person whose body it houses.

The display space surrounding the main courtyard contains some of Atatrurk’s personal and presidential possessions. There are cars and boats he used in his official capacity as head of government; there are numerous gifts he received from heads of state (most often daggers, swords and cigarette cases); and personal effects such as his clothing as well as his 4000 volume personal library. Interspersed with all these artifacts are a great number of life size photographs of him. The simple and tasteful displays do give more than an aura of reverence for the man. The reverence moves to near cult-like worship when you sit in the small movie theatre that shares the story of his life and how he delivered Turkey from the brink of annihilation. Despite this, it is hard to overstate how important he truly was in the birth of this nation.

Here is a list of just a few of Atatürk’s accomplishments. He played a key role in the defeat of Anzac and British forces in the battle or Gallipoli. He later took this same military prowess and fought against the partition of what we know as modern day Turkey into several subsections controlled by Italian, French, British, Soviet and Greek governments. After accomplishing this he became the president of Turkey. He instituted a new Latin alphabet to replace the Arabic one and took the nation from a ten percent literacy rate to a seventy percent literacy rate in two years. He put in place free and mandatory primary education and had its curriculum based on the most modern methods of the era. He even wrote two textbooks for use in these schools; one about Turkish and the other about Geometry. He had the prayers of Islam translated from Arabic into Turkish so people could worship in their own language. He gave equal rights to women and freed them from the veil and scarf. He instituted a system of surnames, where none had existed before. He instituted a secular legal system and created a modern system of finance and banking. These are just a few of many initiatives. He had a few more quirky ones, such as a hat law which outlawed the Ottoman style Fez and required civilized Turks to sport European style headgear. He did not go as far as legislating western clothing for women. He had more confidence in their wisdom in exercising their newfound freedom to dress as they chose rather than be forced to be veiled.

The legacy of one of his important legislative acts is his own name, which translates as “Father of the Turks.” In championing the need for last names to clear of confusion about people’s identities he was given the last name Atatürk by the parliament. Parliament also made it illegal for any other person ever to use that last name, including Atatürk’s descendants. A few decades later (well after Atatürk’s death) the Turkish parliament would also create a law forbidding the criticism of Atatürk and his legacy which has led to some stick situations between Turkey and the European Union and websites such as Google and YouTube.

Below the Mausoleum is a Museum that outlines the history of the battle for Turkish independence and and Atatürk’s central role. The Museum then documents all his political, social, cultural, industrial and economic accomplishments after the establishment of the Turkish republic. This is where everything goes over the top with patriotic songs being piped into all the exhibits and the heroism and genius of Atatürk is heralded at a fever pitch. It can make one feel uncomfortable and a little concerned about the problems Turkey may face when they inevitably will need to take a sober second look at their history and examine it for possible mistakes and missteps from which they can only profit. For now, it seems a strong sense of identity and clear rallying point is what keeps Turkey together and provides some of the confidence that is helping spurn its strong growth, bucking the trend of its European neighbours. We are glad we visited the Anıtkabir. I definitely will be picking up a biography of this man.

Our visit to the Mausoleum pretty much exhausted our sightseeing capacity. We headed back to our apartment neighbourhood to seek out a fairly late lunch. Abby has been craving a cheeseburger for quite a while, so I humoured her and accompanied her to Burger King. This US chain seems to have a fairly large presence in Turkey. Muriel and Hannah meantime had better sense and went to eat somewhere more appropriately Turkish. We both discovered that English was not readily spoken in Ankara which added some interesting wrinkles in ordering. It was to be taken to a new level of frustration in the evening when Muriel and girls went to order North American style pizza.

The pizza was a long-ago promised treat for Abby. We said we would get some the next time we came across it in our travel. As luck would have it, we discovered an North American pizza place the same day Abby also got an American style cheeseburger. A Little Caesar Pizza place is located quite close to our apartment. Late in the evening Muriel and Hannah accompanied a pretty eager Abby to get two take-out pizzas. Unfortunately, the pizza toppings were not readily distinguishable by their Turkish names and no English help was to be found. The solution was to point at pictures of some of the pizza toppings and then visually convey the size of pizza desired. The result was two pizzas that were smaller than what were ordered with one bearing little resemblance to the ingredients identified. I think the lesson learned for Abby is that if you have a craving for something from North America you should just leave it as a craving since you are more than likely to be disappointed by the overseas facsimile.

Hannah and I were lucky enough to start the day with a very cultural experience. We had signed up the previous evening for a cooking class that was held in the kitchen of the home of a cook that worked at the restaurant we had been to the previous day. She didn't know any English, but our waiter friend was able to be a translator for us.

The house was a cave house, which was pretty interesting, and that meant that some of the walls of the house were actually made of the rock behind the house, making it into a cave. We were greeted very warmly, and she made us comfortable with slippers and aprons to wear when we were cooking. We started off making lentil soup, which is a very common and traditional meal in Turkey. We had really enjoyed what we had been served in the restaurant and were glad that we would be able to learn and make the same dish we had eaten and enjoyed before. It was a simple dish, but it was good to start on something easy as we had to wait a little for our translator because he was out getting some of the ingredients we needed for the other courses.

The second course was stuffed eggplants, which was a lot easier than it looks. Hannah helped her fry the eggplants in oil, and then we both made the stuffing. The stuffing was made from meat, tomatoes, peppers, onions some spices and a lot of salt. We also made some long grain rice with traditional Turkish rice mixed in as well. After the stuffing was finished we were shown how to cut them open and fill them with the meat and vegetables. After this we garnished them with peppers and tomatoes, and soaked them in hot water and tomato paste, and then off they were into the oven to bake for half an hour.

The third dish we were taught how to make was a spinach and rice dish that we had eaten the previous night as well. This was simple too, as we just cooked the rice, and then added it to a mixture of spinach, meat, some vegetables and other spices. It was very similar to the stuffing of the eggplants, except there was spinach and rice, and a lot less meat.

My parents walked in at about this time, which was perfect, as the soup was at its final stage before it was ready to be consumed. We puréed it with a hand-held mixer and then served it along with the other courses. While the table was being set though, we learned one last thing. It was a traditional dessert that we had seen before in Kas. It's hard to explain but it is a jelly like consistency and is made up of flour, milk, egg, oil and a date jam, which is more like a honey.

Overall it was a great experience, and my parents were happy too because they knew that we would be able to cook these for them later on, and they even got to eat the finished products. And Hannah and I would also like to give a really big thank-you to our Aunty Helen who gave us some money to make this kind of thing possible.

Here are two videos from our cooking experience: Video 1 and Video 2

Ben writing now:

It was wonderful to piggyback onto Hannah and Abby’s cooking experience. We were invited to come and eat the lunch that the girls had helped prepare. It was a chance to be a bit of a voyeur in a Turkish home. As Abby already noted, it was partly a cave home and was heated with a wood stove that doubled as a second cook range when all the burners on the modern gas range were in use. It was a kitchen with all the modern conveniences such as a dishwasher but at the same time seemed to hold a healthy connection with an earlier time as well.

Our conversations revealed the alphabet soup and smorgasbord that the world community has become. It also reminded us that there is a lot of hurt and tragedy in the world. Our waiter friend, Abas, who Muriel alluded to in yesterday’s blog post, is an Afghan political refugee waiting for permission to emigrate to Australia. He worked for the American military as a computer technician and was in danger of retaliation from the Taliban. He is alienated from his family (nine brothers and sisters) due to his decision to work for the Americans and putting everyone at risk. He says he can't think of them right now, he needs to move forward and go to university and make a life. He is quite bright. Abas became fluent in Turkish within a few months and is now working as waiter, translator and part time Turkish cooking instructor and living in his employer’s home as a semi-adopted son. The mother, who gave the cooking lessons, had just lost a son in the past year in a traffic accident. Her husband has taken to drinking as a result of the grief. He awoke around 11:00 am and joined us for the meal and looked quite a bit worse for wear. We learned that their other son met a girl from Australia and has moved to Australia. Their new daughter-in-law has an Australian father and a Chinese mother. These are just a few of the many tidbits that we picked up in the brief span of a meal. Each interaction helps us build a better understanding of the world. We are incredibly interconnected.

When we were pleasantly stuffed, we said our goodbyes and handed out another Canada pin and keychain and hit the road. We were told by a few different people that we had a good five hours of driving ahead of us. Little did they know what kind of driving Muriel and I do. We ended up getting to Ankara in three hours. We may have bumped a fair bit above what may have been the speed limit but there seems to be quite a variation in how fast people drive—there are some pretty old cars still on the road and they are ones doing less than 80 km/h.

As usual, figuring out the exact location of our accommodation was like solving a world puzzle. Sometimes we are given very little information and the address we get if very cryptic. In this case we had an address that was overflowing with possibilities and variations. Ankara is a city of over four million so there are many neighbourhoods with names that sometimes substitute for the overall name of Ankara. After quite a few tries of entering information in different combinations of old and new street names and various neighbourhood names we got the magic combination. In the end, it was a breeze to find our apartment. We arrived two hours earlier than our arranged meeting time with our apartment host so we explored our neighbourhood and went grocery shopping. Ankara appears to be a very clean city with wide streets and ample traffic but very manageable in the middle of the day. In some areas it looks like Edmonton or Calgary without the ethnic diversity. We finished our shopping and still had half an hour to kill so went to a pastry shop and sat at a sidewalk table. The temperature was at least eighteen degrees. We had three small pastries and each had some sort of drink and the total for our repast was a mere 5 lira. Muriel actually went back to the counter to double-check, thinking that they must have missed either the drinks or the pastries. No, it all cost just three dollars Canadian.

We went to our nice looking apartment building and rang the buzzer of apartment block 14, unit number 6. There was someone home, but they did not speak English and certainly had no idea who we were. That was strange. We took another look at all the address data and considered the possiblity that the information could also read apartment block number 6 and unit 14. Oops! We walked down the street a few buildings and found a quite drab building which indeed had 14 units. Oh well, we are used to not getting it right the first time. We are now taking it in stride.
No one was home, but within 15 minutes Gaeten arrived. Fortunately, we found the apartment was much more pleasant than the outside of the building would have led us to believe. Gaeten spoke excellent English but he did not have a Turkish accent. We discovered that he is a Belgian married to a Turk and has been living in Turkey for the last two and a half years. The whole mixing of nationalities and societies continues. It certainly can only help make the world a kinder and more tolerant place.

The kids enjoyed the fact that they each get their own room tonight. The place has one and a half bathrooms but the kids really are only considering it to be one and a quarter since the half bathroom is the kind with just a hole in the floor with two footpads to stand on. It also turns out the hot tub (that Muriel was keeping a secret) in the apartment advertisement is just the half bathtub that forms the bottom of the shower. I guess you call that lost in translation. It’s a good thing Muriel kept the hot tub information to herself.