ntl ataturk remembrance day

tuesday nov 10th was ntl ataturk remembrance day.

i dont think theres a way to sufficiently explain how much this country loves, and still basically worships, Ataturk. he died in 1938.

at 905 am, the time he died, they played a taps-but-not-really-taps song over the mosque load speakers and people honked horns and some moron skidded his tires burning rubber up and down and the hill about 4 times, some other person did that later in the day when i was at the citadel, too. there were huge turkish flags and banners with ataturks picture on all the buildings in the city. flowers at all the ataturk statues. the people showed their remembrance and respect thats for sure!

how i spent the ntl ataturk day of death anniversary:
i rode the subway to ulus and walked up the hill towards the citadel - old city walls/fortress type of place and inside people live traditionally. that was cool to see, i guess theyre comfy with that way of living, it seems very primitive. i bought a lil present for sisty from this cute lil ole lady.

on my way to the citadel i passed an old roman theater being excavated, that was slick! pictures 22-32 (and even though it looks barricaded, it wasnt)

it was a gorgeous day, and i enjoyed the view of smoggy ankara from atop one of the old towers. this country obviously doesnt believe in barricades because there are life threatening precipices and drop offs and all that good dangerous stuff, everywhere, and there are never any barricades, hand rails or warning signs. i guess thats one way to control the population and weed out unruly children. ooops did i just say that out loud?! kinda nice that i dont have to crawl over/under the barricades like i do in the states to get the good view or the fun picture.

not to mention that barricades would protect a lot of the ancient stuff that is degrading quickly at the hands of grafittiests and littererists and basically humans in general. sad. but still cool to be able to touch and stand on these really old buildings and walls and columns and touch old sarcophagus and writing tablets.

after i felt like i had explored everything there was to explore and took a bunch of pictures of old rocks at the citadel, i headed over to the ancient civilizations anatolian museum, its world famous and if you enjoy history at all then its a shang ri lah for sure. i dont really enjoy history that much, although i do like to take pics of the old rocks, and i did plenty of that, again. i had fun with the light of the sunset but i hardly got to see any of the museum, they closed it 20 mins early and kicked me out, good thing i got the ass picture when i did, i took a ton of pics of old birthing/midwife/goddess statues cuz i think theyre awesome, and i want to be a ND midwife one day, and i wanted to show them to my midwife friends back home. theyre all dark and fuzzy though cuz the museum people turned off the lights in an attempt to get me to leave.

i thought the ancient tablet writings were cool - the letter from the queen of egypt to the queen of wherever from 1250 BC was amazing, the coins were really cool, and the detail of the jewelry was amazing considering how old all that stuff was, i mean ain-tshent old - howd they know how to do all that? and i was surprised that i could take pics at all, another huge no-no back home in the US.

i slightly wandered the shops around ulus, cool to see huge piles of raw wool in a store, but it was getting dark, id like to go back again in the daylight, i watched the sky turn pink and purple as i walked back to the subway, then hitched the bus home and that was my adventure in Ulus.
loved it.

oh and this shield was monstrous, probably a lil wider than my outstretched arm, i cant imagine holding it with two hands let alone one and fighting simultaneously, and it was thick, so imagine the thing that left that damage behind, a mighty blow fo' shizzz.