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.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
monday the 9th of november
seeing that this day was over a week ago and i have had several ridiculously fun adventures since then, i cant remember much other than the highlight of the day was translating the words on the washing machine from turkish to english- very useful for knowing which cycle to select. i wrote it all down so kristin could have permanent washing machine understanding to sell on the black market to all her other english speaking friends that teach here.
there is no dryer, so air dry on the radiator, errrr i mean back porch is the way its done. and this actually takes planning- you cant wash too much stuff at once, otherwise you wont have room to air dry it all. also, if you want something dry, like your bed sheets, then you need to plan ahead accordingly- cant wash the sheets in the afternoon and expect to sleep on them that same night.
again, having memory lapse issues, but im pretty sure this was the night i went grocery shopping all by myself! and i even spoke turkish! kristin and faruk went to dinner, i stepped out and went and bought food, i wasnt hungry anyways and they needed some couple time. plus that made it an adventure for me!
according to facebook some other highlights from this day were:
~ listening to the call to prayer as i read thru emails n such, but that happens ALL the time, i barely hear it anymore, thats old news. it sounds like a dying animal, i have it on video, but of course it wont load properly onto here
~ figuring out how to get my laptop onto the turkish internet, my compie friends would have been proud, i figured out the ISP turkey info and entered it in and viola, my macbook was online! to quote facebook: desha wood feels like an Fing GENIUS for figuring out how to get her computer to connect to the turkish internet! (and yes, its more involved than just plugging it in)
there is no dryer, so air dry on the radiator, errrr i mean back porch is the way its done. and this actually takes planning- you cant wash too much stuff at once, otherwise you wont have room to air dry it all. also, if you want something dry, like your bed sheets, then you need to plan ahead accordingly- cant wash the sheets in the afternoon and expect to sleep on them that same night.
again, having memory lapse issues, but im pretty sure this was the night i went grocery shopping all by myself! and i even spoke turkish! kristin and faruk went to dinner, i stepped out and went and bought food, i wasnt hungry anyways and they needed some couple time. plus that made it an adventure for me!according to facebook some other highlights from this day were:
~ listening to the call to prayer as i read thru emails n such, but that happens ALL the time, i barely hear it anymore, thats old news. it sounds like a dying animal, i have it on video, but of course it wont load properly onto here
~ figuring out how to get my laptop onto the turkish internet, my compie friends would have been proud, i figured out the ISP turkey info and entered it in and viola, my macbook was online! to quote facebook: desha wood feels like an Fing GENIUS for figuring out how to get her computer to connect to the turkish internet! (and yes, its more involved than just plugging it in)
the zoo!
i love the zoo, if you know me at all you know im a total sucker for the zoo, so when uriah called and asked kristin if we wanted to go to the zoo with him and layla, I got all screechy high pitched voice and squealed yyyeeeeessssss!!!
but. were in turkey. animal rights are basically non existent, in fact the major bayram (holiday) coming up is all about slaughtering many different animals. so i knew to not be too excited about this zoo and that i needed to expect really bad animal conditions.
well, it wasnt as bad as i expected, i expected awful, when in reality only a few of the exhibits wrenched my heart out, as opposed to the every single exhibit i was expecting. i took some pics, some of which i was trying to capture how CLOSE the animals were, or how small the exhibit was.
and when i say close i mean close! as in a huge male tiger a tad further away than an arms reach behind a chain linked fence. close as in most of the animals can eat out of your hand if you let them, close as in the monkeys can take your cigarettes and smoke them, close as in not really any barriers anywhere, close as in how many people die here from being mauled by wild animals?
there were some cool and/or interesting things there.
~ the van cat is all white with short fur and has one blue and one green eye, they are basically worshiped in eastern turkey.
~the ankara cat is white with long fur, and there were kittens. yup pretty sad that a kitten was a highlight at the zoo, im such an old lady. we thought it was funny that they all had litter boxes in their cages, not sure why know we thought that, but we did. weird to see what looks like a house cat in a cage at the zoo.
~ they had a dog section, it was like going to the humane society, dalmatians, golden retrievers, hounds, terriers, german shepard, irish setter, etc. pets to us, apparently attractions to the turks. they had some of the local kengal dogs which look like huge mastifs meet st bernards, they live everywhere in the streets and are VERY big dogs. this was one of the heartbreaking parts, the dogs were not well taken care of, lived in cement pens and had the saddest eyes, a lot of them had puppies. we wondered if maybe the doges were saved from a bad place and brought to the zoo?? maybe? hopefully?
~ the peacocks were penned in. that was just weird.
~ i wanted a penis shaped balloon when we got there, kristin said we could get one on the way out, they were gone when we exited the zoo. dang you kristin!
~ 'Aslan' means 'lion' in turkish. now i know where CS lewis got the name
~ def had to get a picture of the americans in front of the turkey pen, in turkey, yeah were dumb
~ i saw a boy all dressed up as a lil sultan, later found out it means it was his circumcision day, glad i got a pic cuz thats kinda cool
~ feeding the animals is ok here. apples chucked to the bears and whatever else you wanna chuck em at, pretzels to the camels, deers, dogs, whatever else will eat them. people throw stuff to all the animals really (or hand it to them). it was a lil sad, prolly has a lot to do with the animals poor health, but then again i thought at least theyre feeding them apples and bread, it could be worse, it could be cotton candy and chocolate.
~ i wanted to feed the animals!!! when in rome right? but i didnt, i couldnt, id feel too guilty.
~ there was a lot of wasted park space for the humans, A LOT of space, like acres, why couldnt the animals have that space?
~ the chimp was captivity crazy, so sad. i hope hes old so he can die soon and be at peace. heart wrenching.
~ there were some gorgeous birds of prey, huge ones too. and they were close
it wasnt a huge zoo, not a ton of animals, and overall, it wasnt that bad, really, i mean considering all the circumstances, lets be realistic here. most of the animals looked well fed, they were pretty active - one of the lions kept roaring and one of the tigers growled a lot, a lot of them interacted with the human stimulation/disruption to their day, i think had they all been mangy and comatose then that would have been really bad/sad. it was fun to see the excitement from all the lil kids seeing these animals so close, and in reality what an amazing experience to be that close to these animals, at my zoo you need binoculars to see the bears and tigers!
but. were in turkey. animal rights are basically non existent, in fact the major bayram (holiday) coming up is all about slaughtering many different animals. so i knew to not be too excited about this zoo and that i needed to expect really bad animal conditions.
well, it wasnt as bad as i expected, i expected awful, when in reality only a few of the exhibits wrenched my heart out, as opposed to the every single exhibit i was expecting. i took some pics, some of which i was trying to capture how CLOSE the animals were, or how small the exhibit was.
and when i say close i mean close! as in a huge male tiger a tad further away than an arms reach behind a chain linked fence. close as in most of the animals can eat out of your hand if you let them, close as in the monkeys can take your cigarettes and smoke them, close as in not really any barriers anywhere, close as in how many people die here from being mauled by wild animals?
there were some cool and/or interesting things there.
~ the van cat is all white with short fur and has one blue and one green eye, they are basically worshiped in eastern turkey.
~the ankara cat is white with long fur, and there were kittens. yup pretty sad that a kitten was a highlight at the zoo, im such an old lady. we thought it was funny that they all had litter boxes in their cages, not sure why know we thought that, but we did. weird to see what looks like a house cat in a cage at the zoo.
~ they had a dog section, it was like going to the humane society, dalmatians, golden retrievers, hounds, terriers, german shepard, irish setter, etc. pets to us, apparently attractions to the turks. they had some of the local kengal dogs which look like huge mastifs meet st bernards, they live everywhere in the streets and are VERY big dogs. this was one of the heartbreaking parts, the dogs were not well taken care of, lived in cement pens and had the saddest eyes, a lot of them had puppies. we wondered if maybe the doges were saved from a bad place and brought to the zoo?? maybe? hopefully?
~ the peacocks were penned in. that was just weird.
~ i wanted a penis shaped balloon when we got there, kristin said we could get one on the way out, they were gone when we exited the zoo. dang you kristin!
~ 'Aslan' means 'lion' in turkish. now i know where CS lewis got the name
~ def had to get a picture of the americans in front of the turkey pen, in turkey, yeah were dumb
~ i saw a boy all dressed up as a lil sultan, later found out it means it was his circumcision day, glad i got a pic cuz thats kinda cool
~ feeding the animals is ok here. apples chucked to the bears and whatever else you wanna chuck em at, pretzels to the camels, deers, dogs, whatever else will eat them. people throw stuff to all the animals really (or hand it to them). it was a lil sad, prolly has a lot to do with the animals poor health, but then again i thought at least theyre feeding them apples and bread, it could be worse, it could be cotton candy and chocolate.
~ i wanted to feed the animals!!! when in rome right? but i didnt, i couldnt, id feel too guilty.
~ there was a lot of wasted park space for the humans, A LOT of space, like acres, why couldnt the animals have that space?
~ the chimp was captivity crazy, so sad. i hope hes old so he can die soon and be at peace. heart wrenching.
~ there were some gorgeous birds of prey, huge ones too. and they were close
it wasnt a huge zoo, not a ton of animals, and overall, it wasnt that bad, really, i mean considering all the circumstances, lets be realistic here. most of the animals looked well fed, they were pretty active - one of the lions kept roaring and one of the tigers growled a lot, a lot of them interacted with the human stimulation/disruption to their day, i think had they all been mangy and comatose then that would have been really bad/sad. it was fun to see the excitement from all the lil kids seeing these animals so close, and in reality what an amazing experience to be that close to these animals, at my zoo you need binoculars to see the bears and tigers!
the fun, the good, and a lil of the bad, i didnt take pics of the ugly. why document that?
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