Today was a long day of driving, with a stop in Ankara to see the museum and the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey. The mausoleum was a huge structure, and there were elements of historic Turkish history sprinkled throughout the area. For example, the roofs of the buildings were adorned with a greenish tip, which came directly from the top of the nomadic Turks' of central asia. There were Turkish mosaics and decorations inside the walls of the mausoleum. The museum was also quite extensive, displaying various items of the founder, gifts honored to him, weapons used during the war, as well as various pictures depicting the battlefronts of the war. However, what most caught my interest was Ataturk's personal library. There were several huge bookshelves, filled with books that Ataturk had read. These books were in a wide range of subjects: European history, Asian history, American history, linguistics, economics, natural sciences, psychology, philosophy, theology. From a man who had such a successful military career, started the Turkish revolution and instituted its government, wrote several text books, and also invented the modern Turkish alphabet, it should have been no surprise that he was a well read and highly educated man.
 |
| The Mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk |
 |
| Intricate Turkish patterns adorning the walls inside |
 |
| Lots of these paintings copied from actual photographs |
We finally reached Istanbul, and said good bye to each other as we all got off at our respective stops. There were nine of us in the tour, and by the 7th day, we became very close and friendly with each other. Jamin and Kellen, a lovely couple traveling together, were very friendly and helped me take some pictures when my phone died. Janelle livened up the long car rides with her funny stories of her 4th grade class that she teaches. I got a lot of good ideas for my future travels from Heather and Cynthia (Cape Town, Mozambique, Vietnam, India). And I learned a lot about New Zealand from the Kiwi family.
Actually, Cynthia (the mother of the Kiwi family) was the star of the trip. Without her, the trip would probably have been very boring, even gloomy and depressing, based on how apathetic, cold, and even downright condescending our guide became throughout the tour. But feeding from that, she turned the situation on its head and made all of us laugh by her cringeworthy comments and incessant questions which annoyed our guide extremely. I actually booked my hotel at the same place as theirs for our last night in Istanbul, and was able to spend more precious time with them, doing our last final shopping in the streets of Istanbul and eating our last dinner together. They were such a lovely family, and I feel very fortunate to have traveled with them.
 |
| Me and the Kiwis for our last dinner together in Istanbul |
1 comment:
It's always interesting to me that with no expectations on anything that you meet these random people and get along, especially families. You kind of get invited into them, and then while experiencing all these new things together bonds are created. The sad part is though as with all travels is, that these relationships do come to an end, and all you have left are the memories. Those moments are captured in time and can never be recreated. So the journey begins again to recreate something like it.
Post a Comment