I'm back!

It's been a while since my last post... been having some technical difficulties but I think I've got everything worked out now. (Thanks aunt Vıc). I'm down in Cappadochia now but I'll bring you up to speed on where I've been the past few days. Mike from Munich decided to travel with me from Istanbul to Ankara, Turkey's capital. I was glad to have him along... he's very frıendly and outgoing and always has a smile on his face. He's a magnet for meeting people. Anyway, we took the red eye bus out of Istanbul at 10:15 and arrived in the Ankara Ottogar at 5am. Trust me, I'll never do that again. Actually it was a really nice double decker bus less than half full but you really can't get a sound nıght's sleep sitting up (at least I can't). So ıt's 5am and we're at the bus station a few kılometers outside of town so we ask a taxi how much it would cost to take us to the Ulus district where the museum is. First they told us $25 US. We hemmed and hawed and began walking away and they ımmediately came down to 20 Turkish Lira (about $14 US). A Turkish college student overheard the conversation and told us if we waited another hour the metered rates would come way down, but better than that he pointed out the FREE minibusses about 50 feet from the Taxi stand that would take us to the same place! Needless to say the taxi drivers were not at all happy with this guy and let him know it. We thanked him and went off to find some breakfast in the station.
On the minibus we met a friendly Turk who spoke English like an American. Turns out he was a translator for some American contractors and then he worked in the travel industry. He gave a tip on a good hotel a short walk from the museum. They let us check in at 8am which was really cool. Took a quick shower and short nap and headed out.
The Museum of Anatolian Civilization in Ankara has got to be one of the largest collections of prehistoric art and objects in the world. Anatolia is the region in and around central and eastern Turkey. Their collection begins with the Neolithic period which begins about 10,000BC. Some of the stuff was so beautiful İt's hard to imagine it was made 12,000 years ago! The really cool part was the dividing line between history and prehistory. In school you learn about Mesopotamia, the Assyrians and the Hittites and all that ancient civilization stuff. But to actually see a 5000 year old clay tablet with cuneıform writing on it was pretty cool. Some of the tablets even had clay 'envelopes'. There were wills, marriage certificates, wharehouse inventories... regular everyday stuff. There was one beautıful piece etched on a bronze sheet... it was an ancient peace treaty. And another one was a letter from the queen of Egypt to the queen of the Hittites thanking her for her hospitality and gifts during their last visit. Amazing stuff.
Other than the museum and Attaturk's Mausoleum there's not much to see in Ankara. We climbed the hill next to the museum to an old ruined castle and watched a bunch of kids flying kites from the castle walls. Some of them were very friendly and we swapped magic tricks and smiles without any common spoken language. Had a bottle of local red wine with dinner that wasn't half bad and headed back to the hotel for an early night. Tomorrow morning İ'm heading to Cappadochia and Mıke's heading west to Izmır.