Friday, March 6

Today was cupcake day at school for Maren's birthday...baked last night and frosted this morning before school (with Nutella!) Maren adorned them with some sprinkles and fancy new M&M's that Myron and Kaye brought us ("M" is for Maren after all!). And she left some unfrosted since all her friends don't like Nutella. Thoughtful, eh?



Brian the tour guide met Kaye and Myron at the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in the morning, and then included the Ankara Castle and a little walking tour of the shopping areas around the castle and in Ulus. Aeden and I were to meet them at 2:00 at Atakule for a snack, but I had too much time to kill...so we rode our bus past the usual stop just to see where it would go. 1 1/2 hours later I arrived at Atakule after touring neighborhoods in Ankara that I hadn't seen yet, all for my 1.70 TL busfare!

We met up with Kaye, Myron, and Brian to some lunch and then sent Brian and Aeden off home and Kaye, Myron, and I set off to the travel agent's office to clear up plans for the rest of their time in Turkey. I think Myron and Kaye were quite skeptical of where I was taking them as we wound our way into a residential apartment building and walked up two flights of stairs, but once inside the office was very modern and things seemed under control.

She concocted a plan to squeeze Istanbul and Cappadocia tours into 4 days and it all sounded perfect, we would just have to wait a few hours for pricing to come in and confirm the plan by email.

We headed back to the apartment for a little snooze before dinner...at Mangal Restaurant off of Tunali Hilmi with George and Joan Gawrych. After wading through evening traffic in two taxis to get there, Aeden was grumpy and Maren was whiny, but we managed to have a lovely dinner with George and Joan and they swapped stories with Kaye and Myron too. We headed off in taxis back to our apartment and Kaye and Myron back to their hotel, and I'm sure all collapsed into bed straight away.

Kaye studying a Mother Goddess sculpture at the museum
Kaye and some school girls at the museum...can you hear their giggles?
They quizzed Kaye with all the questions in English that they could think of and posed for lots of pictures.
Another museum piece...haven't looked up its name/details!
Myron studying one of the few informational placards in the museum
Kaye listening to a woman tell her all about her background and how her home was wrecked back in the 1950's when they were reworking the Castle area and how the artifacts in the museum were essentially ransacked from other locations when Ataturk made the order that the museum required x number of pieces by y date. Hmm. Unintended consequences it sounds like.