A Day in Ankara

Assalamualaikum and welcome to my second post of the day! We have finally arrived at our last stop, the capital city of Turkey, Ankara!

In the morning, we had breakfast at the hotel's breakfast buffet, later finding out that breakfast is not included with the room and ended up paying for it. Right after the breakfast, we got ready for our tour of the town. We hailed a taxi to our first stop in Ankara, the Anitkabir. Anita air is the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who was the first president of the Republic of Turkey.

The day was a bit cloudy and there was light rain when we arrived at the entrance of the Anitkabir. When we climbed up the steps, we saw a huge clearing in the middle, and a huge building where all the historical artefacts are housed. Entering the museum, there were a bunch of things that had belonged to Ataturk, who was the first president of Turkey after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. There were his swords, his garments, his cutlery set and so many others. Moments of his life were recorded along with the battles that involved the Ottoman and history of Turkey from the start of the Republic of Turkey.

We didn't have much time to read every single thing. There were a lot of other tourist roaming too. We entered hallways with sides showing paintings and props that demonstrates war, with audio of bombs and shootings during battle. Yusuf loved it most.

Upon exiting the Anitkabir, it seemed that someone important was arriving. Rows of cars drove to the entrance, including police escorts and even an ambulance. Turns out, it was the current president of Turkey, Erdogan! We stayed for a bit, but we couldn't see him, we were already far from the direct entrance. This reminded me of the time when we were in Washington last year and saw President Trump! Now we saw two presidents unintentionally.

We left the Anitkabir and took a taxi to Atakule, a tall tower that seems to be a shopping centre. We didn't really explore it much, just went to the toilet and took a few pictures. Time to find somewhere to eat! We walked down the streets around the tower and found a restaurant, ordered five dishes and filled ourselves up until nothing else can get in. Alhamdulillah for good food!

We kept on walking until we found our next destination, Kocatepe Camii, one of the biggest mosques in Turkey! The mosque was enormous indeed, and people were streaming out after Zuhr prayer. We prayed there and took pictures with the beautiful interior. It was still pretty cold outside when we exited, and there was still light rain. There was a bit of snow before but now it had stopped.

Soon we were on foot to our next destination, quite the distance from there, called Kizilay. It's a lively square with shops, restaurants, bakeries on many others lining the streets, and more people roaming around on foot like us. We stopped once at a cafe and ordered a few Izmir Bombasi, which are chocolate-filled delicacies, hot and sweet. We didn't stay there for long, so once we finished, we circled the area a few times, finding a shopping complex but we couldn't find it at first, after the exhaustion of walking around. After asking people from different shops, we eventually made it and went for another toilet break. It was already around 4pm that time.

In the end we didn't buy anything. My parents seemed to not find anything that they were planning to buy, so we left the block and walked pass the shops, entering quieter places, where we found a convenience store and bought some food for tomorrow's breakfast. Finally, we dragged ourselves back to the hotel, on foot, singing and chanting together, cracking some jokes to distract ourselves form the exhaustion.

That night, we read up a few things about Ataturk and the factors of the fall of the Ottoman Empire. I've learned a lot from our visit here. This was our last day to explore Ankara, and tomorrow wraps up our time here in Turkey. I'll write my last post about my Turkey trip when I arrive home in Malaysia. See you then!

Assalamualaikum and happy new year, and new decade! Happy 2020!