Dad in Turkey - Ankara

Hi All

It is 7pm and we just arrived in Ankara, the capital of Turkey. We left Bursa at 8:15 this morning and have been on the go ever since. We saw a famous mosque in Bursa before leaving town. Then we stopped in Gordion where a man named Gordion was made king and took the name Midas. He is famous for the Gordion knot. He proclaimed that whoever could undue the knot would become the ruler of Asia Minor. In 324BC along came Alexander the Great. He couldn't until the knot, so he just cut it apart with his sword. He went on to become the ruler of Asia Minor all the way down to Egypt and over to Iraq.

So much for today's history lesson.

Now for some funny things that have happened.

1. In Istanbul I was walking down the street and got hungry for a snack. I purchased a bag of potato chips. It turned out to be tomato ketchup flavored. Interesting taste.

2. The first Turkish word I learned was Bay. It means men. Many of the toilets in Turkey do not have the man or women symbol, so you need to know which bathroom to use. Bayan is the women's bathroom.

3. Three people on our trip just received their luggage here in Anakara. They all flew thru JFK in NY and their bags did not make the connecting flights to Europe. Apparently, there was a bad storm in NY and many flights were delayed. Some people missed their flights and were rerouted on other airlines.

4. The bus has 40 seats and we have 40 people in our group. So I have been sitting next to Gloria for the past two days. She is from Cambridge, England. She is a very seasoned traveler, so we have had a lot to talk about. She is very compatable. However, the woman behind us is from Australia and is a non stop talker. I would have cut my wrists by now if I had ended up sitting next to her.

5. Linda - I have seen several Carrefour stores here in Turkey. Gloria says they are also in the UK.

6. My last item for the day is to tell you about the Turkish keyboard. The Turkish language has several extra letters to include the letter i without a dot over the i and also a letter i with a dot. The first time I tried to log on to yahoo to check my email the system kept rejecting me. I finally asked for help and found out I was using the wrong i. On this keyboard I have to use the key just to the right of the letter L.

All for now

John