Eighth Post From Türkiye: More from Ulus!

I seriously love wandering around the markets in Ulus. It is definitely a more work-a-day part of Ankara, than where we live. We headed down there a few weeks ago to buy a belt for Jack. 

Here are some pictures of our adventures!

Trum calls this the "Grandpa Dennis Street" because it is full of hardware stores.

Old caravanserai (ie inn for travelers in caravans), now full of shops and craftsmen/women.  

Folks sitting around making these wire pictures.

Do you need your knives sharpened? We got ya.

Oh, man! I need like a thousand eggs! Oh, wait, here we go.

This guy was super happy for me to take a picture of his fish stall. 

 Okay, here is the story with this. First of all, in most places outside the US, they use all parts of an animal, including the head. Thus we have some excellent sheep's heads for sale at this market. You can also get them raw, but I thought maybe this picture would be better for you. Secondly, right after I took this picture, a guy walked by and saw me and then did the the classic swipe your neck/cut off the head move and then we both laughed and laughed! Oh, man sheep head humor! It needs no translation.

Jack actually buying a belt.

Here is why these buses are called Dolmuş (pronounced Dolmush) . They are literally "stuffed" with people. This was my view on our ride home. That lady's bag kept knocking into me. 

See! Ulus! So fun!

Seventh Post From Türkiye: Hattuşa!

Well, this happened over a month ago, but as we have been out of town for a bit, I will use that as an excuse for how long it has taken me to post about it.

We had a day off and Jack took us on a surprise road trip. He wouldn't tell us where we were going, until we were nearly there. Frankly as I know very little about sites around Ankara, he could have taken us to a field and told us it was something special and I probably would have bought it. But instead he took us to Hattuşa, which was super cool! It was the capital of the Hittite Empire in the late Bronze Age.

 It is always so amazing to stand in these sites and imagine the lives that were lived there and the capacity the people had to build these impressive structures. The size of the stones that they moved to make the temple! It was in incredible. Anyway here are some pictures.

The temple

The Mysterious Green Stone!

Umm...some sort of cistern??

The appropriately named, Lion's Gate. 

Lion with Hieroglyphs.

The Rampart

Spooky tunnel through the rampart. Look really close, the speck at the end is Jack.

Sphinx Gate

Overlooking some of the sites.

Here you can see why we say it looks like Idaho in this part of Turkey. Except, somebody left some ancient ruins lying around.

More Hieroglyphs. 

Reconstruction.

Super nice, Kurdish Rug Salesman/Village Headman. His English was sooo good, it was crazy! We didn't buy any rugs, but he gave us some of his homemade cherry-apple tea. So tasty! He should be selling that stuff!

 Nearby Yazılıkaya, a sanctuary of Hattusa.

Crazy, skinny crack in the rock you had to navigate.

 

And of course, some dudes selling us stuff.

Jack did not buy that. 

I bought a little stone medallion for my sister and this guy carved her name on the back. One stop shopping!