My weekend did not go as planned from start to finish. However, I ended up exploring some things I probably never would have had the chance to see had things gone according to plan! So, all’s well that ends well!

I had planned to spend Saturday morning at the Ethnography Museum before heading back to work for a few hours in the evening. I left later than planned, but eventually made it to Ulus, an older part of Ankara, and set out in search of the museum. Having the keen sense of direction that I do, I became lost and frustrated. Just when I started to consider heading back to school early, I stumbled upon Gençlik Park – a swamp land that Atatürk had commissioned  into a man made lake. The area was quite nice with a pretty walking path and tea cafes along the way. I stopped for a bite to eat and drink before deciding I would have to return back to the museum another day. Here are a couple of pictures from my walk around the lake:

On Sunday I had planned to take a day trip with my friend Kathleen and her husband Cağdaş (my co-workers at TOBB) to Eskişehir, a city that is about 1.5 hours from Ankara by train. We arrived at the train station in plenty of time to buy tickets – but were told that while we could catch a train to the city – there was no room on any of the returning trains for the remainder of the day. I was disappointed, since my Saturday trip also hadn’t gone as planned. So, the three of us made new plans to go to the Ethnography museum again.

When we arrived at the museum, however, it was closed for lunch. Feeling defeated we decided to take a short walk around a nearby area that had some old mosques, and a restored Ottoman neighborhood. We ended up having lunch in a little cafe with live music, and a pretty view.

500 year old mosque!

There was a random old car parked outside the cafe with Wyoming license plates!

Instead of heading back to the Ethnography Museum we decided to go to a prison museum that has just opened. The prison closed in 2006, and housed many political prisoners, including a former Turkish prime minister. It was really interesting – and I was really happy to have Cağdaş along to translate the signs into English for us! Here are some highlights of our prison stint:

A view of Ankara from inside the prison.

Standing in a room in the part of the prison nicknamed "The Hilton" for its pretty views of the city.

Prison life re-enacted

It was interesting to learn that in this prison – people lived communally. There was a kitchen where they cooked their own food, and people shared a large room with 15-20 people. They had even left posters on the wall that prisoners had hung. Most of them were soccer posters from the 1980’s and early 1990’s.  There were also some murals painted on the walls, that showed mountain scenes – presumably created by prisoners dreaming of freedom.

I thought the most interesting painting, however, was this one:

"carry stones, don't carry words"

This sign was painted on the wall leaving the bedroom seen in the picture above. The meaning translates as “carry stones, don’t carry words” – basically meaning – “what happens in this room, stays in the room”.

I learned that at one point during the 1980’s – when there was a lot of political upheaval in Turkey, including a military coup, there were a lot of people hauled off to jail in the midst of the chaos. Around this time, the prisoners had organized in such a way that they were able to take over the prison. While there were windows in the ceiling of the room where the guards could listen in on the prisoners conversations, the prisoners regarded the keeping of secrets among each other as very important.  (I suppose that this type of organization is why in prisons in United States, people are housed in separate cells.)

So, while the weekend did not pan out as I had intended or planned – I did end up getting to see some new neighborhoods in Ankara, and made it to a museum that I wouldn’t even have known existed if I hadn’t had the company of a Turkish computer engineer!