Day Trip

We decided to take a day trip to a small town about an hour outside of Ankara. First we decided to stop at a mall in town and treat the kids to Dunkin Donuts for a surprise. The donut shop is right inside the main entrance of the mall. We walked in the mall and Will immediately looked at the computer store to the right. We walked all the way up to the counter before the kids even noticed where we were! Here they are enjoying their donuts of choice.


After we arrived at our destination we had lunch. We sat at an outdoor cafe and ordered cheese pide (similar to pizza without sauce) and the cafe's famous guvec which was similar to beef stew meat with tomatoes and peppers. It was good, but a little fatty. In this picture you can see the kitchen where the food was prepared behind Brian and Jacob.


After eating we went to the town hall to find out if they could give us any information about their town. We were seated in a waiting room and served tea. After waiting for a long time we realized that we were waiting to talk to the mayor. He seemed fairly busy so we said that we would just walk around the town on our own. We drove up to a park that overlooked the town and let the kids play on the playground. Here is a picture of the town.


We were really hoping to meet some people around the town, but other than kids it just didn't happen. There were several children at the restaurant and at the park that talked to us. Brian overheard two girls talking to each other in Turkish about asking us "What is your name?" in English. They never did work up the nerve to ask us though. We asked them in Turkish if they spoke English, and they just giggled, said no, and ran away. Up at the park some boys did come and sit on a bench close to us and after we started talking to them they asked us "What is your name?" I'm sure their English teacher at school would be proud! We are thinking about going back on Sunday for the Mulberry Festival that they are having. If we had waited around for the mayor he might have even invited us to it, but it didn't seem like we were going to get in to see him very quickly. Even though we didn't come away with any new friends we still enjoyed getting out of town for a few hours!