i have held off putting together my thoughts about ankara because it's a philosophical problem too.
everyone told me ankara is an ugly city, and in a lot of ways it was. there was so much pollution that you couldn't see the sprawled-out edge of the city on account of the smog. and not a lot there that gripped me.
the basic question is : did i see ankara for myself at all, or just see what other people told me to see?
i did try to force myself out for walks to see the downtown and to wander around, but by day two i was tired of being lost, and the street signs are all tiny and hidden so i had no hope, and if they're not going to make their city more visitor-friendly then fine, i will take my existential crises elsewhere.
and none of the pet stores sold cat toys suitable to mail back home.
there was a little park with swans, but also tape to keep people off the grass. water dripped from the birds' beaks. what keeps them from flying away? can swans fly?
we went for pizza at a college pizza joint that had been redone, swank now. that was one night. and the other i tried iskander which is rice, croutons, yoghourt, and donair meat, with extra butter, and served extra hot because once it cools it gets filmy. we ate at a restaurant called Aspava -- an acronym for allah saglik para afiyet versin amir, may allah grant you health, affluence, and good appetite. there were four restaurants in a row all the same, all with the same name, all serving more or less the same menu, so when we pulled up in the car parking attendents all clamoured to get us to park in front of their restaurant and jumped to open the doors for us. we chose the leftmost restaurant. inside one person had a canadian flag on her backpack. bottles of turnip juice on the table and when it was time to go they brought us towelettes and offered perfume water.
later that night to an old college haunt where they played blues, where mo knew the owner who wore black and hadn't shaved and drank whisky from a short glass with ice. life, women, music, we talked about. there was a bottle of wine on each empty table along with the table settings, and a group of people our age talking, and a woman at the bar, and another couple. we stayed until they dimmed the lights.
at home watching the news they brought the anchorman tea on camera.
but the real truth of ankara was time spent in mo's office doing homework and hearing montreal call me louder and louder, beautiful sophisticated montreal, and thinking in general and also specific terms about summer plans, and of riding my bike again. my time in turkey is half over.
