I awoke about 6:30 and wrote for a while. After all I did not have last evening to write and I don't have this evening. But the proximity of the opera house is really nice. Ataturk liked the opera. There is a statue of him outside. I guess it was part of his attempts to Europeanize Turkey.

I think that most places where we have been having cheese for breakfast it has been kind of bland. I just realized that what we are getting here is Feta Cheese. It looks the same and probably is related but it a lot tangier and saltier. That is a good touch. Turkish breakfasts have very little variation. So do the other meals. We have been avoiding the steam-table sort of restaurant where the food is hours old and does not look very good. Oh, one other difference with this breakfast at the hotel. Here they have rose jam. Usually it is strawberry and cherry.

I wonder how many pedestrians are killed in Ankara each year. The drivers are not very careful and the walker is constantly in danger.

The Museum of Anatolian Civilizations is claimed to be the one world-class museum in Ankara. I can well believe it. I had always wanted to go to the countries where they worshipped the Babylonian sort of gods. Now the place you would go for that is Iraq. I am not going to go to Iraq. But the same gods were worshipped in what we now call Turkey. Most of the best have been removed from the original sites and taken to Ankara. It is here and it is beautiful. There are really two parts to this museum. There is a central hall and there is an outer hall surrounding it on three sides. The outer hall is a decent archeological museum. By itself it is worth the trip from the hotel. The central hall has what Howard Carter would call "wonderful things." It is worth the trip to Ankara. This has great stone wall decorations. It is a wonderland of lion-headed humans and human-headed lions. There are gods portrayed like men and men portrayed like gods. There are strange animals and battling gods. There are big stones with hieroglyphics. There are bulls bucking and demons with bird heads. There are lions and bulls and long horned sheep. There are boars being hunted with bow and arrow and deer. There are griffins and who know what the creatures are. There are warriors and kings. If it ain't wonderful it didn't make the cut. It is like a wonderland of ancient history.

There seem to be a lot of school groups. Children love to show off that they know "hello." As you enter the hall you are greeted by an eight-foot statue of a forgotten king. Soon you are looking at winged gods. You see eagle-men with bodies like men and heads like birds.

The outer hall shows a chronological collection of artifacts from many civilizations. It seems like every case for a stretch shows the evolution of deer figures. There is a lot, though it could be shown to better effect to play off the wonderful central chamber.

I bought two "fake antiquities" to use the term in the Egyptian guidebook. One was a tile of a chimera. It is a winged lion with two heads, one lion one human. It is an imitation of one from the Herald's Wall at Carchemish from 950 to 850 BC. The other is the storm god from a relief 750 to 700 BC.

After going through the museum we looked at the central room again and worked on our logs in fine company.

Walking around citadel was our next order of business. This is a fortress that overlooks Ankara built in its present form in the 9^th Century AD. There is not a lot to see but some tall walls and gates. There are several groups of school children on field trips.

We keep running into groups of ten-year-olds who want to try their English making simple conversation. Sometimes they want me to take their pictures. Occasionally they ask for pens. (I wish I had brought some extras.) Usually they just want to be friendly. I photograph a couple of groups.

The heights of the citadel give a commanding view of city. For lunch we go to the Zinger Pasha Museum and restaurant. It really is just an old house with a restaurant on the top floor. It is a pleasant place to eat nice view.

They brought out a different sort of bread. It is like an English muffin only softer and fresher tasting. It is the same thickness but about 6 inches in diameter. For appetizers Evelyn ordered melon pickle salad and I ordered mushroom yogurt. The latter is just what it sounds like. It is yogurt and mushroom to be eaten with the good bread. Incidentally the one word that Turkey contributed to the languages of the world and it is always mispronounced. The "g" in "yogurt" has a little smile over it. That makes the "g" silent. The word is pronounced "yo-urt." Now, imagine a slice of dill pickle four inches in diameter and three quarters of an inch thick. There are no cucumbers you could take a slice like that out of, but there are melons you can. We got two pickled melon slices. The center was stuffed with peppers and diced tomatoes. That's Melon Pickle Salad. Next came the main courses.

I had Filet Mignon in a cream mushroom sauce. It came with peas, rice, parsley, a tomato wedge, bread, about ten perfect French fries, and a fiery green pepper. Was it the best meal of this trip? It was the best meal of this year. Evelyn had lamb chops. I had a Pepsi. This was a fancier restaurant and it shoed up in the bill. 5,150,000TL or about $21. The Turks tend to write the dollar sign after the number, by the way. They would say it was 21$.

Following lunch we walked through the bazaar outside. Little shops with spices, scarves, hardware, toys, bread, one after another, elbowing each other out. I got a piece of weaving for my office. Evelyn got two scarves for herself. Now my best shoes for work had also the best walking tread so I brought them. The problem is that they are suede, and the sidewalks of Turkey have pretty much done them in. I think I may risk having them cleaned toward the end of the trip in the hope that someone can find something that can be done with them. But in the meantime I am out a pair of shoes for work. Things are cheaper in Turkey. It was Turkey that grotted up the last shoes. Why not let Turkey save me money on the next? I passed a shoe store and saw a pair of suede shoes that suited me. How much? 4,000,000TL. $16. They seemed to feel pretty good. How am I going to turn down a pair of suede shoes I need for $16? The dance show tonight is $2.40. How can you beat these prices?

We had gone almost at random in the market and had now pretty well lost ourselves. However, Evelyn sighted the tall Ziraat Bank Building and with a little walking we were back at our hotel. Around the corner we stopped in a bakery and grocery. We needed water and were all out of Cappy Cherry. I asked Evelyn to pay. I took a picture of the different kinds of bread. With a grin the owner wanted me to shoot the back of his store and then the counter where he posed for me. Then he gave me the business card for his store wanting us to show it with the pictures. The Turks are a fun people.

Back at the room we wrote in our logs. I saw a little of Turkish TV. It is surprising how much Jewish music you hear in locally produced ads. They just ran an ad with "Eli Melech" as the background music. We saw the end of a "Cadfael" dubbed into Turkish. Now there is a Japanese Samurai film dubbed into Turkish but still subtitled in English. I wonder what it is. Well, it might as well be in Turkish as Japanese. Got it. The film is about Takezo but he will change his name. This is the first of three films that tell the saga of Musashi Miyamoto who is turned from evil to good and eventually fights Kojiro in a famous duel on an island whose name I have forgotten. Eiji Yoshikawa told the story in an epic novel called Musashi. The same filmmaker made a fourth film, Kojiro, told from Kojiro's point of view. This film was the first third of the story.

They also ran some old Max Fleischer Superman cartoons.

I went to use the bathroom to get ready to go out and discovered that there was no water. There remains constant water on the floor around the toilet. That is always there. I guess three stars does not buy what it used to in a hotel. Somehow there has always managed to be water at the base of the toilet. I suspect by the color it leaks sewage though I have not noticed a smell.

We were not hungry enough for a full dinner so went to a sweet shop. Evelyn had Tabuk Gogsu and a beverage Boza. The former is pounded chicken breast with cream sugar and cinnamon. The drink is fermented millet. I had a chocolate pudding, hearing that they were particularly good and having little idea how good chocolate pudding can be. It is cooked chocolate pudding with a small cream puff at the center and chocolate shavings over the top. It was a wower. Very nice. Cost for the three items is less than $3.

There is sort of a headwaiter. First a busboy walks to a corner of the restaurant behind me where nothing is happening but he can look over my shoulder. Then the headwaiter does the same. Both seem very concerned about what I am typing. They have not seen a lot of people come into their restaurant typing things before. He is behaving as if he thinks I am checking up on him.

Today has been a fairly good day. Now we are off to the theater to see what I am guessing is three ballets. They are Symphonic Dances. The music seems to be from Beethoven's 7^th Symphony, Ravel's "Bolero," and Shubert's "Bitmemis" Symphony. I am not sure which Schubert it is, but I am guessing it is the Unfinished Symphony. In any case we will have a fighting chance to know what is going on tonight. I doubt they will be dancing in Turkish. Music and dance transcend the language barrier.

Last night the program book was 40 cents; tonight it is $2. I guess you need a lot more text to cover dance. We got to the theater at 7:05 and people are slowly arriving. People dress to varying degrees. There are kids of 12 who come dressed like... well, like kids of 12 insist on dressing. Sloppy pants, running shoes. He looks like he could be an American. Some people are dressed very formally in jacket and tie and some in tee shirts. I am dressed as well as I can be after travelling for two and a half weeks in Turkey. That is to say I am just a bit on the shabby side. The only thing really out of place is the fact my shoes need a cleaning (desperately). The crowd looks a lot like the crowd one might get for this event a Lincoln Center. Take a photograph of this crowd and you would never guess that it was taken in Turkey.

They use no ushers to take people to their seats. It is assumed to be a service that is unnecessary. Otherwise I saw nothing the slightest threadbare about the performance last night, in spite of the very low cost. The tickets are all printed in one book. As they are sold they are ripped out of the book. Crude but effective.

Every seat in the theater has a unique number. The row letter is useful information, but it is redundant. We have much better seats tonight. The fire curtain looks like a Turkish painting of musicians and a woman dancing.

A woman pushes past me on the row and says two or three sentences to me in Turkish. They sounded friendly enough. The couple next to me is dressed very formally, but the woman's suit smells of camphor.

The nice thing about dance is even if the dance conveys little to you still have the music. In this case it was indeed Schubert's Unfinished Symphony.

Now there are many people for whom their most meaningful experience with classical music was Fantasia. That is not the case with me. I did not even see Fantasia until I was in college. The film that fulfills the same function for me is The Black Cat (1933) with Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi. I cannot hear any of the vast array of classical music used in that film without being plunged into that wonderful sepulchral battle of mortal enemies. That is my idea of a great movie. Of course, hearing the first movement of the "Unfinished" and I was back on the battlements of Fort Marmaros in spite of whatever was happening on the stage.

Part of the problem was the man sitting in front of me was somewhat tall and had a short haircut which made his hair stand out like a brush. I think the dance had something to do with the nature of art. There were music stands as props and women in tights and men in frock coats a la Chopin, but without shirts. Well, even if one ignores the dance this can be considered a concert.

I admit I don't know a lot about modern dance. Years ago when we visited a place that no longer exists by the name of Leningrad we went to see a dance show. They were folk dances and at the height of the dance they brought a bear onto the stage. We really enjoyed the night. Since then my acid test for a dance piece is would it be improved by bringing a bear onto the stage. Few pieces of modern dance can stand up to the bear test. The next piece was done to Ravel's "Bolero." It had women in what looked like swimsuits and men in tight black dance outfits. The movement seemed abstract. Again, I cannot tell you what they were trying to say and at least for me, the performance sadly needed a bear on stage. A Bolero is a dance. If you are going to create a dance to go with the music, it had better use the music better than the original dance did. This did not. It had movements in time to the music, but it takes more than that to make a dance for the music.

At the intermission people step past me to get out of the seats or back in. The two people next to Evelyn first excuse themselves in Turkish. The second time out (there were two intermission) the woman said something in Turkish and the man said "sorry." Coming back in the woman said nothing and the man again said "sorry." He probably told her not to speak Turkish because we would not understand.

The climax of the evening was Beethoven's Seventh. This starts out more lighthearted and lively than the previous music. There were more dancers on the stage and they did a better job of representing the music, at least to me. When there was repetitive sound in the music there were enough dancers that there was a pair for each repetition. I thought they did a really good interpretation. In this case no bear was required. There was a problem. The audience seemed unfamiliar with the music. Twice in the third movement the choreographer brought lines of dancers to the front of the stage and the audience thought it was a curtain call. They started applauding and drowned out the music. The dancers stood at the front of the stage and waited for the applause to die down before continuing, but it must have thrown them off. Now admittedly much of the fault was that of the choreographer. But I think someone was assuming that everybody knew that the music of any (but the "Unfinished") symphony is not over until four movements have passed. At the beginning of the second movement Evelyn gave me a look. It was more great music from The Black Cat. It also was music that was used in Zardoz. I tell you every great dark piece of classical music from Romantic era shows up somewhere in The Black Cat.

Following the performance Evelyn and I walked home in a light rain. The water was back on when we got to the room. We had bought candy bars to eat at the intermission, but I had been busy writing about the performance. So we ate them in the room.