Turkey and Turkeys and So Forth

Anne is on her way to Turkey to visit Jackie. I took her to the airport today. We did "Terminal Top" parking, as any Central Floridian will tell you, it is the only way to park at OIA.

We had some challenges getting her checked in since the airline on which she is flying does not open their desk till 4:30 in the afternoon. Good luck if you have a morning flight. Well, they partner with another airline which will not be mentioned, so we eventually found the right place and got her checked in.

The photo of Anne was made once she had checked her bag and received her boarding pass. The other two photos are to get you in the mood for hearing more about Turkey as time goes bye. Yes, they are turkeys. From the 7th floor elevators of Terminal Top parking. I guess the OIA folks thought that you would remember such comical animals and therefore not forget where you parked your car. Either way, to have turkeys send Anne off to Turkey seemed somewhat apropos.

UPDATE AT 3:40 p.m. - Anne is in Charlotte waiting for her flight to Munich then on to Ankara. Stay tuned for late breaking reports!

Munich facts:

•Munich is the capital of Bavaria, Germany.
•Munich was founded in 1158 by the Duke of Saxony and Bavaria, Henry the Lion.
•Munich is located in the Southern part of Germany, very close to the Bavarian Alps.
•Munich is the economic center of Bavaria and Southern Germany.
•Munich is the second most-popular German city travel destination after Berlin.
•Munich has a population of 1,300,000.
•Munich spreads across an area of 310 square kilometers.
•Munich is famous for its beer and many consider it to be the world’s beer capital. Oktoberfest, which is in September, is a big deal in Munich, especially at long tables outside, under the animated clock in the main square.
•Munich is home of BMW.

Also, Munich's main buildings of architectural note are (all of them) patterned after more famous buildings in other locations in Europe. If you take a tour of Munich they will tell you which ones, such as Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna, Tony Garnier's Opera in Paris, Versailles, and so forth. Trust me, if you go on the tour, after a while you will get the giggles about how every one of the buildings emulates something somewhere else.

Ankara Facts:

- Ankara in west central Turkey, is at an elevation of 3,000 ft.
- Ankara is Turkey's capital city and largest city after Istanbul.
- Angoran goats bred there are famous for the mohair made from their coats.
- Angora cats also originate in Ankara.
- Ankara was an important commercial center at least as early as Hittite times (18th cent. ). after they stopped hitting, in the 1st cent. it became the capital of a Roman province.
- Ankara flourished under Augustus; in the ruins of a marble temple dating from his reign (31 BC - 14 AD) was found the Monumentum Ancyranum, a set of inscribed tablets valuable as a record of Augustan history.
- The city was conquered by the Ottoman Turks in the mid-14th cent., and in 1402 Timur defeated and captured Sultan Beyazid I there.
- In the late 19th cent. Ankara declined and by the early 20th cent. was a small town known only for the production of mohair.
- In 1920, Kemal Atatürk made the city the seat of his Turkish nationalist government with a commitment to modernization.
- In 1923 it replaced Istanbul as the capital of all Turkey, partly to break with tradition and partly to take advantage of its central location.
- Ankara's leading modern monument is the Atatürk mausoleum, completed in 1953.

That's all you need to know, for now.