Pilgrimage to Turkey, Greece and Rome - Saturday

The day started off VERY early. My poor body didn't know what time it was or where it was so it didn't realize I was supposed to sleep when I went to bed. I slept, dozed on and off - kind of like on the plane - only to awaken at 4:30 am local time; this after going to bed around 1:00 am local time. I tried going back to sleep by counting sheep. When I was at 500 at 5:15 am I decided to shoot for 1500. I thought either I'll fall asleep by then or it will be about 6:00 am and late enough to get up and take a shower. The sleep never came but the early shower did. After a great buffet breakfast we were off to the Anatolian Civilisations Museum which exhibits the remains of the Çatalhöyük, the Neolithic village dating back to 6500 BC. It was amazing seeing such beautiful early artifacts that have been excavated and are on display in the land where they were found. It was awe-inspiring. Our guide at the museum was a retired colonel who used to fly helicopters. Boy, did he know his stuff. At times I couldn't keep up with him because there was so much detail. And remember, I wasn't operating on a full night's sleep. From the museum we were scheduled to go to the Mausoleum of Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey. We had to make a slight detour back to the hotel as a purse was left behind. We made it to the mausoleum, checked it out and then went through the attached museum. Atatürk was an amazing man, very progressive in his thinking. When he came to power in the 1920's he not only set up the country for his people, he gave women the right to vote and created a new Turkish alphabet that more easily fit with the Turkish language than the Arabic alphabet did. Then off to lunch in the direction of Cappadocia. Along the way the bus driver was waved over by the police. After examining system DVD on his bus, they determined that for 95% of the time he drove within the speed limit; at some point in the other 5% he went to fast as he passed a truck. Unfortunately he still received a ticket. Those darn Police! We had a great lunch of local cuisine and continued on our journey to Cappadocia, another 2-3 hours of travel, and thankfully, a nap. We had at great dinner at our hotel, and are looking forward to a wonderful day in Cappadocia tomorrow. I'm still trying to figure out how to add pictures to the Blog. Stay tuned and check back periodically!