Got up early so that I could pack and still be at the Syrian embassy when it opened. Paid 11 million Turkish Lira for an application, filled it out and left it with instructions to come back at 2pm to find out if I'd been granted a visa. Spent the day searching bookstores for travel books on the Middle East (no luck, but I did by a couple novels. Also picked up the toilettries I'm running low on (word is they may be hard to find in the Middle East). Then spent an hour answering email and getting caught up on my journal.
Got back to the embassy at 2pm on the dot. Waited 20 minutes for the embassy to get around to opening. Mixed news: The good news is I've been granted a visa, the bad news is it'll take another day to process, so I'm stuck in Ankara another night. On the plus side I started talking to a guy who works for the German embassy and he invited me to a party at the Australian embassy tonight. Could be fun.
I called Peter (the German I met at the Syrian embassy) to get info on the party. He said it wasn't dressy, but not casual either. I was a little worried about what clothing I had, so I went over to the park across from the hotel. It seems to be a property of all Turkish parks that people sell stuff, and the bigger the city the more stuff they sell. So I bought a pair of slacks and a tie for about US$12. The party was pretty small (less than 50 people) and almost everyone seemed to know everyone else. I think I confused a lot of people - first because I was a stranger, and second because I didn't work for an embassy. I spent most of the time talking to some people from the Dutch embassy.
