We only practiced once today, and then we have two practices tomorrow.  This evening I walked to the store and got a few things.  I have enjoyed my walks!  It is a nice time to think, pray, and reflect.  I ate on campus for supper, and then after supper I came home and made some homemade chocolate chip bread!  It was my first time trying it, and it turned out good!

Verse of the day:

"Humble yourselves , therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.  Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you."

1 Peter 5:6-7

I posted some pics under the "Pictures" tab!  Enjoy :)  The pictures are not the cleare

Rewind to Friday night:

Friday was great! I met up with some friends from church in the evening after practice.  I went out to eat with one of them near where they live.  It was really neat, because it was a little family run restaurant, so the people are really friendly.  The girl I ate with is learning Turkish, so she us able to put it into practice.  After supper we walked next door to her apartment and met up with one of her roommates.  We made some oatmeal chocolate chip walnut raisin cookies, which turned out great!  I hung out there until about 9:00 and then headed back to my apartment.  My friends live in Kizilay, which is about a 15-20 minute bus ride.  I felt pretty adventurous, that I would get on a bus by myself and be able to get there and back by myself!

Now on to Saturday:

On Saturday morning we left at 8:30 a.m. for Adana.  Adana is near the Mediterranean Sea, which is pretty neat.  Unfortunately we will not be able to see the Sea until we play Mersin (about 45 minutes South of Adana and right on the water).  I am excited to see it and hopefully take some pictures!!  The road trip to Adana was really pretty!  We traveled through some Mountains, which reminded me a lot of Gatlinburg…beautiful!!  You could see snow capped mountains, and it even snowed a little bit on our trip.  I wasn’t really able to get any good pictures traveling down, because the windows were not clear because of the snow and rain.  We stopped once for some tea and toast and then a couple hours later we got some lunch.  It was kind of like a cabin in the mountains that was a restaurant, so it was really nice!  We also were able to see a salt lake.  I heard that in some places the salt is so thick that you can “walk on the water”.  Pretty neat I think!

We arrived in Adana around 4:00 in the afternoon.  We went straight to practice, which entailed some shooting and playing.  After practice we had about an hour to explore the city a little bit or do whatever, and then have supper.  I stayed in the hotel so I could talk with my family and shower.  For supper we ate in the hotel and had chicken kebab, beef, rice, soup, and vegetables.  When we finished supper, our coach told us that there was a surprise for us down in the lobby of our hotel.  When we all walked down there, we saw who it was…our agent!!! Well, three of us (Jo, Sha, and me) have the same agent, and then Linds has someone else.  I knew she was coming to our game, but didn’t know when we would see her.  It was so fun to get to hang out and talk about our different experiences so far.  After a couple hours of talking, we all went back up to our rooms.

 

Normally we have wireless in our rooms, which is amazing!!  For some reason though, the wireless is not working in my room.  So, I went back down to the lobby so I could talk with my family on Skype.  When I went back down, I ended up talking with Susie (my agent) for a while!  It is always nice to be able to talk to like- minded people.  Susie truly looks at her job as a ministry, and for that I am extremely thankful!  Thanks Sooz J.  I also was able to catch up with my sisters and parents.  My sisters took a big practice test for their boards that they will have to take in February to become licensed nurses.  They both did really well…congrats!!!

 

I got up to my room around 11:00 p.m.  I read for a little bit to wind down, and then went to bed!

 

Sunday (today): finally caught up ;)

Today we had breakfast at 9:00.  Let me just say, that there was quite the spread of things this morning.  I’ll name some of the things they had: sausage (beef), potatoes, eggs, hard boiled eggs, lunch meat, bread (so many different kinds), bagels, pastries, olives, cheese (all kinds), apricots, dried figs, olives, cereal, and fresh squeezed orange juice.  To top it all off they had an actual honeycomb on a board type thing, so we had some extremely fresh honey for our bread!!  One thing I have learned while over here is that their breakfasts are pretty amazing J. 

 

Right now we have a few hours until we meet back up for lunch at 12:00.  I decided I would be productive and blog some!  This afternoon we play Botas at 3:30 p.m.  They have a few Americans on their team.  It was pretty neat, because I was able to catch up with Sharnee Zoll, who used to play for Virginia.  For those of you who don’t know, we played Virginia my sophomore year at Liberty.  It was such an exciting game, and we won the game by 5 points.  Sharnee was on the team that we beat.  It was fun to catch up a little bit yesterday after practice. 

 

I will let you know how we do this afternoon.  We have a 7-hour bus trip back tonight, so we won’t get in until the morning sometime!  I will probably wait to post until Monday!  Hope you all have a great Sunday J!!!