Büyükada

I feel like every other time I write here I have done something else that might be the coolest thing I have done since I have been here. I went to the Princes' Islands, specifically Büyükada (which means Big Island in Turkish). The Princes' Islands are right off the coast of Istanbul and are really really cool. There are 9 islands in all, four larger and five smaller. Büyükada is the largest and has the largest population. I think my favorite part about the islands is that all cars, except service vehicles, are forbidden. The only way to get around the island is foot, bicycle, or horse drawn carriage. We had some great times. Below is the proof.

 Matt and Jacob, our German friend

 random horses around the island

 also random sheep

 The road was up here...

 We hiked down here...

 The flag on the ferry on the way back.

He is Risen

Easter weekend was a mix of pure exhaustion and just having a great time. We scrimmaged Thursday and I played literally every play. I also got water once the whole time. It was a great time but I was exhausted. Friday we went and got Turkish breakfast and then headed to see some more sights. We saw the Blue Mosque which is huge and over 500 years old. We also went to the Basilica Cistern. Basically this is just an underground water tank that was built in the 6th century. It was incredible to see the engineering and building that they could do so long ago. They built this underground cavern that is about is about 105,000 sq ft. It is supported by 336 marble columns that are 30 ft tall. Almost every column has some sort of carving or engraving on it and two of them have huge Medusa heads on the base. The Cistern is by far the coolest thing I have seen since I have been here.

Saturday we went with all the coaches and met some players for and INCREDIBLE Turkish breakfast before heading off the to airport. After that Matt and I spent the rest of the day with some other American workers celebrating Easter. We dyed Easter eggs and really just enjoyed being around other like minded people. Sunday Matt, Clay, Asylbek (our Kyrgyz friend), and I went to our coaches house for an Easter cookout. We had some awesome burgers and homemade mac'n'cheese. We also read some of the Easter story and worshiped together (Clay brought his guitar). It surely is a good thing that we are only told to make a joyful sound to the Lord, not a good one. All in all it was a great weekend to celebrate the resurrection of our Savior. It is my favorite day of the year and, although I desperately missed celebrating it with my family, I enjoyed it here as well.

tour guide...

Since the last time I posted things have been busy. We had a good week of practice last week and got to spend some time hanging out with my teammates. Last week we went to șile (she-ley) to watch a university game. șile is an area of town that really isn't in town. It is probably as north east as you can be and still be in Istanbul. We went with a bunch of our teammates and we had a great time. It was nice to be out of the hustle and bustle again.   Last Saturday we had a volunteer team come in to help run a camp for our team to help us get ready for our game on April 14th. They have been really fun to hang out with and it is funny to me that Matt and I have become tour guides. It seems that we have even taken on some translating duties which is awesome considering my Turkish vocab is probably less than 30 words. We have had a great week of practice though and I am excited for our scrimmage tomorrow evening. I am also really really excited about this weekend because we have nothing to do and we will get to hang out with some of our turkish friends. We have really been growing some awesome relationships with some guys.