Update from Turkey

This is the mosque in downtown Adana. Each morning around 5am, there is a prayer call that wakes us up! Prayer call is 5 times a day and is heard for miles. We live about 7 miles from this mosque.

Another restaurant we ventured out to called ELEM. The language barrier made it very interesting, but we made it through and ate some really great food!

Fruit is a typical dessert and is usually given "on the house"

A portion of the huge kebap

On our date with the other adults from our branch

A server cutting out each individual portion

This kebap was huge!... about 15 ft. long!

anticipating what's next!

Driving on the autobahn. Most people live in apartments here.

An amphitheater we found on the side of the road as we were driving back from Kizkalesi

Kizkalezi

Owen loved the beach!

They will be great friends one day!

Okay I realize it has been forever since I've posted, but in my defense, I did just move halfway across the world! Now that we have internet and a house things are starting to settle down a bit. We are still patiently waiting for our household goods and car to get here. Hopefully only another month...X~fingers crossed ~X We have already made some really good friends. We have a nice branch for church too. There are about 40 members that attend right now. It's nice to be able to be all the way over here (in a country that is 99% Muslim) and still have a group of people to meet with that have my same beliefs.

We have been here about 3 weeks and have been able to go off base a few times. Right outside of base there is the "Ally" That's what everyone calls it. The ally is just a strip of stores and restaurants. From what I understand most Turks don't eat there. I guess it is in a way Americanized. I've seen Turks eating there so I'm not sure how much I believe that. I guess it's just not as authentic. But it is nice to go eating there because they do speak a little English.

There are so many things we want to do while we are here. One being to take the free language class available. We have books and stuff, but I think it will be much easier if we just have someone teach it to us instead of try to figure it out on our own. Really it would just be nice to learn some basic words, like thank you and bathroom! Last night we ventured off base a bit to a restaurant that was recommended to us by one of Joe's TNs (Turkish Nationals) at work. It was a really nice restaurant. The food was great! It was tough with the language barrier. There was one guy that knew a tiny bit of English so he helped us throughout the dinner. At one point he took me over to a computer and went on Google translate so we could understand each other. It was awkward, but fun! Im glad we did it! I know there will be more of those times. I can see how that night could have been a lot easier had we known how to pronounce some things and also knew some basic mannerisms. Another thing that is hard to learn is how to eat some of their food. They will bring out several dishes before your main meal comes. Most of it Im sure is for the main dish, but some of it you can eat by itself. I wanted to watch some of the other people in the restaurant eat so I wouldn't look dumb! At one point last night the waitress came over and showed me how to eat my Adana kebap! I was cutting the bread and he was telling/showing me to just pull it apart! We will learn these things, but in the meantime we will just look silly when we go out!

The base is small, but sill pretty nice. You can walk anywhere in 30 minutes. I enjoy walking actually. We just entered into a challenge put on by the HAWC (Health and Wellness Center) called The Biggest Loser. So I am needing to lose weight. My goal was to lose all my baby weight in 14 weeks. That is 30lbs. I have to lose it anyways so it's nice incentive for me to be in this.