I told Titch that I would post another blog today, so as promised here it is. I'm sure you live for this Titch! We just got back from Kayseri where we played four games in four days. Needless, to say I'm a little tired. Our team lost 3 games and won one. We were playing against decent teams, and never lost by more than eight. So although we lost, we hung tough. The game today was against the top team of the tournament. They had won all of their previous games pretty handily, but we actually took them to overtime. I was really proud of our team for fighting and being scrappy. We are much younger than them and this team (Mersin) has very experienced players and a couple WNBA players. Carmen hit a three to send it to overtime with nine seconds left. We are getting better with every game we play. Our team also signed another American post player over the weekend. Her name is Lisa Macchia and she graduated from Boston College in 2006. She had only practiced with us for a day and doesn't know all of our plays yet, but she still played great. So now we are officially done with the "friendly" games of our season. Starting next weekend, we start league play and Euro Cup play.

If you all have been keeping up with the news, I'm sure you've heard about the Iraq-Turkey tensions going on right now. After the dozen Turkish soldiers were killed by the Kurds, the city changed overnight. Cars were driving up and down the streets honking their horns. We see Turkish flags everywhere and banners showing the face of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. He was the founder of the Turkish Repulic as well as its first president. All the televisions in the restaurants are on the news. The people here are definitely reacting to what is going on in their country.

I've also been trying to keep up with the So Cal fires. I'd been keeping in touch with my teammate Kish who goes to Pepperdine now and was thrilled to learn that she recently was able to get back on campus. And teshekular (thank you), Nana, for letting me know my cousins in this area are also fine.