Istanbul and Russia

I'm finally back after a long week trip to Istanbul and Russia. And I came back to a few packages and cards too! I got a couple from my parents, one from the Perez family back at Stanford, and a card from the Volks. It felt like Christmas had come early! Thank you soooo much! I'm definitely stocked up on sweets for a while and a few food items that I can't find here will help with cooking. I actually don't cook a whole lot. The team takes us out to dinner usually the nights and mornings before games. And they feed us on the road too. Although I wasn't too excited about the Russian food.

Speaking of Russia, I didn't get to see much of it except the inside of a bus. That was the single most longest trip I have ever taken for one game. After staying in Istanbul after our Sunday game, we left on Wednesday morning and had a three hour flight to Moscow. We then proceeded to take an 11 hour bus ride to Vologda where I game was. After arriving at 2 in the morning we had practice in the morning and then the game at 6 pm. We lost. We had beaten them in Adana and they were definitely out for revenge. We stayed that night in Vologda in our hotel that looked like it could be in a horror film and left at 5:30 in the morning to catch a 6 pm flight out of Moscow to Istanbul. After our flight to Adana it was 2 in the morning and we were pretty beat.

Our stay in Istanbul was much much nicer. We played Istanbul University on Sunday and won. (Always nice!) With our coach in a good mood after the win we spent Monday walking around Istanbul. We went into a beautiful catholic church near this popular outdoor shopping strip. I took pictures of the church from the outside, but we weren't allowed to take any of the inside. Next we went to a Turkish shopping bizarre where I bought a few Turkish items. We had to walk across a bridge where fisherman were lined up casting lines over the side. They would put 7 or 8 hooks on each line and catch that many small fish at a time. It was pretty neat. The trolleys in the shopping strip reminded me of San Francisco and the underground subway system was reminiscent of New York. Carmen felt right at home. There are so many people in Istanbul. It's population is near 17 million and it was definitely crowded like it. The coaches also took us around to some famous mosques and a museum. I don't know much about Turkish history so it was neat to see this. They had an 84 karat diamond on display that was found in the 18th century I believe. It was passed around and sold for a while until its value was discovered. Sorry, no picture of that either.

No rest for us. We are back at it with another Turkish league game tomorrow against Mersin. This is another important game as we are tied for 5th in the standings. I'll be putting up pics soon. I know I've been slacking and still have yet to put up the Israel pics but I promise they will be up within the next day or two.