Turkey Pics

Nicole and me at the banquet

Fun with shadows

The sand at the beach

Mountains

A cave tunnel at the pool

Friends?

Me, Nicole, and our good friend Rachel at "The Hunchback of Notre Dame"

The cast (see previous post of what I thought about it).

Heat

It's hot.  There's no way around it.  The high for the past couple of days has been around 108 with about 50% humidity.  There's no dry heat here.  Last night it cooled off to an amazing 76.  

Here's an example of how hot it is.  This morning when I took a shower, I went to grap my soap (liquid kind) which is normally a gel...when it's not boiling.  I'm not kidding here, when I poured it out, it was just like thick water.  The soap was warmer than I was.  I didn't even touch the hot water nozzle.  Nothin' but cold water for this guy!  

The heat is worth it though.  I would live through the heat just for the food.  Then you add in the friends, the hospitality, and the culture and it's an added bonus.  Anyways, that's all for now.  Just expressing my love and affection of heat.

Flailing Arm Man

While in Turkey, we had the opportunity to see a French version of "The Hunchback of Notre Dame". It was definitely lip-synced by people who don't speak French...therefore they just moved their mouth up and down, up and down. As if that wasn't funny enough...they brought out some male dancers and it seemed like they lost their choreographer just before they got to this song, so they told the dancers to go out there and start spastically flailing your arms. This is the result.

It doesn't help that they are wearing nothing but black boxer briefs. At the performance it looked like the black sensor bars they have on TV to cover up the inappropriately dressed people. If you need an example...just watch an episode of COPS.



Clean Shoes

This has got to be one of the best stories of how Nicole and I ended up with clean shoes (without even doing anything!)

We have a friend who works for us cleaning, doing dishes, etc. kind of like a maid, but so much more.  She is incredibly friendly, even though I can't really communicate with her as much as I'd like.  She comes to our place every Wednesday morning.  When we come home, we are continually surprised by her ingenuity.  It is amazing what she thinks of to help us out. It's in the little things like, using a cup as a toothbrush holder, reorganizing our fridge, and putting our shoes in the washer the day before we leave for Turkey.  Yep, you read that right.  She did this out of the kindness of her heart and we really do appreciate it, but our shoes were still drying as we were wearing them on the plane ride to Turkey.  

So here's how it happened.  Nicole and I were upstairs at our mentor's house playing with their children, having a good time.  Our mentor asked if I wanted to go somewhere with him.  So I went downstairs to put my shoes on.  I couldn't find them.  Usually when she cleans the floors, she puts them in the window threshold, a random basket, etc. so they're not in the same spot all the time.  After looking for them for about 5-10 min, our mentor asks F*****h (no, it's not a swear word, I just want to respect her privacy) where she put our shoes.  She replied, "Well, they were upstairs playing with the children, so I put them in the washing machine.  I didn't think they'd need them for a coulple of hours."  After that she apoligized profusely.

I am really happy that she thought of cleaning our shoes, but unfortunately they take a little longer than a couple of hours to air dry...

So now you know the story of how we have clean shoes.

Turkey Wrap (Up)

Get it?  Turkey Wrap + Wrap Up = Turkey Wrap (Up), right?  For the record, I thought of that a week ago and kept reminding myself so I wouldn't forget my prescious cheap joke.  

Anyways, Turkey was absolutely incredible.  As you can see from the pictures, we stayed at an incredible resort called Maritime Pine Beach Resort.  The spelling could be wrong, but it doesn't matter.  It was in Antalya, Turkey.  It's on the Southern Coast of Turkey right along the Mediteranean Sea (sp?).  

We had some of the best food we've had in a while.  Turkish spices are absolutely incredible.  They have a great mixture of spicy and sweet.  However, their desserts were not as great as the main courses, which is a very good thing.  

Without spilling my guts too much, I have to say that this time in Turkey helped direct me even more into what to do, where to go, how to get there, etc.  I was encouraged by more than one person in leadership to go onto get my Masters in Counseling.  The only problem I have with that is I don't want to stay in school.  I'm getting a little taste of what's out there and I don't want to spent any more time in school.  There's pros and cons both ways.  

Ok, that's enough ranting for now.  I'm writing this on the plane ride back to Casa (about 4 hours) then we have a train ride to Fez (about 4 hours) then a taxi ride to our place (about 5 min).  We really are taking Planes, trains, and automobiles...in that order.  Pretty neat.  Anyways, that's all for now.

Resort

Hello from Turkey!  Sorry it took a while to put up some pictures...we've been on the beach too much.  haha...but seriously.  The beach here is amazing, the food is amazing, the room is amazing, everything is amazing!  So, here are the pictures (so far)...

A view of the beach

Being weird.  I like this one because you can see Nicole in my sunglasses

The view from our balcony.

Nicole playing in the sand on the beach.  That's the Mediterranean Sea.

Having fun in the pool.  The next three pictures are taken in a row.

A garden in front of our room.

The beach

Nicole in the pool.

I'll try to put up some more pictures later!

We Made It

After traveling for what seems like a while, but in reality is about 12 hours total, we have arrived at our resort in Turkey.  More to come on that later (with pictures, and trust me...you won't want to miss them.)

I want to dedicate this part of my blog to my cousin Shawn and her baby, Micah.  Micah, you have people all over the world thinking of you.  So if you're reading this, keep Micah in your mind please!

Quick Update

Hey, we're about to leave Fes (in about an hour.)  I'm not sure if we'll have internet for the next week or so.  If we do, I will update with pictures of the resort, writing about what it's like, etc.  So check back to see if we have internet!

Leaving/Randomness

Hello.  I would just like to say that on Tuesday the 17th, we leave for Turkey!  I am not sure if they'll have internet, so this site may not be updated until we get back on the 25th or so.  

Anyways, things here are going really well.  It's getting hotter and hotter each day.  Yesterday it got up to 97!  My North Dakotan blood was about to boil.  Haha.  

On a completely random note, the Cubs are doing so good right now!  They have the best record in the majors (as of Monday morning/Sunday night.)  I don't want to jinx them though.

Well, that's just a quick update for now.  I'll try to post more picures and stuff later!

Pictures

Here are some pictures.  I photoshopped them to make them look nicer (hopefully).  Some just make the colors brighter and some give us a second head.  Haha.  Just kidding...but that would be funny.  Anyways, enjoy!

At Volubulis

Moulay Idris

My mentor surprised me on my birthday with some figs.  It's an acquired taste that I haven't acquired yet, but still trying!

Ancient ruins overlooking Fes.

Horse stables in Meknes.  Yeah, it's long.

A view of the Medina of Fes.

Cool, huh?

Fountains on the walk from our mentor's house to our place

Commenting

Hey, I have it set up where you don't have to have a google account to comment.  All you have to do is click "Name/URL."  Please write your name in the name section...just so I can know who's comment it is.  Thanks!  Hope that helps!

What We Do In a Day

In this post, I'm going to try to explain our daily routine.  First we wake up...obviously.  If our mentor hasn't set a time to get going the day before, he calls to let us know.  After that, we find out what we're doing for the day.  Sometimes we go for an extended walk observing the people, sounds, culture, etc.  Sometimes we head over to his place to hang out and informally talk about whatever comes up.  Really awesome.  Sometimes we have the day to do whatever we'd like to do.  Sometimes we visit historic sights or important cultural landmarks.  Sometimes we try to meet other requirements.  Everyday is different which fits my personality perfectly...at least I think so.  Then at night Nicole and I usually unwind by talking about different things like frustrations, observations, our favorite foods, etc.  And that is a typical day.  

Pretty soon (on Tuesday) we leave for Turkey.  We knew our resort would be nice, but we didn't know it was going to be all-inclusive!  Woo hoo!  I can't wait to be swimming in the Mediterranean!  I'll definitely be posting pictures.  But for now, that's all folks.

Some Fun Stories

I was at a local Hanout (a store) ordering some gummies.  I was trying to order 15 of my favorite, plus a variety of others for a total of 40 Dirhams.  Of course, I said words before thinking of what they actually meant.  This is what I said, "Hkemseen hada  oo schweea hada hada hada.  Rrbaeen Dirham, affeck."  What this means is "50 of this (my favorite kind) and a little of this and this and this-40 Dirhams please."  They looked at me weird.  I walked to our mentor's house and it clicked.  I had ordered 50 of my favorite gummies instead of 15.  Hkemstash is what I wanted to say.  Oh well.  At least I have my favorite gummies for a while.

Another story...

I told one of my Moroccan friends that my birthday was coming up and he said that he was really happy for me and that he would text me when it is my birthday.  I was honored.  He did just as he said and this was his text to me, "Happy birthday Mr Ryan!!  your comrade ******** whom I Wish he was by your side to feed you a sweet cake."  Haha.  It was really nice of him to do that.

Pictures

This is where Moulay Ismail would keep his foreign slaves.  Extremely dark, scary, and unlivable.  We saw where they were tortured, attacked, and murdered.  Moulay was a fearsome ruler who was known to have killed over 20,000 people himself (that's an average of 2 a day.)

This is Moulay Ismail's horse stable.  This picture doesn't really show all of it.  It is humongous.  He had about 80,000 horses in these stables.

This is in the stables.  Kind of a cool picture but doesn't show much.

This is where Moulay would actually keep his horses.  This is how long 1 row is (I'm guessing there were about 20 of these rows.)  The width is just as long as the length, if that makes sense.

I just think this is a funny/cool picture of Nicole.

Pictures

Here's some more pictures over the past couple of weeks.

This turtle/tortoise lives at our mentors house in their yard.  It's always fun walking through there to find him.

Nicole, being the good student that she is, practicing writing her Arabic.  I, on the other hand, sitting in the corner taking pictures...

Hand woven carpets=Amazing.

This is at the tannery in Fez (but a different one.)  Today's colors were brown and red.

This is at Volubulis.  We went there again the other day.