ali the backgammon player

this morning awakened us to a refreshing breakfast of scrambled eggs, juice, fruit and bread. we caught the bus to our language school, where our lesson flew by. we have been covering everything there in fast forward; today's main topic was present progressive tense verbs. afterward, jon, nate, and i (rusty) went to an english lesson where we were able to interact with the students there. we talked for quite some time about sports, differences in culture, and many other random topics. later in the day, noah and i were able to spend time talking to and playing backgammon with ali. we have had many opportunities to talk to him in the past few weeks, but today we were able to learn the most. i think he is the only person i have ever met with 165 cousins. he has also taught us how to play backgammon well, which is a very loved Turkish favorite.
our day ended well as the five of us guys were able to help a local man in bailing out his boat. it was entirely filled with water and we we able to tilt it far enough to get the water out and then we shoved it up on shore. they were very thankful and we were able to learn a little bit about some other Turks who were helping. three of threm were univeristy students; they were studying journalism, public relations, and i do not remember the third's major. we are appreciative of any chance we get to practice out limited knowledge of Turkish though.

the first picture is of the barber that cut both mike and my hair, the latter is of Ali.