Saturday in the Park (Not Chicago)

Friday after work Laura (our friend from Mora, MN) and her husband Can (pronounced 'John') took us to the Optimum Outlet mall to setup a cellphone.  On the way, Can took me through "Old Adana" which was a dodgier part of the city where we entered a mall filled with like fifty cell phone stores, rubbed elbows with the antique dealers, and walked through a meat market which consisted   of freshly butchered animal parts (its smell is still fresh in my mind, though its smell was anything but fresh).  

Saturday morning Hilary and I walked to the park nearby our apartment.  It is called Merkez Park.  Despite the repressive heat and humidity, we managed to explore and take pictures for about an hour.  Left of the mosque is a river (not pictured) with a bridge that lights up at night which we hope to frequent this year.  

So far we've not been adventurous enough to enter the mosque, but we will soon.  Laura said if we're lucky a worker at the mosque may let us go up into one of the minarets to look around.

The rest of the weekend we laid pretty low, settling into our new apartment, preparing for our first week of classes, and visiting a bazaar/farmer's market/pazar where we bought apples, plums, and persimmons - which is Hilary's new favorite fruit. 

Transition is slow, exciting, exhausting, fun, difficult, and progressing.  We hope our friends and family around the world are doing well and really appreciate the email, skype and ESP communication we've gotten so far.  It's nice to know we're not forgotten yet.