March 30 (Leah's)

 

Well we set off for Bodrum this morning, a sad but peaceful goodbye. Nese had breakfast early for us, and we got to Skype with the Mom and Dad Gray while we ate! The bus ride wasn’t too bad. The first bus we chatted with a friendly guy from Oregon who was on a two week trip of Turkey. Our next bus was 2 ½ hours to Bodrum, and the views were amazing: rocky hillsides, olive trees everywhere, a lake at one point, and finally the ocean! We finally got to Bodrum and Guler welcomed us! We went to her house, about a 5-10min drive from the center of town. She lives in a nice, big house. She has a pool, and a nice garden with lots of fruit trees. After settling and having lunch we went to get groceries with her and then to her office by the ocean. We went walking along the shore and shops, and even got new sunglasses! We had dinner guests that evening; her friend who now lives in England and her son. We had deep conversations about God, both of them being non-practicing Muslims. And we were able to share our faith and our hearts! Just what Spencer prayed for! We didn’t eat dinner till 9pm, but I actually wasn’t even that hungry. We enjoyed Baklava for dessert- so delicious! I even had my first glass of beer, Guler had bought some beer just for us, so we thought we should be polite and share a bottle ( I must say, I am definitely not a huge fan!). Gunay the housekeeper put a special blanket on our bed because she thought it was her honeymoon :) It has a big heart on it and says something about love in Turkish on it. She is really nice; she keeps talking to us in full Turkish, even though we have no idea what she says! She made a nice fire in the living room for us to sit around, since the house gets cold in the evening.