2014 Cultural Exchange Update #2

Off International,

2014CulturalExchangeTurkey

From 2014 NCAA 165 lbs. All-American Dylan Foley of Springfield College:

So here we are in Turkey, Day 2.

We started our day off exploring some of Istanbul’s most famous markets. The markets contained everything that you could imagine from foods and spices to clothing to jewelry so on and so forth. The communication barrier is a bit difficult to get around when working out prices, but we were able to barter and trade and work out deals. Everyone seemed to recognize us as American and came right up trying to sell all sorts of products.

After leaving the markets we sat down to a meal of shaved beef and bread in a red sauce, which was delicious. Most of the good here has been pretty good.

Today was also our first day of training and we jumped right in. We paired off Americans with Turkish and drilled shots and turns for a while followed demonstrations from 2008 the Olympic Gold Medalist from Turkey. We finished with live goes and matches. The practice was two hours long, but flowed well. The Turks were quick and flowed well, constantly looking for big moves, but we all held our own and competed tough! We compete for real tomorrow. Currently resting up before seeing the sights around our hotel!

 

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