Loper Wrestling Molding champions for life

Lets get our Gures on

I was told that there were some loud construction noises as well as the regular singing coming from the nearby mosques this morning. This did not disturb me in the least even though I was sleeping directly adjacent to an open window.  I guess I was a bit tired.

We had some breakfast in our hotel restaurant. It mainly consisted of breads, eggs, fruits and a little meat and cheese. There was also a nice variety of jams and jellies available to us. After breakfast we headed down to a large market about 6 blocks away. Again we were met with the intense sales techniques from the Turkish Vendors. I must admit that I am a pretty good negotiater. I talked down a vendor on a bottle of cologne from 50 lira to 5 lira all without saying a word or expressing any intent whatsoever to buy a product. There is an extremely large network of indoor shops that sells a crazy amount of materials. I could have spent a much longer time shopping, but we had to get going as our bus was leaving for wrestling practice at 9:00am.

We headed out to a very nice sports complex. It had six international style mats set up. Plenty of room to spread out and get a workout in. I walked around the complex and visited the other sports venues. They had buildings for Judo, Volleyball, Tae Kwon Doe, Volleyball, Ping Pong, Basketball and Swimming. After working out for about an hour we had a simple dinner in the sports complex cafeteria. The main course reminded me of salisbury steak. It was served along with some tasty soup and the obligatory tomatoes and cucumbers.

After lunch we drove back to the hotel. We all stayed up really late the night before so everyone was dozing off on the drive home. Once we got to the hotel we were allowed 2 hours before we had to get back on the bus for the next practice. I elected to take a nap as I felt very exhausted. By the time I woke up it was 10 minutes before we had to leave. We had a quick walk to the bus. It was rush hour so traffic was a bit of a nightmare. Luckily our skillful bus driver cut through traffic very easily. There are some pretty close calls though. I rememeber one of our wrestlers saying 'I can't believe they drive this close to each other. I wouldn't even park that close to a car.'

Our competition in the evening was much tougher than earlier in the day. Our guide mentioned that it was the Turkish National team. We are unsure as to what age groupd but from my own eyes I wouldn't be surprised if it was a senior level group. This difficulty was compounded by the fact that the coach who was running the practice would rattle off a number of commands in the Turkish language and then immediatley start the drill. Most of our wrestlers were left clueless as to what was actually going on.

After our last practice we headed back to the hotel to have dinner. The hotel was serving us a dish similar to the chicken and rice that we had the night before. Gabe Re, Ty Swarm, Coach Bauer and myself elected to head out to the streets and find some greasy food as an alternative. We settled on a dish called doner. It reminded me of a sort of steak burrito crossed with a gyro. Very delicious. After our very tasty dinner we took a trip to a confectionary shop just down the street. I purchased a sampler of Baklava. It was some of the very best I have had in my life. I have a little left over, but I do not think that it will last for long.

Oh by the way Tyler Baker got his bag. He smells much better.

I have heard talk that we are going for some sort of boat ride tomorrow. I will make sure to keep you posted as to what we are up to. Till then.

PS Gures is wrestling in Turkish. Title quote provided by Dalton Jenson.

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