My mom

My mom is the most adventurous person I know.  As I was growing up, I always marveled at the stories I heard about my mom's world travels.  At the age of 16, she flew to Greece all by herself and lived as a foreign exchange student for a Summer.  My mom spent over a year in Switzerland after college.  She's traveled all over...and has the exciting stories to prove it.  She once dove under a car in Switzerland to dodge to chaos of a riot.  She's boogied at the Discotec as a teenager in Greece.  She's skied the Alps.  There are even rumors (that she firmly denies) about her cheating death at a pub in Ireland.  Adventurous.

Now God has blessed me with this opportunity.  I can follow in my mom's footsteps...and have my own adventures.  Inspired by mom, I've been trying to soak in as much of the culture as I can.

The base offers free Turkish language classes on Tuesday nights.  They are fantastic!  It's so much fun to stretch my brain in a new way.  I'm not fluent in Turkish (or even close!) but it has been exciting as I start to recognize little bits and pieces of Turkish.  I was giddy the other day when I recognized "Dikkat: Cok Sicak" as "Caution: Very Hot" on the side of my Starbucks Carmel Macciato cup!

Last week, I took a Turkish Cooking Class sponsored by the Spouses' Club.  We had the opportunity to go behind the scenes at a Turkish restaurant and learn how to make Turkish food!  It was exciting to watch the owner of the restaurant sprinkle handfuls of spices on his creations and toss them into the large stone oven. 

Maybe I haven't embarked on large scale adventures just yet, but I am savoring all of the little cultural experiences that have come my way so far. 

I always admired my mom's adventurous nature, but I never imagined that I'd be able to follow in her footsteps and have some adventures of my own.  I am thoroughly enjoying it.