Softly Call the Muster

April 21st is a special day for Aggies. It's Muster, the day that Aggies gather together worldwide to honor the lives that we have lost in the past year. As they like to pitch it:

“If there is an Aggie in one hundred miles of you, you are expected to get together, eat a little, and live over the days you spent at the A&M College of Texas.”

And that is exactly what I did last night with 350 Aggies. This was actually my first Muster away from College Station where it is mostly just the student body. Unfortunately DC is the land of money, and it was a little too pricey. They were kind enough to reduce the price for me to go if I would help volunteer. Basically it meant sitting at the t-shirt and raffle ticket table for 2 hours.

I know if sounds corny, but the couple of hours that I escaped to the basement of the Grand Hyatt in DC were some of the best hours I've had in a long time. EVERYONE was from Texas, EVERYONE was friendly, and EVERYONE genuinely cared for one another. I'd never met 99% of those people before in my life, but the fact that we all went to A&M at some point, whether class of 1933 or 2013, we were all friends. We could laugh and joke and complain about DC and reminisce about College Station. It was fantastic! I even got to see my friend Lindsay who I haven't seen since we both worked at the study abroad office at school.

But Muster isn't just about getting together and enjoying each others' company. Muster is a time for reflection and honor. After dinner, we all had the privilege of listening to the guest speaker, Becky Gates, Secretary of Defense Bob Gates' wife. She was great. Then we started the ceremony. We sang the national anthem, and then Texas our Texas. It was sweet to watch the older people get choked up when they sang "God bless you Texas! And keep you brave and strong. That you may grow in power and worth, throughout the ages long." It's good to know I'm not the only person who misses Texas!

After that they give the history of Muster and the significance of this day for all Aggies. They also read some of my favorite Muster poems. Here are a few clips of my favorites:

In many lands and climes this April day

Proud sons of Texas A&M unite.

Our loyalty to country, school, we pray,

and seal our pact with bond of common might.

We live again those happy days of yore

on campus, field, in classroom, dorm, at drill

Fond memory brings a sigh -- but nothing more;

Now we are men and life’s a greater thrill,

Before we part and go upon our way,

We pause to honor those we knew so well;

The old familiar faces we miss so much today

Left cherished recollections that time cannot dispel.

Softly call the Muster,

Let comrade answer, “Here!”

Their spirits hover ‘round us

As if to bring us cheer!

Mark them ‘present’ in our hearts.

We’ll meet some other day

There is no death, but life etern

For our old friends such as they!

In Memoriam:

We stood a little taller,

and a little prouder then

When we heard the call of Muster

and the Roll Call just begin.

We stood there all together

and wiped away the tears

When our names were called out softly

and answered with a “Here!”

... and so we’ve joined together

with our brothers of the past

To make our final resting place at

Aggieland our last.

We take a toast to our brotherhood

wherever they may roam,

For us the trek is over

Aggieland we’re coming home.

I get chills when I hear them. It really makes you think about all of the Aggies who have gone before us and those who will come after us. I love that they say, Aggieland with always change, but the Aggie spirit will never change.
 

We gather here to mark the day Aggies proudly stand.

To honor those who've gone before to the promised land.

Each name is called upon the roll, comrades answer "Here."

Trumpets sound their sad good-bye to those we held so dear.

All heads are bowed in silent pledge never to forget.

While rifles fire their last salute echoes answer yet.

To their mem'ry we'll be true; we will take their place.

One for all and all for one ever in Thy grace.

We'll meet again another day, reunion while we pray

To ask Thy blessing on each one on this Muster day,

Aggie Muster Day.

And that is exactly what we do. They read the names of those who have passed in the past year. Some go back as far as class of the 1930s, whereas some were class of 2013, still college students. Whether it was their family or their friend or a classmate, someone would say "Here" for them. Because once and Aggie, always an Aggie, even in death. They also would light a candle for them. After all names were read, they played Silver Taps and we sang the The Spirit of Aggieland. It truly was a beautiful ceremony. Some people say it's creepy, but it is nice to know that one April 21st (hopefully a long time from now!) people worldwide will be standing up and saying "Here" for me, whether that is Caleb, my sorority sisters, my friends, my children, or even my grandchildren.

Before we left, they charged us "to remain firm in your loyalty to your country and your God...To keep warm in your hearts your affection for each other and for our Alma Mater, and may God be with us all until we meet again" Of course, they also couldn't let us leave without knowing that a place called "Hill Country BBQ" had opened in DC and had pretty good Texas Barbecue and.......... BLUEBELL ICE CREAM!!!! There were lots of whoops for that! I really didn't want to leave, but after singing the Aggie War Hymn and rocking with my new friends, it was time to return to reality.

This was by far the best Muster I've ever experienced. I think it meant more now that I'm far away from my friends and family. It's nice to know that in all this craziness and with all these mean Northern people, there are still Aggies around who love and care about you, no matter what! So... I guess that will have to do until April 21st next year : )

Happy Birthday Day Scarlett!!!

I can't believe it, but today the best dog in the whole world turned 2 years old!!! Since that makes her 14 in human years, I think Scarlett has finally become a big girl dog. She's stopped eating drywall and shredding carpet and now she spends most of her days sleeping on the couch corner or my pillow. I have to admit, sometimes I miss her being so small though

Today we, or rather I, decided to really celebrate her birthday- we won't be able to separate either of ours until later in the fall. It was hard to decide how to celebrate a dog's birthday, but she's been needing to get groomed, so she got a spa day - had a bath, her fur trimmed, and even got her teeth brushed! Here are the before and after grooming shots

BEFORE:

AFTER:

It's hard to see the difference, but she looks WAY better. Nice and short fur for the warmer weather : )
After her grooming, both me and Caleb went to pick her up (a real treat!) and she got to ride in my lap without having to be in the crate! On our way home we even stopped at Petsmart for a few birthday presents!

As social as Scarlett is, the pet store was a bit overwhelming , which was pretty surprising. We didn't stay for long, but we did get a few bones and some new toys. Unfortunately one of Scarlett's new pastimes is euthanizing old toys...Her new favorite is the goose Caleb picked out just for her

Once we got home, both Caleb and Scarlett were pretty tired so they took a nap while I cooked dinner.

Speaking of dinner, I'm not sure what to think about this, but I came home last week and Caleb had taped an episode of Rachel Ray and told me it was a recipe I should try sometime. Not sure if that was an insult to my cooking or a compliment that I could potentially make a recipe of Rachel Ray? I'm trying not to think about it. I tried it tonight, it's a fish recipe with a sundried tomato butter sauce, with smashed potatoes and asparagus. It actually turned out pretty well!

Unfortunately Scarlett wasn't able to enjoy her birthday dinner, but Caleb and I sure did : ) I hope Scarlett had a great 2nd birthday. I really do think she is the best dog in the whole wide world!!!! I love you Scarlett!

Spring in DC

I know I know, I got bad about blogging again. And I still owe you the Istanbul portion of my mission trip. I PROMISE to get that update up soon - it just takes forever to write it all up and sort through all of my 7,000 pictures (literally) to post. I know that sounds like excuses, but its the end of the semester and things are getting busy, but soon, I promise soon.

It is "officially" spring in DC. By Spring, I mean that most of the time it is out of the 30s. Most people have traded in their winter coats for fleeces and light jackets and we are hoping for the best. The weather is pretty up and down, but I think it is safe to say that we have survived our first DC winter!

To celebrate spring, a few weeks ago we had a visitor come to town. Flat Stanley!!! My niece Ellie sent him to spend a few days with us in DC. I hope he had as good of a time as we did. Here are a few of the things he got to see:

He went with me to my Saturday Russian class... he was a little confused that day : ) 

Of course a trip to DC in the spring wouldn't be complete without a trip to see some cherry blossoms

He braved the protestors and learned some not so nice chants like: "White House, Pentagon, CIA.... Biggest Killers in the World Today!" But he did get to see the White House!

He also rode the metro!

When Flat Stanley wasn't out seeing the sites, he spent time with Scarlett

and with Uncle Caleb

Thanks Ellie for letting Flat Stanley come for a visit!!!

Spingtime has not been all fun though. As soon as I got home from Turkey, I headed to Whole Foods to stock up on some fresh food. It was a rainy day and heading down into an underground parking garage, I got into a fight with a parking garage pole.... and lost

It could have been alot worse, but its still a big bummer. Oh well, what doesn't kill ya only makes ya stronger : )

Yesterday Caleb and I had a FANTASTIC day! We are HUGE Texas Rangers fans. We agonized last week over which MLB.com package to choose so that we could get the most out of the season as possible. A few months ago, we even scoped out their schedule and figured out when they would be closest to us. It turns out that this past weekend they played in Baltimore! We originally had tickets for the Saturday night game, but when Friday's game got rained out, our tickets suddenly became good for a double-header on Saturday. 2 games for the price of one!!!

We left early on Saturday and headed to Baltimore which is luckily only about an hour away. We got their in time for batting practice. Caleb ALMOST caught a Josh Hamilton ball, but a nasty Orioles fan boxed him out and stole it from him. Oh well. Like Caleb said, he'd rather get hit in the face by a Josh Hamilton foul ball so he could get more free stuff... haha

I'm not sure why, but the Orioles have really good ticket prices. We had fantastic seats down the 3rd base line.

As great as our seats were, the people around us were not. Thinking back on it, we both have agreed to give them all the benefit of the doubt since it was a double header and most of them drank beers throughout both games. The more the drank, the weirder they got. Here is just a few of our favorites from the day:

Drunk girl and 2 guys behind us: "You are so lucky your parents never split up..."

Drunk Guy 1: Hey man, do you follow hockey?
Drunk Guy 2: Nah man, not really. Why?
Drunk Guy 1: Well... I picked up hockey when a friend of mine was real depressed and going through a hard time. He asked me to help him get back in the game. So I said to him, anything for you buddy. And so I went out and bought a pair of skates.

Stadium employee literally cutting off a fan during the second game

Drunk Guy 1: My friend is over on the 1st base side. Let's all stand up and wave to him.
Drunk Guy 1, 2, 3 (and the cut off drunk guy behind them): stand up and wave ridiculously for about 5 minutes. At the same time, all 4 of them thought that they single-handedly started the Wave and were directing the fans.... Priceless

There were some Maryland "cowboys" who sat in front of us during the 2nd game in boots and cowboys hats with the biggest redneck accents in the world. I could barely understand what they said to us. Never knew that Maryland had cowboys. Guess I learned something new today...

The fans we sat next to originally were a bit large. We decided that they each had at least 8 beers. Special, very special.

There were a surprising number of Rangers fans there which was nice. Before one of the games, Derek Holland came out to sign autographs. Of course we had nothing to sign and didn't have a pen, but that didn't stop us! We pushed our way to the front, asked to borrow a pen and pulled out our tickets. Tah dah!!! My first Rangers autograph!!!

Overall, we had a fantastic time. We endured the cold, one shut out and endless amounts of weirdo orioles fans, BUT, we got to see our team play TWICE, got to watch one complete blowout with lots of exciting homeruns, got an autograph, and laughed ALOT! (Sorry these pics aren't great, the ushers wouldn't take a pic for us and I was afraid to hand my camera to a drunk...)

As if our day hadn't been fantastic already, they have Sonic in Baltimore!!!! It may have been 20 minutes away, but you better believe we went and got drinks! Cherry Limeade has never tasted so good! It was so good that I saved half of it in the fridge and drank it this morning : )

To top off our great weekend, we had breakfast this morning with my cousin Holly and her husband Josh. They spent the weekend in DC and luckily it worked out for us to get together. It wasn't glamorous, but who doesn't like IHOP. Plus, it was a HUGE deal for us because we don't get to see family very often up here. Thanks Josh and Holly for taking time on your weekend getaway to see us! Hopefully we can see you guys again soon!!!

Well, that's all I have for now! I promise to get that Istanbul update to you soon! Happy Spring!!

Airport Meltdown

Our last night in Rize I stayed up LATE attempting to get everything in my bag. By now I had bought quite a few souvenirs so my bag was extremely full. It took multiple attempts of organizing and reorganizing, plus sitting on my bag and alot of squeezing and praying to get it closed. I was actually afraid the zipper might slip in transit it was so full.

We left the hotel at 5 am. So we were all exhausted. We had to drive back to Trabzon where we dropped off the two guys at the airport for their early morning flight home. Our flight wasn't until noon so we went back into Trabzon for some breakfast. We had to wait a little bit for a restaurant to open, but we ate buffet Turkish breakfast and pretty much lounged for awhile. Deciding we shouldn't loiter for too long, we decided to walk to a park down by the coast and take some pictures.

Side note- The Black Sea is FULL of jellyfish. Would you ever have guessed that? Kind of bizarre to me, but true.

After this was when my day went downhill pretty fast. We headed to the Trabzon airport about an hour and a half before our flight. It's a small airport, so plenty of time. I should preface this story by mentioning that I've traveled alot, in a lot of different places and alot of different conditions. I'm used to being hassled. I've had Russians burn a hole in my duffel bag with a cigarette. I've traveled 36 hours to Kyrgyzstan and not had a single one of my bags show up for 3 days. I got woken up in the middle of the night on a train from Moscow to Kiev and hassled about my paperwork. Nothing really surprises me anymore and I actually pride myself on my easy-going travel nature. That being said, the hour and a half I spent in the Trabzon airport is by far one of my worst travel experiences.

When you get to the airport they don't have traditional security. When you first walk in, you put all of your belongings through an initial security scanner. Once you are through you get your ticket, check your bag and head to the gate. Our group starts putting everything through the scanner. In goes my backpack, my shoes, my jacket, and my overstuffed bag. Shocker, they didn't like my overstuffed bag.

They take it off the belt and asked me if I have any chargers in there. I say no. Having planned ahead, I put ALL chargers and plugs in my backpack, just in case they wanted to go through it, my backpack would be easier. They insist that I have "bomb connectors" in my bag. Realize that all of this is going through my translator Ernest. The rest of the group went on to get their tickets. I knew it was bad when the original security man left and brought over security woman...

She asked me if she could open my bag. I'm not sure if it was my tiredness or knowing how bad it would be to repack the bag or just a general bad attitude, but I resisted. I wanted to know exactly where in my bag they thought the alleged "bomb connectors" were. She pointed to the top. Without really gaining my position, she unzipped my bag. It pretty much POPPED open and stuff spilled out everywhere. They took out all my souvenirs in the top portion and surprise surprise didn't find any bomb connectors. Not satisfied, she decided to be thorough and empty the rest of the my bag. This is where my unfortunate bad temper lost it. I demanded to know why my whole bag was being emptied. No answer. Then the worst. She started pulling out my dirty underwear, one piece at a time. At this point I pretty much gave up and started crying. It was so humiliating. Everyone in that airport could see my dirty underwear, including my male translator. After she took every last piece out of my bag that had taken me 2 hours to pack, she decided that I had actually told the truth, no "bomb connectors" and just walked away, leaving my mound of stuff all over the place. Poor Ernest didn't know what to do as I sobbed and debated in my mind how bad it would be to let loose some profanity on a mission trip.

Luckily, the other girl on the trip, Emily, came back from the ticket counter and was so kind to help me stuff most of it back in my bag, some of it in my backpack and some of it in her backpack. The more I think back on it, I must say that I glad that the Trabzon airport has very thorough security. But that being said, I've traveled enough to know when I am being messed with just for the sake of messing with someone. I think I was an easy mark and they just took advantage of me. I would have believed in their concern alot more if they told me there was an unidentified liquid in my bag (the honey) or drugs (all the tea leaves). But bomb connectors was a bit much for me to believe.

That being said, once I was on that plane, I put on my headphones, my hood, and slept all the way to Istanbul hoping that I never had a run-in with that security woman in a dark ally for her own sake...When we got to Istanbul we collected all of our bags and made our way outside to the buses. There are a variety of buses out there- charter looking, crummy looking charter, city bus, etc. There is a variety of numbers letting you know where it goes, but no schedule. There is also no line, so everyone just stands around and when your bus shows up, its a shove and push and bite and fight to get on the bus. Luckily we all stuck together and just pushed our way onto the bus and were able to get seats. We were all still in coats and fleeces because it had been cold in Trabzon, but for some reason the heat was on in our bus. It was BLAZING. The bus was completely packed and we had about an hour ride to the last stop of the bus. Most of our group slept, but I enjoyed looking out the window. Istanbul is divided into two sides, Europe and Asia, divided by the Bosphorus. We were on the Asia side which was pretty much covered in a variety of apartment buildings. I was surprised how modern it was. It had a very Mediterranean feel to it.

When we finally made it to our stop, we were in Kadikoy, a neighborhood literally on the waterfront of the Bosphorus. As soon as you got off the bus you were overwhelmed by the smell of fish. There were tons of people out and about. Kadikoy is not exactly a tourist area, its where real Turkish people live. It must be a major transportation hub because there is the bus stop, a train station and a ferry station there. We headed to the hotel which was at the top of a VERY steep hill. After a long day of travel and airport crying, by the time I got to the top of that hill I was wiped out.

Even though we were in Istanbul, this was probably the roughest hotel we stayed in. Our room was painted a pepto-bismal pink color and was about the size of my kitchen. Small, dirty and let's not even talk about the shower. Old and DIRTY. For the first time I was glad I had packed shower flip-flops. Randolph took us out to dinner in the neighborhood and then dropped us back at the hotel to get a good night sleep. It was pretty nice to have a down evening just to relax and work on the interactive prayer guide.

Check back tomorrow for an update on our days working on the Kadikoy and Uskudar prayer guides!

A day in the mountains!

Sorry for the delay, the end of the week got crazy again! But now back to Turkey.

I slept soooooooooo good after dancing the night away on the Black Sea. Luckily, the next morning we had planned a morning of driving in the van. We woke up and headed down to breakfast in the hotel. Someone in our group was awesome and headed to a little market and picked up some bananas. They were HUGE and delicious. They also had a tv on in the breakfast room. At first it was Turkish MTV, and then somehow they turned to American music videos. It's weird when we you get so used to hearing a foreign language all the time and then hearing English again. As each person in our group made it down to breakfast, they all just stared at the tv trying to decide if it was actually in English or not. Hilarious. Unfortunately, John woke up and was not feeling well at all, so he chose to spend the day at the hotel.

The rest of us loaded up the van and we were off to the mountains! This time I dressed much more appropriately. We started out driving along the Black Sea, which is a beautiful view.

Then once we hit a town (whose name has left me) we headed up into the mountains. The views were absolutely stunning.

You see these hills covered in tea bushes with mountains on the very top of the hills. How in the world they got their houses up there is a complete mystery to me, and how they planted and harvest all those tea bushes too. Randolph did explain how they get the tea leaves across the river stream though. They have these crazy box pulley things where they can load up the leaves at the top and then transport the leaves down the hills. Very resourceful is you ask me!

They also have these amazing bridges over the water. When I heard we were going up in the mountains in Turkey I was imagining nothing but us and nature. I was wrong. There was a little town (sorry for my spelling Randolph) called samelhemsheen (phonetic). It was a little mountain town, but had some pretty nice shops and restaurants (I'll cover these later). Once we left this area we started to encounter the snow. We made it all the way up to a little resort town called Ayder before we stopped. It would have been pretty rough going much further in that van.

At first we though Ayder was a fake/ghost town. It was COVERED in snow and there was not a person in sight. Not that I blame them... We did find a few guys who were taking care of a hotel/hostel who invited us in for some tea. While they prepped the tea we went for a little stroll through the town. We found a shopkeeper who invited us in as well. He had a few souvenirs on sale that some people bought - mostly socks and scarves. I had my eye on something he had outside.

Honey. Apparently tea and honey are what these people do well. We asked about the honey and he showed us a hive WAY up in the trees where he grows his honey. I was impressed. He offered us a small discount, but it was still REALLY pricey for a jar of honey. When we balked at his price, he told us about a competitor who sells his honey for like $450/half kilo! Isn't that insane!!! But apparently the quality of the honey depends on the flowers that the bees go to, so that is why his was so expensive. Very intriguing. I bought a jar : ) I couldn't help myself.

Then we headed back to the hostel to have tea. As they were described, the two guys were basically hippies. They weren't too interested in religion. Ethnically they were hemsheen people, which is basically the same as Armenian. But they were very nice and served us tea, an amazing little chocolate dessert, and let us sit around their fire.

Of course to get down to where they were holed up, we had to go down the staircase of death. Before you go down there is a very foreboding snowman with a sword in his hand. I knew that had to be a bad sign...They had these stairs that were COMPLETELY iced over. Even with my tennis shoes on and holding onto the wall, I pretty much slid to the bottom. I was so proud of myself until I saw one of the local guys literally run down the stairs without holding on. A shot to my pride, but oh well.

As we went to leave Ayder, we took a few pics of the view. Looking up at the top of the mountain, Randolph pointed out some specks that looked like rocks.... they were houses. How in the world they got up there... I still don't know. Must be cold up there. We did see a lady with a big pack on her back heading up the hill, and she was knitting as the same time. Way to multitask!

On our way back down the mountain we stopped back in samelhemsheen for some souvenirs and lunch. The souvenir shop we stopped in had a super nice lady who taught showed us how to wear the traditional headdress in the area. What do you think?

While I was waiting on some people to buy souvenirs I walked around the corner and saw a fish tank full of fish. Interesting... even more interesting when it turned out that was where we ate lunch and I had fish. I wonder which one of these guys was my lunch?

While we were at lunch they were running a special on tv. Apparently a really popular Turkish singer had been shot. Randolph basically described that it would have been like Frank Sinatra or Snoop Dog being shot. Interesting. Everyone on the tv was basically in hysterics, crying and playing old videos of him singing. It was pretty weird. The rumors were that an old business partner of his who had a grudge shot him in the head after a show. Pretty wild. This restaurant did have one of the few things I put in my mouth in Turkey and had difficulty swallowing. It was a dessert made pretty much from stirring syrup into cornflour. It was nasty. One bite was enough for me. Ick

After lunch we wandered through the town a little bit and then headed back to Rize. We stopped along the way and took lots of pictures of the scenery. At one point as we were driving we saw a group of guys on the side of the road. One was playing an instrument and the others were dancing. On the side of the road in the middle of the mountains in Turkey, these guys just stopped on the road for a dance. It was bizarre but Randolph assures us it happens all the time. Some of our guys decided to join in.

As we were driving along the coast again, they were talking about how people always say they see dolphins in the Black Sea but how Randolph hadn't. Pretty much immediately, we saw a dolphin. No joke. It was so ironic, and funny. It happened so fast I didn't get a picture. Sorry. When we got back to Rize we stopped to take a few pictures. They have a giant tea pot in town. Pretty cool.

We also stopped to get some local information and take some pics of the town center. It was getting pretty chilly though so we went back to the hotel to get John and go to dinner. We ended up eating dinner with a friend of Randolph's who is a carpenter in Rize. After dinner we went back to his workshop to see some of his work. He really was incredible. He had tables and chairs and desks. Most of his work was from taking tree roots and using them. He described how he never had a specific plan for a piece wood, but how he looked at it and how the work just took shape. He was a true artist.

After visiting the workshop, we headed up to a hill at the top of the city to admire the view. Sorry the pictures aren't very good. For some reason my camera doesn't take very good pics at night. It was C-O-L-D up there. We didn't stay outside very long but headed inside for some tea. A few of us also shared the fried cheese and wheat dessert. While Ernest and Randolph talked to the carpenter, it was a good chance for the rest of us to unwind and just chat for awhile. It was also the last night before two of our team headed home to the states and the rest of us headed to Istanbul.

Check back tomorrow to read about my airport meltdown and our first day in Istanbul.