Hello everybody! Yet another day on our great Turkish Run!

First thing this morning, we went to the mayor of Balikesir. He received us cordially and added his own best wishes to the thousands of wishes for harmony and friendship that the torch already carries.

From the city hall the police guided us to a local secondary school. After receiving us, the director of the school sounded the school bell to gather all the students outside. It's already the third school where the tune of the school bell is the first few notes of the 'For Elise'. The students were between 13 and 18 years old and slightly hesitant to go with the flow of our presentation.

But once they had to guess from which countries we were they started enjoying themselves. The funny thing is that they always think that Sara from Italy is actually from Turkey. After the teachers and the students ran with us the ice was broken and each of us was surrounded by a group of 30 or 40 kids. At some point they asked me if I wanted to fly, and after answering in the affirmative they lifted me up and tossed me up and down in the air! We all became friends!

Now it was only a short distance to the second school. It was a primary school and the sports teacher was already waiting for us. A few hundred kids crowded together on a little school yard and joined our little program.

At this school we had a really, really hard time leaving. After the presentation there were so many kids clinging to us for autographs and stickers! Some teachers basically had to rescue us.

The running started and in Demirkapi, a small village on our way to Susurluk, the kids of a small school were already waiting for us and cheering loudly. Frank who arrived first with the torch received a beautiful bouquet.

We went to the school yard where the staff of the school, who were extremely friendly, got all the kids together.

They were so cute! We ran with all the kids through the streets of the village. It was like a river of enthusiasm flowing through the streets! It was hard to get them back to the school.

The teachers were really sorry we couldn't stay longer, but we still had some serious running to do. When we left, all the children were yelling together in Turkish: "Turkey is proud of you, Turkey is proud of you!"

In Susurluk we were joined by a few girls who ran with us the last few hundred meters to their school. They were holding paper torches. There were actually two schools right next to each other, a girl school and a primary school.

Again we had hundreds of kids joining our team! Some girls of the girls' school had prepared an excellent lunch for us and we enjoyed it thoroughly. They also offered us some beautiful artwork that they had made specially for the World Harmony Run.

It was half past three in the afternoon and we still had 120 km to go! But we didn't mind; today more than 1500 children held the torch and ran with us. They gave us boundless energy!

After a few hours of intense running we reached Bursa. Everybody enjoyed a good night's sleep after such an intense day.

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Distance: 150km

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