Chill

Today was a pretty chill day for my family and I. We needed a break from the constant rushing of getting from one tram to another to see a museum or something. First thing in the morning we went to Babek again to have some breakfast with my dad's friend in a Cafe right next to the Bosphorous. We had a traditional "turkish breakfast" which pretty much consists of bread, eggs, different types of cheeses, olives and honey. After that we went to go see the inside of the Hagia  Sophia and it was really cool to see how the Muslims converted the original church into a mosque when they conquered Istanbul long ago. After that we met up with my sister, had a home cooked meal and decided to walk around Taksim in the evening. You may or may not have heard, but Taksim was the original location of the Turkish protests. The protests spread all over Istanbul and the worst of them was in Taksim. When we went at 9pm ish everything was fine, hundreds of people were shopping and minding their own business. There was a nice breeze and the weather was cool. All of a sudden we see people put masks on, raise banners and start chanting at the top of their lungs. The small group of protesters eventually grew to at least a thousand people; however it was completely non violent. They were just marching and chanting. In my opinion, the only reason these protests got out of hand was because the police reacted with such force (using tear gas, firing plastic bullets etc.) My dad kept saying that we should go back just in case, but we kept going on because nothing seemed to be happening. The funny thing is all of these protesters were extremely happy and joyful; they were dancing, singing, clapping and drinking. There were people playing loud drums with the protesters dancing. No doubt they were really drunk, but they didn't seem to mean any harm. We eventually turned around when the screaming and whistling got too loud. I didn't take my camera when we went to Taksim because I didn't really feel like lugging it around. It was a chill day, sort of.

hagia sophia

hagia sophia

hagia sophia

hagia sophia

hagia sophia