Saturday 17 August, 2013; 10:59 PM; Host family Family's house
Today was quite interesting. Gizem got the day off from her internship (she's studying architecture and is doing an internship in that field), and she went around the city with me. It really makes a difference to go around a city with someone who actually knows something about it. For example, we spent a good amount of time on the street where we were on Tuesday (the one that leads up to Taksim) (A/N: actually, this is what most of the locals actually call Taksim. That is the street name. When people asked me, 'have you been to Taksim?', they meant to inquire as to whether I had been to this market street), but Gizem and her friend, Aja (sp?), didn't go to any of the major stores - they knew where to turn for all of the small offshoots of shops of small trinket-type items that are still cool.
Today was also nice because I got a solid ten hours of sleep, and it was completely okay. Of course, that and the post-dinner coffee will mean that I probably get a solid four hours tonight, but it was worth it.
Anyway, at breakfast I learned an important way to eat bread and eggs. If the eggs are fried but the yolk is still gooey, EAT THE YOLK WITH THE BREAD FIRST, so it won't get all gross all over your plate. I saw Gizem doing it this morning, and I realized just how genius it actually was.
THe way to eat bread, aside from with egg yolk, is with this Turkish milk-based spread and honey. It's really good. I wish Americans had Turkish food. REAL Turkish food. Can't we all just move to Turkey? (Actually, no, I'm pretty sure the Turks would hate it).
Anyway, we went to the same street where the group was on Tuesday to meet up with Gizem's friend whose name I can't spell but is really nice. After we met up with her, we passed a school (the one that Can and Mert described as a high-school Turkish Harvard, because you need practically full marks on the entry exams to get in), where people were staging a nonviolent protest. Gizem's friend explained that it was a protest of the jailing of some people from the Taksim Square protests.
She also explained why people were doing the Taksim protests in the first place. Apparently, the government is favoring a select number of people for benefits of some sort. They say it's because these people are good Muslims (or something to that effect), but there are enough people who are equally fit under those terms that people are starting to get fed up with the whole thing (as in, "I DO THOSE THINGS! WHERE ARE MY BENEFITS?"). Initially the protest started with just some people in the square, tying to draw attention to it. That happens a lot with political protests in Turkey, apparently - people try to draw attention to things, but it dies down after a few months. The difference this time is that after the protesters went to their tents and square and went to bed one night, the police came and set fire to the tents. Not many people died, thankfully, but still - there were kids in some of those tents.
Anyway, that's what made this not just another protest, I think - people aren't liking what's going on. As far as I know, the people in jail weren't acting too far outside of the law, if at all.
After the protest explanations and the small shopping, we went to a cafe to get a snack. Even lentil salads are really good here! It's ridiculous!
I think I've been more daring with food since I've ben here - if you told me two weeks ago that I'd be having a lentil salad and enjoying it, I'd give you a weird look and tell you to keep telling yourself that. But today I had a lentil salad, and it was great.
After we paid, Gizem and I left her friend and went to Istanbul Modern - a museum for modern art. Some of the pieces were actually really cool. There was one really long textile that had a photo of cigarette smoke woven onto it (for lack of a better term). There was also a film with two tapes running side-by-side - one of the daily comings and goings of home life, and the other of news footage of protests and bombings. It's kind of saying 'people are oblivious' and 'life goes on' at the same time.
After the museum, we took a ferry to the Asian side and back again. We saw the Maiden's Tower and Princes Islands on the way. Gizem said that she didn't know why the Islands were called that, and the guidebook didn't say. the story of the tower is kind of interesting, though.
So a king learns from a fortune teller that his daughter is going to be killed (A/N: some say that it was a prophetic dream that she will be killed on her eighteenth birthday). What does he do? BUILD A TOWER ISLAND IN THE MIDDLE OF THE RIVER. (okay, not in the middle, but but far enough away that if an assassin were to swim out there, they'd be too tired to do much except wheeze and groan upon arrival, and then they'd probably wouldn't have the energy to get back). Anyway, the princess lives in the tower for a few years and doesn't die from direct assassination. In a true twist of fate that normally only happens in tales like these, she does die, because someone manages to hide a venomous snake in the fruit bowl that was her meal one day (they took food out to her every day). The moral of the story is that you can't escape fate, because Fate will find a way to stick a snake in your fruit if it has to. If Fate has to stick a snake in your fruit, it probably means you're going to die alone in a tower in the Bosphorus.
On that happy note, I'm going to bed.
Good Song: The other woman? By...???
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