A bit too much excitement...

I'll tell the end of this story first: we are healthy, safe and planning to go to Sofia, Bulgaria tonight.  Furthermore, in general, Istanbul has been a lot of fun - we've seen interesting old neighborhoods, visited the Archaeological Museum and eaten some great food.

The real story begins two days ago when we were on the ferry toward the European side when we ran into our host's former professor.  She told us she was on her way to a protest that was going on, saying that people were going to demolish a park to put up a mall.

Much later that day, we met up with our host and he suggested we get some beer and go to the park where the protest was happening.  He had talked to some people who were there and it seemed like nothing was really going on, that people were just sitting and chatting.  We did end up having a nice night sitting and chatting in the park.  It seemed like a bit more was happening with the protest in one end of the park, but we stayed on the other side, so it didn't affect us.  We only got to see how many people there had been in the park when we tried to leave and saw that we would have to wait a long time for transit home.  We did find an alternate way, but we didn't get home until about 2:30am (hence no blog post at that point).

Anyway, the following day (yesterday, May 31st) we went back to the European side, had a wonderful morning and afternoon, and went to meet one of Tim's friends from their study program in Syria 3 years ago. When we got close to our meeting place , we saw a block of protesters yelling and walking up Istiklal Street toward Taksim Square and the park which is just next to the square.  Let me give you a map:


View Istanbul Riots in a larger map

Already, by the time we were walking to the restaurant with our friend and her boyfriend, we could see lots of people with masks, scarves, and some with goggles.  Tim pointed out that this meant they were preparing for tear gas.  We had already planned to meet up with our host after dinner right at Taksim Square, where the worst protesting was happening, and it started to look pretty unlikely.  After dinner, we tried to call him on our friend's phone, but he wouldn't pick up.  We decided to try to meet up with him, as we were counting on him knowing how to get back to his home.

Once we started walking up Istiklal street toward Taksim, it was clear that this was going to be difficult.  The street was full of protesters.  We had stopped near the side of the street to talk about our options when I thought I heard screaming coming from up the street.  Shortly after, the giant mob of people up the street from us started running full-tilt in our direction.  Nothing could have prepared me for that.  I panicked, but luckily had the sense to follow Tim and our friends into the shop we had been standing next to.  The shop quickly brought the metal cover down over the entrance.  I still hadn't quite realized until then that it was tear gas we were running from.

Inside the shop, we finally got our host on the phone.  Between all of us, we decided that going east and a bit south to Besiktas and taking a bus and then taxi from there was the best option.  Once the shop opened up again, we started on the walk to Besiktas, which would be about 25 minutes.

We were maybe half of the way there when we got a whiff of some tear gas, burning our noses, throats and eyes.  It must have been coming from Taksim, though, which was just up the hill from where we were - so we continued toward Besiktas.

Approaching Besiktas, though, we started to see some ominous signs.  Cars were driving by honking with people yelling out of them, some holding signs.  I remember a moment when we all looked at each other and then back from the way we came, and saw huge groups of protesters with masks marching toward us.  At that point our friends offered for us to stay with them that night instead of trying to get over to the Anatolian side of Istanbul and to our host's home.  We took them up on the offer and called our host to let him know what was going on.

Of course, getting to our friends' home was not easy either.  They lived on the other side of Istiklal street, which meant we would have to cross one of the main areas of protest.  In trying to get a safe way to get to Istiklal, we ran into a really bad area of tear gas that burned our faces and made breathing and seeing difficult.  Some people around us were vomiting.  Running away, we found a group of people who splashed some cool liquid on our faces to help, though I'm not sure it helped that much.  It was right around this time that we actually saw our host's professor whom we had met the day before on the ferry, but didn't exactly have time to say hi - we were running away from the tear gas, and she was running toward it.

We ran over street by street until we found a way up to Istiklal that wasn't flooded with protesters.  Istiklal itself was actually pretty empty, guarded by police at our entrance and exit, but they let us pass.  Once we made it over to the other side, things calmed down a bit - there were still quite a few protesters, but they became fewer and fewer as we got closer to our friend's house.  There was just one more area we had to pass through with riot police armed with more tear gas, but fortunately we were able to make it to our friends' house just fine.

Our worry was that the protests would escalate overnight and that we wouldn't be able to get back to our host's home to get our baggage and leave for Sofia.  Indeed, there were still protesters filling Taksim Square and Besiktas this morning, but the ferries were running and we were able to make it back.

Currently we are catching up on some much-needed sleep/rest at our host's home.  In a few hours we will leave for the train station to go to Bulgaria overnight.

So, I know that's a lot to process - it definitely has been a lot for Tim and me.  If you'd like more information about the riots and what's going on, you can click here or here, or just google something like 'Turkey riots.'

Okay - I thought I would let you all know what's going on.  I'm going to nap before we get going, but I will definitely keep you updated.