Day 6
It started as a normal tourist day.
We were just walking around and had a look at the grand bazar or the mosques of Istanbul. A nice guy who lived for a long time in Cologne gave us a lesson in architecture of one of them in his quite intense cologne dialect.
It was always like: “ Let´s go! This street looks nice. Oooh – this food looks nice, let´s try this..” Somehow we managed it to order Kokoreç. You need to try it when you find it! Thanh was crazy after it (Yes today is Thanh's lazy day. he wasn't in mood to blog)
One of the eight wonders of the world..
This was our day, we thought. We were sitting in a nice bar at about 19:00, drank a beer and chatted about turkish politics and what we learned the day before in our hostel. Istanbul has an important role between Europe and the Middle East. It is a very modern city with independent thinking people who shouldn´t be suppressed. You can´t imagine them to step back.
Then you heard people clapping in their hands and the café owner shut the windows and left the door open. More and more people are using their smartphone. People checked their doors and the equipment. They put their gas masks in the shelves of this café and distributed talcid. Talcid is a medicin for cardialga but it also helps against tear gas.
This seemed like a good time to walk into Istiklal Street to look at the demonstration. We saw only people. People of all ages were shouting like “Overall is Taksim, overall is the resistance”. An old man screamed at us in Turkish. When he found out about our disability to speak turkish he got a translator who said: “ Tell the world this is no democracy.”
Suddenly the masses ran backwards and then there was a cloud of tear gas. Also we can see the waterthrower of the police shooting at the protesting people. We fled into a starbucks where they prepared milk to wash your eyes. Never try water Thanh's whole face was burning. There we met Sonya again, who we met the day before in the hostel and she joined us. On the street the frontline between the the police and the protesters was moving forwards and backwards.
Starbucks workers helping people who got tear Gas in their eyes
When it seemed like a good time we made our way back to our hostel which was located two streets down the Istiklal Street. We entered the lobby and used some milk again. Andreas helped a 5 yr old turkish boy to clean his eyes. After that we sat there together with Danielle and a few guys who were playing some music on their instruments. Danielle is a travelling musician from Vancouver. Thats her blog: http://daniellehebert.wordpress.com/
Jamming during gas attacks. Danielle a musician from Vancouver was playsing the guitar
Until a gas capsule exploded in front of the hostel and the gas entered the hostel lobby. We had to flee to the 6th floor where we shut the windows and sat there with about 10 people. There we continued our jam session with new musicians who came in the hostel looking for some cover. (Thanks for the Istiklal blues Danielle!) At about 6 a.m. all the action was over. This was a good time to go to sleep and to say goodbye to our fugitive friends.
Jamming on the 6th floor.
