Day 145 Bosphorus Cruise - The Women's Protest

Sunday, November 25, 2018.

Today we got up early and excited to take the Bosphorus Cruise. We walked to Taksime square, took the underground Funicular, exited the underground metro, and then took the outside metro to get to Eminonu to take the cruise.
Tip, don't buy the cruise in a hotel or a tourist agency, they charge 15 to 20 euros while we only paid $5 per person for a round trip. I know you pay for convenience, but it seems that they try to overcharge for everything they can! We waited 20 minutes for the boat to arrive and when it did the kids ran to find seats on the second floor. We got comfortable and enjoyed the ride. It was very nice that Gregory had google maps open so we could see where we were going and what each big, important-looking building was. We joked about being in Asia two times in one day! We were saying: "Does it count if we're still on the boat, or do we have to get off to be in Asia?"
Anyway, it was a very pleasant ride. Gregory and the kids went outside on the open deck but I didn't, even though the sun came out for a little bit, it was still very cold. We made it to our final destination around 1:00pm. It was a small seaside village with many restaurants and souvenir shops. We wanted to explore the town before we sat down for lunch, so we walked past all the restaurants. We walked for a good 15 minutes, and I think we pretty much covered the whole town. There wasn't anything to see but houses, cars, and stray cats and dogs. At one point, Daniel tried to approach a cat and a dog came started barking and running at him. I thought he was going to get bitten, but luckily he didn't. We decided to go back to the port and find a restaurant for lunch. The kiddos just wanted a durum kebab which is pretty much a chicken wrap, so we got them a cheap one from a stand that was not so great (they didn't finish it). Gregory and I went to a restaurant by the water. I told him that even if it's more expensive, it's nice to eat in a pretty place. My mother in law would agree with me. The kids brought their food to the restaurant, luckily the man who invited us to his restaurant permitted them to. I really wanted to eat fish since we were right on the water, and I assumed it was fresh. Well, to be honest, it wasn't great at all, it was fried and very fishy, and it didn't come with a side dish. Oh well, at least we sat by the water, the sun came out and the kids enjoyed seeing the jellyfish right below us in the water. We also laughed with the seagulls.
The weather changed quickly, and the cold forced us inside. So we went indoors to drink our Turkish tea. After lunch, we walked to the port to take our boat back. I said goodbye to the man who invited us to his restaurant and told him that next time I would have preferred to eat what the waiters were eating while they were on their break in the restaurant. It was definitely something different and smelled better than what we had. The man asked me how long we were staying in Istanbul, and I lied and told him we were leaving the next day. "Next time," I told him.

The ride home seemed faster than the ride there, and a lot of the passengers rested or napped on the way back. Including me! We made it to the port closest to Taksim and we were going to go back home, but then we saw how alive the quarter was and decided to walk around and take some pictures. We got Daniel a pretzel with chocolate from one of the stands that are all over the city because he didn't eat much of his lunch. We walked underneath the bridge where all the fish restaurants are. It was very stinky and all the waiters were advertising and trying to get us to go to their restaurants. We could also see all the fishing poles from the fisherman above. It was a fascinating sight to see. I took many pictures. Later we took the tunnel tram to Istiklal street. We were going to walk down Istiklal street to get home, when we encountered a huge protest for women's rights in the streets. At first, I was excited to see the movement, but when we hurried into a cafe to escape the pushing, shoving, and noise, we started to cough and sneeze like crazy. Everyone in the restaurant and in the streets was coughing and covering their faces with napkins and shirt sleeves. We realized later that it was lacrimoso gas. That's when I started to worry, and I told Gregory that maybe we should try to leave. The waiter told us to sit and wait for the chaos to die down a little. We waited for the protest to finish and they brought us some tea (our third Turkish tea of the day, in case you were wondering). After a while, the waiter told us to leave quickly, because the police were letting a crowd get through to the area where no protest was going on, where we needed to go. We rushed to the door and when Gregory asked how much the tea was, the waiter said it was on the house and gave us a big smile. Well, that was nice. We walked by the police who were wearing gas masks and holding riot shields. We passed many police cars, soldiers with rifles and trucks protecting the language university. On the other side of the street, people were happy and no one seemed to know what was happening down the street.
We made it home around 7:30pm, it took us a while to make it home, but I was relieved that we made it safe and sound. Gregory didn't get worried at all during the situation. I did, because I think every time there is a protest, there can be violence, and the fact that they had tear gassed the crowd worried me. It was the first time I experienced something like that. I was also mad that it affected Daniel, he had to use his inhaler in the cafe to be able to breathe. Anyway, I'm ready to move to the next country. I was overwhelmed with people, noise, smells and Turkey in general. All done!