After almost three weeks in Istanbul, I've finally got out and saw some of the sights. The first sight was a lot of people.
May Day is apparently a day of protests and communist folk songs. Only the second year since people were allowed to protest in Taksim Square, the place was packed with thousands of commies out of the hundreds of thousands of people present. There were other people protesting too, it was sort of like a protest festival - or protestival - but communists are the most interesting.
I could hear the music from my apartment, which is really close to the square. I headed out with two of my flatmates and one's girlfriend and father.
Roads were barricaded and filled with people rather than cars for a change, people were wearing red, there were banners of Turkish communist martyrs, and even portraits of Chairman Mao on some of the banners. One dude had a Che Guavara t-shirt on.
That's my flatmate's dad in the picture. Apparently my flatmate's parents are still in the communist party and Dad there was really amped to get out and do some protesting.
The highlight of the May Day festivities, after the labyrinthine detour through crumbling side streets just to get into the entrance, was watching people rock out to protest songs from the 70s and 80s that occasionally sounded like Irish folk tunes with some trilling, and later, I ate a really good sandwich of little spiced meat patties and veggies for $2.
I followed up this mind-broadening day out by my first real day of touristy sightseeing. Coming soon.
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