Having arrived in Istanbul on June 12 at midnight and checked into my hotel, the Sultan House in Sultan Ahmed I have not had a dull minute.
I spent Thursday exploring the Old City and revisiting places I had first visited in 1976. I had lunch at the Pudding Shop and then went the Blue Mosque, Aya Sophia and the Grand Bazaar. Since then I have had long days in Al Gore's Climate Reality Leadership Training course http://climaterealityproject.org/leadership-corps/
Tonight I am having a good meal of lamb chops. They were very good, served with bread and rice, chillies and tomatos. The tomatos were so good, sweet with great taste, not like you get in the west! If in Sultan Ahmad try the
This morning in trying to get to to the conference venue at Istambul Congress Centre http://www.iccistanbul.com/planing/location/ was some what difficult by taxi as many of the roads neat Taksim Square were closed by burning barricades. So my taxi driver said 'Get out and walk, only fifteen minutes. So I paid him off and started walking. My eyes soon started burning and not having any, what looked like swimmer's goggles, tears were running down my face. All is can say is that it clears the sinus's very well, that being said I don't recomment it. I got to the conference only five minutes late. The organizers closed the event early as attendees were unsure of the difficulties they may face going back to their hotels, many of which were in the Taksim area. Many of them had spent the night in hotel lobbies and friends apartments.
This was actually a good move as the security forces were already moving in. I high-tailed it back to Sultan Ahmad where everything was calm.
The BBC is saying Fresh unrest has erupted in Ankara and Istanbul, with police firing tear gas and water cannon amid continuing anti-government protests. The unrest flared as PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan's supporters gathered for a huge show of strength in Istanbul. Some local reports are stating that security forces are mixing pepper spray into the water cannon reservoir.
Tomorrow will be a relaxing day. I need to go to the Grand Bazaar to look for Evil Eye pendants.The Turkish Evil Eye Pendant or the Nazar Boncugu, which literally means the "evil eye bead", is actually a stone bead, which is worn to protect oneself from evil looks. The stone is an amalgamation of molten glass, iron, copper, water and salt. This particular combination of minerals and metals is believed to provide a shield from the forces of evil.
