Rob goes into work one day and sends me a quick message letting me know that Taksim is preparing for riots.  So what do I do? Pack a little camera and head out the door with no idea what to expect.  Here’s how my day went:

- Hop on a bus from our apartment down to Taksim

- Surprise!  Oh hey, the buses aren’t going to Taksim because of the riots, walk up the hill. Note:  I have a horrible sense of direction and figuring out where I was actually going was an adventure within itself.  My method included following the woman in the purple shirt who kind of looks like she knows where she’s going.

- Walk up the hill to find that every single glass has been broken on the bus stops, there are piles of trash ablaze in the middle of the streets, and people are walking around covering their mouths and noses with tears in their eyes.

- Finally get to Taksim to find that yes, there is indeed a riot going on.  The police keep running back and forth along the small corridor on which Taksim rests, chasing very loud and very passionate protesters.

- I kept my safe distance from the protestors and police, but keep trying to get the camera to work so that I can actually see something.  Trying to get close resulted in me almost getting knocked in the head by a tear gas canister.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how I ended up with my horrible, shaky, “Serene is obviously not a good cameraman” video below.  Yeah, when you see the camera go down and out for a second, that was the aforementioned tear gas canister landing about three feet to my right.

Thus far, I’m having a very interesting initiation to Jet Set Zero.

Today a series of protests kicked off in Tasksim, a central section of Istanbul about 10 minutes from our apartment.  I swung by and grabbed some photos of the aftermath, but the tear gas was still so heavy in the air your eyes sung.

You can read more about the protests here, here, and here.

So far the news is basically that there are in fact protests and the police are using tear gas and water cannons.

I just had to switch rooms at work because there’s so
much tear gas in the air. The police are chasing anarchists up and down Istiklal with tanks and guns. Holy shit.