January 1, 2024

We had left the door to our balcony open and heard the call to prayer.

We went to breakfast and the hotel really one upped the Raddison in Oslo.

However, the day before we had started to hear about a rally that was plane ed to culminate at the Galata bridge in support of Palestine and the Turks fighting the Kurds. It turned out that the “Mercy for our martyrs, support for Palestine, curse on Israel” started from all the mosques in the old city and marched through it during the time we had to go see things that morning. Given I have tried to leave large rallies in DC, it is pretty easy to get stuck waiting for any sort of transport.

Given all of that we will save touring Istanbul for another time. We instead ventured toward the airport and bid farewell to Istanbul. Our flight was an overnight one so more on where we end up tomorrow.