This post is quite a selfish one. I have not found a single idea in my head to blog about for the last three weeks, it’s the worst blog drought that I have experienced, and I have lived a short blog life so far. In my defense though, work has been incredibly busy, so many things have happened that have left me emotionally drained and unable to read or blog. I should really blog about those, my work, my journey, my plans. In the next post perhaps. I have also travelled quite a bit in the last one month to areas where the internet was spotty at best. Thus I have sometimes missed posts that I would ordinarily have caught. Am still playing catch up.

But the next two weeks will be full of posts mostly because I am on leave! For two whole weeks! Blogging, photography, books and food. I just bought Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s book “Americanah” to read on my vacation. If she were a man, I would marry her! What an amazing writer. As I write this up, am about to leave the house to catch a flight to good old England, I hope the weather is nice this time around, I always end up in the UK when its freezing (or maybe it’s just Scotland). My friends have planned some good times for this trip, and I have a wedding to attend on saturday. I am excited to be getting away for a bit, but more excited at the possibility of going to Istanbul after England! Yes, the only city which has been the capital of three empires! It had better work out, because we have bought non-refundable, non-cancellable, non-anything-but-fly ticket. But everyone is dampening my spirits by asking my sister and I if we are aware of the riots going on in Turkey.

Now, people have called me and compared the riots to the Arab spring movement which lasts for months and months in each country. Syria is still ongoing. But my understanding is that this is a different kind of fight really. The people feel that their government is not listening, and must take the opinion of the citizenry into consideration before selling off all the lands and trees and green areas that are as old as their ancestry, to developers. One thing has led to another and it seems this is like the “occupy movement”. There is no ambivalence in this for me at all, the way I see it is that a lot of have obviously exchanged hands (paperwork, profit) and the government does not want to back down. But isn’t that the point of a democracy? That the elected officials must listen to the voice of the people who voted for them? I hope that this blows over, I hope that more lives are not lost, I hope that this does not become as big a deal and as sad as Syria. I find that there is always a disconnect between the people and the men and women who sit in the parliament and in the state houses; the latter lose touch, selfish interests abound, which sometimes are bigger than them. Sometimes they forget the people and basically fight to advance the ideals and motives of their political parties and political godfathers. I sincerely hope this blows over and the greater good of the people of Turkey supersedes.

Now having said that, I hope I have a good vacation. Istanbul is on my mind, the Blue Mosque, Aya Sofya, Basilica Cistern and the Grand Bazaar. In London, I shall be taking some photography classes, and hopefully blogging everyday. Yay! If you have a favourite place in both cities, please recommend them, the food, the shopping, the sights, I shall try it. I am like a child right now, my mind is wide open.