In Turkey, a struggle for normalcy
I arrived in Istanbul on July 8, planning to conduct a month of historical research for my upcoming senior thesis. A week later, Turkey was thrown into chaos after the violent failure of an apparent coup attempt. Since then, this country has been struggling to find its way back to normalcy, and so have I. Officially, the attempted coup — allegedly plotted by a faction of the Turkish military — began at around 11 p.m. in Istanbul when troops and tanks seized control of the Atatürk Airport and the bridges connecting the European and Asian sides of the city. My experience, however, began with a message from my brother about half an hour later. “Dude is there a coup going on right now?!” he texted from his internship in New York City. I was in bed, but I unlocked my phone and punched in a quick confirmatory Google search before responding with trembling...