Today the World Stood Still

Today I got up a little earlier than usual to continue studying for my midterm and noticed my Turkish roommate was still asleep. She’s always up before me so I asked my other two roommates if she was sick. They said no, and something about Ataturk’s death. I was like “ooooh!” I’d forgotten all about that! November 10^th, at 9:05 the whole country stops. I climbed a bridge this morning a little before 9 to see it. Sure enough, the cars stopped, people froze where they were. If they were sitting, they stood. It was eerily quiet. I think I heard bugle taps in the distance, probably from Ataturk’s grave I’m guessing. It was all very solemn. I turned around to find there had  been a small group of Turkish students at the start of the bridge, but they’d all frozen. It kinda gave me chills because it was so quiet and it was like no one was alive. But still very cool. After 5 minutes the world came alive again and people continued on their way as if nothing had happened.

I came back to my room, and my other two roomies were like “yeah, Marvy just suddenly stood and froze. We didn’t know what to do! So we just stood too and didn’t move until she did.”