This last week has been mentally exhausting as several things have happened around the world. All of these are massively over-simplified as my emotionally exhausted mind cannot handle thinking about them for too long. Please read good news articles and sources for far better information than I can give.

-This morning there was a bombing in Istanbul in a busy central area on Istiklal Street. Having visited and become rather smitten with the city, this act of violence is especially painful. Turkey has been rocked by bombings since October 2015. The slowly more and more questionable political hand of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has also impacted the country. Freedom of the press, progressive stances on women’s rights, and reactions to the Gezi Protests have all demonstrated the political environment that has been changing over the years.

-This week three German states (Baden-Württemberg/ Rhineland-Palatinate/ Saxony-Anhalt) voted into power politicians of very conservative, anti-immigrant parties who also have very regressive views on the roles of women. I am very nervous as this does not feel like it will be an isolated incident but rather part of a wave of increasingly xenophobic politicians in the EU.

-In Brazil, in what is becoming increasingly complex, the country is facing massive protests, economic downturn, corruption investigations (Lava Jato, headed by Judge Sergio Moro), and the potential decay/collapse/fracturing of the Partido dos Trabalhadores (Worker’s Party) party in power as President Dilma Rousseff and ex-President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva fight for their political lives.

-The EU voted to send asylum seekers back to Turkey, after all that they’ve been through, as the world shifts these bodies around like objects. (Also, America, get your ass in gear and start bringing refugees over and helping them start over!)

-Trump still exists. Don’t get me started on that horrid lizard man.

I’m sitting in a quiet Starbucks tucked away near a grocery store on quiet Vancouver Island but my mind is everywhere else but here.