I always finish what I start.
I came back from my trip about one year ago and over the last few days I have been thinking about my trip, and all the things (some good and some bad :/) that came from it. It reminded me of the private journal I kept. While reading a few of my entries, I was reminded of this blog and my promise to finish all the entries at some point. Now oever a year ago, my memory is much more hazy of events so I am relying heavily on my journal to remind me of exacts of a day so the flow of the entry will not be as nice as before. Deal with it.
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As my trip in Iran was coming to an end today, I needed to make some last minute preparations for the six weeks I was about to spend in Europe. I needed flip-flops for showering, a lock for the lockers at hostels, and sheets. Interestingly, only one of these three things, the lock, actually came in really handy as the flip-flops took too much room and I left somewhere in my trip in Europe and the sheets were of no use because when getting hostels I realized I could just book ones where sheets are provided. But I'm jumping the gun a little bit now and telling you the end of the story so let me backtrack back to this day.
For flip-flops we went to three shoe stores and what I learned was Iranians have the oddest colors for flip-flops. The only colors we could find were hot pink and some weird yellow which was not in my size. I ended up buying the hot-pink ones but as I said earlier, they didn't stay with me for too long.
For lock we went to a lock store. I think I've mentioned this before but in Iran there isn't like a Home Depot or a Walmart. Shops sell a few kind of things. It's kind of neat actually. You go to shoe store for shoes, lock store for locks, fabric store for sheets. Anyways, within all the sizes and types of locks I chose one.
For the sheets, we walked down the street to a fabric store. No great story here.
After getting back we changed and went to my mom's friend's house to celebrate the 50th birthday of my mom and her two best high-school friends. All of them were going to have there 50th birthday in the coming few weeks and as I was leaving tonight.
Being at the party was interesting as it reminded me of my two best childhood friends back in Campbell. I have known these guys since I was in 6th grade and through the years we have become very close. I hope one day I could celebrate a 50th birthday with them.
When we got back from the birthday I took a two hour nap as I knew with the upcoming travel, sleep was going to be an issue. After waking up, I packed my backpack and ended up with 11kg (24.2lb) of stuff. For my RyanAir flights coming up, I was supposed to have a pack no bigger than 10kg so I wouldn't have to check in any luggage but I couldn't make it any smaller and figured I will make it work out when the time comes.
After having dinner and saying some goodbyes, a few of us went to the airport to see me off. On my drive to the airport I finally started feeling really nervous about my trip and slightly questioning myself and what I was about to do. I wasn't sure if having no travelling experience, six weeks and 9 countries would just be too much to handle. I also was worried a little that I will be looking so raggedy the entire time. After all let me remind you of the ENTIRE contents of my 11kg backpack contained: four shirts, two pairs of underwear, two pairs of socks, three pairs of pants, a rain jacket, travel guide, journal, two pens, iPod touch, camera, day pack, travel towel, three pairs of contacts, glasses, deodorant, shampoo, body wash. (of course all the liquids poured from their bottle inside 3o.z containers that were put inside one zip-lock bag...) This wasn't going to be an easy trip and I wasn't sure if I had prepared myself well enough.
Anywho, we got to the airport and I went through security and made it to my terminal. While sitting and waiting for my flight, an old lady came and sat next to me and nicely asked me to look at her ticket to make sure she was in the right place. I did and afterwards I nicely tried to make conversation and asked did you have a good time in Iran to which she responded yes. Thinking the next logical question was where are you headed, I asked it, only to be told "you don't need to know do you?" Shortly after saying this, the lady stood up and went and sat somewhere else and although I felt a little bad. Now to you reading this, you may think either I was being too annoying or that she was being rude. But neither is true, (well maybe I was being a little nosy/annoying but I was trying to make nice conversation). However, what I really believe this conversation showed was how afraid individuals in Iran are of their government and how it affects their daily life. People are too scared to tell someone else too much as that someone else may be the wrong person to be telling too much to. It's funny that this is my last memory of Iran.
I went back listening to my music on my iPod and reading my travel guide over the next minutes until I saw people starting to line up. I looked at my watch because I thought it was time to go but it was still over an hour before boarding. Iranians crack me up sometimes. Eventually it was time to go and I boarded the plane to Frankfort around 3a.m. The rest of the flight and my first day in Germany will go under 07-11-2010.
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
07-09-2010
When I woke up on this day, a tiny bit hung-over from the night before and definitely still exhausted, I felt everything but excited about our day’s plans. After-all, having such a great time in Anzali and Mosooleh, I could not really imagine anything really worth my time. However, Rasht had one more jewel to offer, Lahijan.
Before I get too in-debt about Lahijan, I wanna take a couple minutes on an aside that I entered into my notebook on this day. This little observation is not at all unique to Rasht and it’s prevalent throughout Iran. In Iran, a lot of streets are named after fallen soldiers from the Iran and Iraq war. Now at passing this may not sound like a very significant or even noteworthy observation but take a moment and think about it. Imagine Americans streets, maybe the street you live on, named after an American solider who died in the Vietnam war or something. It is really weird. It extends beyond just street names as throughout Iran pictures of fallen soldiers can be seen plastered on billboards and on bridges next to flags of Iran. I guess what I am getting at is this nationalism that seems to be pounded into the people of Iran. I mean how can you be against a war if the street you live on is named after a soldier who died fighting for “you,” and the roads you take to work have pictures of all these people who died.
Ok back to Lahijan. So we drove to Lahijan, passing by the tomb of the guy who brought tea to Iran from India. It was sweet because the guy who we were with told us the story about how this guy went to India for trade and came back with tea and the king loved it so he started farms and he tried to grow really good quality tea in Iran. Pretty cool story but without remembering the tea-man’s name and the specifics it kind of takes away from it. Maybe one day when I write an autobiography of my sweet life I will actually take the time to look him up and include him somewhere. haha. (slightly serious though).
The sights of Lahijan were spectacular. Once we got there we rode a gondola to the top of a mountain-side overlooking Lahijan. It was about a 15minute ride and the intensity of the greens and the contrast with white from the homes down below with the blue of the ocean in the distance were just a magical combination. Once at the top, we bought some ice-cream and sat in a little hut type of thing that overlooked the city below.
After riding down we drove back home and cleaned beans while the lunch was being made. That’s a sentence you don’t get to say often and it’s interesting on TWO front. ONE it is interesting because it really was kind of fun to sit around with people and talk and peel the skin off these stupidly hard to peel beans with a bunch of people you met only two days ago. I mean that would NEVER happen in America. Which brings me to number TWO. It may be something I have touched on a bit before also but these are the moments I realized how much of a foreigner I was in what I thought was my own country. I mean for people living in Iran it may not sound too exotic to have three complete strangers over at your house and be hospitable to them and then sit around and laugh together and clean bean. However, to me, and to other Americans, it is completely strange but WONDERFUL. It is these types of things that makes me proud and excited about my Iranian background. I feel I could house people and become close to them in a short time just like this family did to me in Rasht. That’s how I’ve been raised. We have people over at my uncle’s house all the time and each time it is different people but we make everyone feel like family. I don’t think, and I have some personal experience when I say this, that American families are the same. There is this “formality,” this “guest mode” I like to call it, that families go into that makes you feel like an outsider. This goes from behavior all the way down to dinner conversation where you talk about the most boring things. Anywho, I don’t want to blanket any one group and I have also felt this same “guest” feeling at Iranian people’s houses but what I’m getting at is I feel Iranian culture is a bit more hospitable and I think it works because at the end of the second day you feel like you love this family and you don’t mind cleaning stupid beans.
After lunch we flew back to Tehran and from there showered and went straight to my Aunt’s house. We had yet to go to her house and with me leaving in a few days that was not going to be kosher. There is just so limited time for everything you want and “need” to do.
We enjoyed dinner sitting around with a big family at a beautiful table with many different types of food. My aunt, like everyone else we visited in our stay in Iran, went all out for us. I mean we hadn’t been to Iran in 12 years and everyone just was yearning to have us spend time with them and they definitely showed it through the food. The awesome thing about Persian food btw, I don’t know if I have mentioned this before, but it has GREAT colors. When a table is set and you look at it as a whole it’s like a garden overflowing with colors. There are greens, whites, reds, golden browns, yellows ect.
After our long day we went home around 2:30a.m. What I noticed happened over these last few days was that we were now saying goodbye to the same people we were saying hello to a few weeks ago. As I was going to sleep on this night I realized for the first time that my Iran trip is ending soon.
I have not done this many time, but I will now include a quick expert from my diary which I think is fitting way to finish this post:
“I really feel like I lived here. I got to experience the people, places, the hardships and it (traveling) was all easy. I know Europe will be harder at first being by myself but I know I can do it. It will be fun maybe questionable (I donno what I meant here) but it will be memorable. I really hope I see most of these people and this country again”
Monday, October 25, 2010
07-08-2010
Promise I will be writing more often now that I am settled. Although I'm sure the idea of me no longer reporting current events but rather just telling past stories makes this blog a lot less interesting to many of you who at one point or another actually followed me, I will write here just to have it for my own records. Furthermore because now I am telling stories of past rather than reporting on current events, I will no longer keep the entries in present tense like I did in my previous entries. I hope you find my writings an interesting read.
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I woke up on this day in Rasht. It was our first day there, at this very hot and humid place, and even though I eventually ended up enjoying Rasht more than any other place we visited throughout our three weeks in Iran, on this morning I had yet to fall in love with Rasht.
It was only about 8 in the morning, and we had just came in town late the night before, but we had to wake up to go site-seeing. I was seriously considering skipping the day portion of the activities. I have mentioned I did this a few times in the past. Instead of go out to see something “really important,” I would just sit around, take a nap, or read a book. Usually after my mom and sister would come back with my aunt and I would ask them how this “important” thing was it would turn out I had not missed much. It would just be another set of paintings you barely understood, or a forested area, or a rubble. I mean at some point you just have sensory overload and instead of seeing the sites for what they are and learning something you just make neat little catalog of objects (urn, big pots, broken rocks, lady paintings, animal paintings, cool buildings, ect.). In order to keep myself sane, I would just sometimes skip the activity.
However, the few hours I had with this family the night before really made me want to give whatever it was we were doing on this day a shot. Looking back I can say it was the best decision I made during my entire trip throughout Iran. The 8 of us (Me, my mom, sister, aunt, uncle, uncle's friend, wife, and 20 year old daughter) went to Anzali, about 45 minutes outside of Rasht, in two cars, one theirs and one a taxi.
Anzali is one of the most beautiful places I saw on my trip. Having one of the world's largest lagoons, Anzali is surrounded by forests bursting with wild-life that is supported by the lagoon’s fish and amphibians that live within the beautiful water-Lillie topped lagoon. Once there, for $50, we were able to take a 45minute boat ride that took us around the lagoons. If I were not so lazy to not have uploaded my Iran pictures on facebook I would tell you to go see the pictures.
The boat was small, old, and rackety which made the boat feel like it was flying through the water even though it was probably only going 20mph.The guy was a blast and despite the terror-filled pleas from my mom and sister to slow down, he would turn wildly, tipping the boat wildly to one side and the other. It was to the point where me shoulder was nearly parallel to the water. Yet I felt completely safe for one reason: the middle aged man driving the boat, he stood in flip-flops and no life jacket on a slippery deck while all of us sitting down kept clutching at our seat in total fear that we were about to end up personally testing the at BEST questionable set of life-jackets we were strapped into.
Anywho, we went around the lake and saw the water-lilies and some frogs and couple random houses built in the middle of the lagoon. I will eventually post the pics so look for them on facebook. I really suck at describing the beauty and details of this lagoon I feel.
After the boat ride we walked around and while the daughter went to see an old place where she went to school, having used to live in this area instead of Rasht, us remaining 7 went to get Persian ice-cream. After talking, eating ice-cream, and taking some pictures, we walked a few feet and for a few pennies a shot, shot an air-gun. It was actually, weirdly, the first thing I had ever shot in my life. At 21, shooting an air-gun in Rasht, aiming at this random poster advertising for a play with the make-shift bulls-eye being a small, usually white, space inside one of the letters in the writing that has now been colored in yellow. Yeah. I will not forget that one.
After all the shenanigans of the morning session were over we took a taxi ride back home. Now in normal countries taxi rides would not be huge things to write about. However, from my stories so far (if you have been reading my blog) you should know Iran is not a normal country. This taxi ride quickly turned into a tale of corruption that extends from the top of government down to local individuals. These taxi drivers have to buy a GPS to control their speed. You see, in Iran people drive like maniacs. I mean it is by far crazier than ANYTHING you can imagine and I have explained it in a bit of detail before. It is so bad the taxis keep a GPS with a flash-drive connected to it and the GPS knows the speed-limit of the streets and notes when the driver goes over. Then to get his driving privileges for the month, the driver must show his USB drive to the local authorities, who after viewing the times the driver goes over posted speed limit charge him some fines.
However insane the whole process sounds, it is really the corruption within it that caught my attention. We talked about the way the type of GPS is controlled by the government, leading to a monopoly that causes the price of the GPS to be monstrously high. Then there is a lack of replacement parts that causes people to have to buy new units instead of wait weeks for parts and be without the ability to drive people around and make money live. Even after it is put in place, the thing becomes utterly uselessness as a way to control the crazy taxi driver’s speed because the “fines” that are marked, well at the end of the month when the taxi-driver takes his flash-drive to be inspected by the officers he slips the officer about $5 to blindly reset the thing and just not charge him the fines.
After coming back we had lunch. MAN I love Persian food that is made in Iran. I mean that ENTIRE part. I don’t just love Persian food. I love Persian food that is made in Iran. It tastes SOOO MUCH different than any Persian food you can have in America. Like even what my mom makes in Iran tastes better than in America. The food there tastes sooo natural it is awesome. Anywho, after feasting on dinner and taking a two hour nap, we were about to go out again. Something that morning had told me to get myself to go to Anzali, which was an absolute blast. Now only a few hours later, I was about to start a 1.5 hour shuttle ride to a new place called Mosooleh. The only reason I was able to get myself to go was because I had a little crush on Rasht all the sudden after the fun I had at Anzali and wanted to know more. After-all, sometimes on vacations you just push yourself past what you “want” to do in hopes of discovering something. Well, if Anzali was able to get me to have a crush on the trip to Rasht (a trip I might add we almost canceled because of the packed schedule), Mosooleh made me fall head-over-hills in love.
Firstly it was the ride. I mean we put on music and the women sang songs and then the music was off and suddenly this book was out that had some songs I had NEVER heard of, except one, yet everyone in the car knew and sang together. It was just all surreal.
If that little experience was not enough to make satisfied of the night, the 1.5 ride got us to the crème de le crème of the day, Mossoleh. About 1.5 hours away from Rasht, Mosooleh is a little town set within a mountain-side that is known for its beautiful unique architectural quality where the roof-tops of one set of houses serve as front-yard of the other houses, Mosooleh now is mainly an ironic tourist destination. You see, the town was often a stop of iron-traders hundreds of years ago who were traveling along the nearby trade-rout. They would stop at Mosooleh and rest before continuing on. Because of this, the town is filled with restaurants and shops to used to cater to these traders. Now hundreds of years later, although the traders are long gone, tourists have more than kept this little town’s traditions alive. However, the town is much more modernized and connected to the world now. The stores have turned from selling items made in Mosooleh to selling items made in China. And although sad, I think it is beautiful that these families have lived in these areas and adapted and made themselves thrive. We spent about three hours in Mosooleh walking through the shops, eating food, and smoking Hookah. It was a beautiful, beautiful night and it was finished off fittingly with a nice little 15minute walk to our shuttle in the cool star-filled night air.
We sang a bit more on the way back and came home around 11. Now you would think the night is over. I mean I said Mosooleh was the crème de la crème of the day and I was not lying. However, the next 4 hours were a PERFECT cherry on top.
We had a nice little light dinner where we ate, talked, and drank. Yes there is alcohol there. In fact I sometimes think people drink more there than here. And with a couple of drinks, and talking and just having a blast we put on music and people started dancing a bit. It was all so odd that only after meeting these people for a day, we were able to have so much fun with them. It is definitely a testament to their easy-going character. Anywho. After our sing and dancing was done, we watched a little photo slide-show of a trip these people took with the other family friends of ours who a few weeks earlier we had gone to northern Iran with to our cabin. It was at that moment that I realized why I liked this family so much and felt so comfortable with them. They were so similar, in all the good ways. A fun, caring, educated family that likes to explore and have a good time. Everyone went to bed. I stayed up and played Spades a little while with the daughter but we were just exhausted so we called it quits a short time after.
NOT a bad little day.
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I woke up on this day in Rasht. It was our first day there, at this very hot and humid place, and even though I eventually ended up enjoying Rasht more than any other place we visited throughout our three weeks in Iran, on this morning I had yet to fall in love with Rasht.
It was only about 8 in the morning, and we had just came in town late the night before, but we had to wake up to go site-seeing. I was seriously considering skipping the day portion of the activities. I have mentioned I did this a few times in the past. Instead of go out to see something “really important,” I would just sit around, take a nap, or read a book. Usually after my mom and sister would come back with my aunt and I would ask them how this “important” thing was it would turn out I had not missed much. It would just be another set of paintings you barely understood, or a forested area, or a rubble. I mean at some point you just have sensory overload and instead of seeing the sites for what they are and learning something you just make neat little catalog of objects (urn, big pots, broken rocks, lady paintings, animal paintings, cool buildings, ect.). In order to keep myself sane, I would just sometimes skip the activity.
However, the few hours I had with this family the night before really made me want to give whatever it was we were doing on this day a shot. Looking back I can say it was the best decision I made during my entire trip throughout Iran. The 8 of us (Me, my mom, sister, aunt, uncle, uncle's friend, wife, and 20 year old daughter) went to Anzali, about 45 minutes outside of Rasht, in two cars, one theirs and one a taxi.
Anzali is one of the most beautiful places I saw on my trip. Having one of the world's largest lagoons, Anzali is surrounded by forests bursting with wild-life that is supported by the lagoon’s fish and amphibians that live within the beautiful water-Lillie topped lagoon. Once there, for $50, we were able to take a 45minute boat ride that took us around the lagoons. If I were not so lazy to not have uploaded my Iran pictures on facebook I would tell you to go see the pictures.
The boat was small, old, and rackety which made the boat feel like it was flying through the water even though it was probably only going 20mph.The guy was a blast and despite the terror-filled pleas from my mom and sister to slow down, he would turn wildly, tipping the boat wildly to one side and the other. It was to the point where me shoulder was nearly parallel to the water. Yet I felt completely safe for one reason: the middle aged man driving the boat, he stood in flip-flops and no life jacket on a slippery deck while all of us sitting down kept clutching at our seat in total fear that we were about to end up personally testing the at BEST questionable set of life-jackets we were strapped into.
Anywho, we went around the lake and saw the water-lilies and some frogs and couple random houses built in the middle of the lagoon. I will eventually post the pics so look for them on facebook. I really suck at describing the beauty and details of this lagoon I feel.
After the boat ride we walked around and while the daughter went to see an old place where she went to school, having used to live in this area instead of Rasht, us remaining 7 went to get Persian ice-cream. After talking, eating ice-cream, and taking some pictures, we walked a few feet and for a few pennies a shot, shot an air-gun. It was actually, weirdly, the first thing I had ever shot in my life. At 21, shooting an air-gun in Rasht, aiming at this random poster advertising for a play with the make-shift bulls-eye being a small, usually white, space inside one of the letters in the writing that has now been colored in yellow. Yeah. I will not forget that one.
After all the shenanigans of the morning session were over we took a taxi ride back home. Now in normal countries taxi rides would not be huge things to write about. However, from my stories so far (if you have been reading my blog) you should know Iran is not a normal country. This taxi ride quickly turned into a tale of corruption that extends from the top of government down to local individuals. These taxi drivers have to buy a GPS to control their speed. You see, in Iran people drive like maniacs. I mean it is by far crazier than ANYTHING you can imagine and I have explained it in a bit of detail before. It is so bad the taxis keep a GPS with a flash-drive connected to it and the GPS knows the speed-limit of the streets and notes when the driver goes over. Then to get his driving privileges for the month, the driver must show his USB drive to the local authorities, who after viewing the times the driver goes over posted speed limit charge him some fines.
However insane the whole process sounds, it is really the corruption within it that caught my attention. We talked about the way the type of GPS is controlled by the government, leading to a monopoly that causes the price of the GPS to be monstrously high. Then there is a lack of replacement parts that causes people to have to buy new units instead of wait weeks for parts and be without the ability to drive people around and make money live. Even after it is put in place, the thing becomes utterly uselessness as a way to control the crazy taxi driver’s speed because the “fines” that are marked, well at the end of the month when the taxi-driver takes his flash-drive to be inspected by the officers he slips the officer about $5 to blindly reset the thing and just not charge him the fines.
After coming back we had lunch. MAN I love Persian food that is made in Iran. I mean that ENTIRE part. I don’t just love Persian food. I love Persian food that is made in Iran. It tastes SOOO MUCH different than any Persian food you can have in America. Like even what my mom makes in Iran tastes better than in America. The food there tastes sooo natural it is awesome. Anywho, after feasting on dinner and taking a two hour nap, we were about to go out again. Something that morning had told me to get myself to go to Anzali, which was an absolute blast. Now only a few hours later, I was about to start a 1.5 hour shuttle ride to a new place called Mosooleh. The only reason I was able to get myself to go was because I had a little crush on Rasht all the sudden after the fun I had at Anzali and wanted to know more. After-all, sometimes on vacations you just push yourself past what you “want” to do in hopes of discovering something. Well, if Anzali was able to get me to have a crush on the trip to Rasht (a trip I might add we almost canceled because of the packed schedule), Mosooleh made me fall head-over-hills in love.
Firstly it was the ride. I mean we put on music and the women sang songs and then the music was off and suddenly this book was out that had some songs I had NEVER heard of, except one, yet everyone in the car knew and sang together. It was just all surreal.
If that little experience was not enough to make satisfied of the night, the 1.5 ride got us to the crème de le crème of the day, Mossoleh. About 1.5 hours away from Rasht, Mosooleh is a little town set within a mountain-side that is known for its beautiful unique architectural quality where the roof-tops of one set of houses serve as front-yard of the other houses, Mosooleh now is mainly an ironic tourist destination. You see, the town was often a stop of iron-traders hundreds of years ago who were traveling along the nearby trade-rout. They would stop at Mosooleh and rest before continuing on. Because of this, the town is filled with restaurants and shops to used to cater to these traders. Now hundreds of years later, although the traders are long gone, tourists have more than kept this little town’s traditions alive. However, the town is much more modernized and connected to the world now. The stores have turned from selling items made in Mosooleh to selling items made in China. And although sad, I think it is beautiful that these families have lived in these areas and adapted and made themselves thrive. We spent about three hours in Mosooleh walking through the shops, eating food, and smoking Hookah. It was a beautiful, beautiful night and it was finished off fittingly with a nice little 15minute walk to our shuttle in the cool star-filled night air.
We sang a bit more on the way back and came home around 11. Now you would think the night is over. I mean I said Mosooleh was the crème de la crème of the day and I was not lying. However, the next 4 hours were a PERFECT cherry on top.
We had a nice little light dinner where we ate, talked, and drank. Yes there is alcohol there. In fact I sometimes think people drink more there than here. And with a couple of drinks, and talking and just having a blast we put on music and people started dancing a bit. It was all so odd that only after meeting these people for a day, we were able to have so much fun with them. It is definitely a testament to their easy-going character. Anywho. After our sing and dancing was done, we watched a little photo slide-show of a trip these people took with the other family friends of ours who a few weeks earlier we had gone to northern Iran with to our cabin. It was at that moment that I realized why I liked this family so much and felt so comfortable with them. They were so similar, in all the good ways. A fun, caring, educated family that likes to explore and have a good time. Everyone went to bed. I stayed up and played Spades a little while with the daughter but we were just exhausted so we called it quits a short time after.
NOT a bad little day.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
07-07-2010
Wow so I finalllly get a chance to write again. It has been rather hectic ever since I got back and I have been slacking a bit. Hope I haven't lost all of you. Since I am no longer on the trip I will not give a brief synopsis of my circumstances during which I am blogging. Because well, it's probably rather boring. I wont be stuck in a train station for 15 hours or just made it onto a plane as the last person after going to the wrong airport or on a train ride from one side of a foreign country to the other. I will most likely be at home, at a park, or at a coffee shop.
So without further ado, I present you July 7th 2010:
The internet has not been working at our house the past couple of days so finally today we called a friend to come and fix it. Everything so basic to us in the US (internet, telephone, electricity, water, air conditioning, and gasoline) can be part of a larger hassle in Iran. I have mentioned this several times but this day we got to experience it yet again. Although it was the middle of the week, the friend of my aunt's came over around mid-day to fix the internet. It was a raaaather easy fix actually. All he did was find the piece of paper with the internet password written on it. The password we were trying was the WiFi password and not the internet password. Anywho, moral of the story is the job took two minutes and he was out and on his way.
Because we are gone on so many different trips (to northern Iran, to Esfehan, and to Shiraz) and do not have internet access during these times, when we get back to Tehran to my aunt's house it becomes rather "important" to have e-mail/g-voice/skype/twitter and all that to keep your sanity.]. There is this idea of culture-shock that is experienced by people when they visit another part of the world. It is an idea where the impact of this new life-style, with its unfamiliar customs and people, is too much to take and causes a lot of anxiety for the traveler. In my opinion, one of the main reasons I did not experience a culture shock to a great extent (behind the main reason which I believe was that I knew the language), was the existence of the internet. Whether it is to say a few words to your significant other or to update on twitter that you are alive and what you plan to do next, the internet serves as a familiar place to visit familiar sites that has familiar people, and that has an IMMENSE calming feeling. Like I watched videos of the Edwin Jackson's no hitter. It's the little things, but it matters.
ANYYYWHO, so the internet was fixed and we had it for a few hours before we flew to Rasht (which is in north-eastern Iran). During this time I booked my hostel for Frankfurt. It was reallly weird realizing that this next chapter of my trip is actually approaching. I have been saving for over three years for my trip and it was THE THING that I wanted to do after graduation and booking my hostel in Frankfurt was weird because it made it a reality. [and it is even weirder to think that as of the writing of this that chapter has ended and now I am at a point with no "next" planned].
Unlike the trips to Esfehan and Shiraz, my aunt's husband came along with us. The flight to Rasht though was not as easy as you would imagine. As I have mentioned on here several times, the sanctions against Iran have tremendous effect on the people of Iran. In this case, it is jet-fuel that is rationed and to conserve the quota a company gets the air conditioning system of the flight is turned off WHEN IT IS 100+ DEGREES OUTSIDE AND 100+ PEOPLE ARE CRAMPED IN A PLANE. I mean they don't claim it is because of these sanctions and the lack there of jet-fuel that the air is not "working," but come on, really? All planes in Iran have broken air conditioning units? I don't think so.
So after bunch of sweating and misery, we got to Rasht and got the house of the family we are staying with. It was such a nice house filled with even nicer people. To be honest, I was at first a bit skeptical of going to this random place that I did not know, Rasht, and staying with random people. In fact we had even discussed canceling the trip because of the fatigue we had from going to northern Iran, then straight to Esfehan, then to Shiraz. However, we just decided to do it, and in about two hours after getting there I was realizing what a great decision we had made.
The family had a son and daughter about my age and at night me and my sister went out with the daughter and one of her friends. It was REALLLY neat as we just walked around, talked, got fruit juice, and had a raaather innocent night. Night-life here is muuuuch differnt but then again we hear about a TON of alcohol and hard-drug use and I wonder if we were just spared the scenery. Either way, one thing is certain, PUBLIC night-life here is different because of the ban on selling alcohol.
Anywho, we continued to walk around and had our fruit-juice and looked at shops and talked about, well, normal things people our age talk about. It was my first time hangin out with people my own age on this trip as eveeeeryone else we had seen was either significantly older or if they had kids our age we never separated from the parents and go off on our own.
Although simple and innocent, it was reallly a great night.
That is all I have for now,
-NZ
So without further ado, I present you July 7th 2010:
The internet has not been working at our house the past couple of days so finally today we called a friend to come and fix it. Everything so basic to us in the US (internet, telephone, electricity, water, air conditioning, and gasoline) can be part of a larger hassle in Iran. I have mentioned this several times but this day we got to experience it yet again. Although it was the middle of the week, the friend of my aunt's came over around mid-day to fix the internet. It was a raaaather easy fix actually. All he did was find the piece of paper with the internet password written on it. The password we were trying was the WiFi password and not the internet password. Anywho, moral of the story is the job took two minutes and he was out and on his way.
Because we are gone on so many different trips (to northern Iran, to Esfehan, and to Shiraz) and do not have internet access during these times, when we get back to Tehran to my aunt's house it becomes rather "important" to have e-mail/g-voice/skype/twitter and all that to keep your sanity.]. There is this idea of culture-shock that is experienced by people when they visit another part of the world. It is an idea where the impact of this new life-style, with its unfamiliar customs and people, is too much to take and causes a lot of anxiety for the traveler. In my opinion, one of the main reasons I did not experience a culture shock to a great extent (behind the main reason which I believe was that I knew the language), was the existence of the internet. Whether it is to say a few words to your significant other or to update on twitter that you are alive and what you plan to do next, the internet serves as a familiar place to visit familiar sites that has familiar people, and that has an IMMENSE calming feeling. Like I watched videos of the Edwin Jackson's no hitter. It's the little things, but it matters.
ANYYYWHO, so the internet was fixed and we had it for a few hours before we flew to Rasht (which is in north-eastern Iran). During this time I booked my hostel for Frankfurt. It was reallly weird realizing that this next chapter of my trip is actually approaching. I have been saving for over three years for my trip and it was THE THING that I wanted to do after graduation and booking my hostel in Frankfurt was weird because it made it a reality. [and it is even weirder to think that as of the writing of this that chapter has ended and now I am at a point with no "next" planned].
Unlike the trips to Esfehan and Shiraz, my aunt's husband came along with us. The flight to Rasht though was not as easy as you would imagine. As I have mentioned on here several times, the sanctions against Iran have tremendous effect on the people of Iran. In this case, it is jet-fuel that is rationed and to conserve the quota a company gets the air conditioning system of the flight is turned off WHEN IT IS 100+ DEGREES OUTSIDE AND 100+ PEOPLE ARE CRAMPED IN A PLANE. I mean they don't claim it is because of these sanctions and the lack there of jet-fuel that the air is not "working," but come on, really? All planes in Iran have broken air conditioning units? I don't think so.
So after bunch of sweating and misery, we got to Rasht and got the house of the family we are staying with. It was such a nice house filled with even nicer people. To be honest, I was at first a bit skeptical of going to this random place that I did not know, Rasht, and staying with random people. In fact we had even discussed canceling the trip because of the fatigue we had from going to northern Iran, then straight to Esfehan, then to Shiraz. However, we just decided to do it, and in about two hours after getting there I was realizing what a great decision we had made.
The family had a son and daughter about my age and at night me and my sister went out with the daughter and one of her friends. It was REALLLY neat as we just walked around, talked, got fruit juice, and had a raaather innocent night. Night-life here is muuuuch differnt but then again we hear about a TON of alcohol and hard-drug use and I wonder if we were just spared the scenery. Either way, one thing is certain, PUBLIC night-life here is different because of the ban on selling alcohol.
Anywho, we continued to walk around and had our fruit-juice and looked at shops and talked about, well, normal things people our age talk about. It was my first time hangin out with people my own age on this trip as eveeeeryone else we had seen was either significantly older or if they had kids our age we never separated from the parents and go off on our own.
Although simple and innocent, it was reallly a great night.
That is all I have for now,
-NZ
Monday, August 23, 2010
08-23-2010
Yes today is 08-23-2010 and I am doing a post about 08-23-2010 (I fell asleep while writing this so I am finishing it on 08-24-2010). It is a bit weird to make a final post of a blog before making the middle posts, as I WILL fill in all the remaining days between my last entry and today, but I feel obligated to make this entry while it is fresh in my mind. It is a bit of a wrap up and in a way does not make sense or flow at all with my previous entries as it contains experiences not yet mentioned.
I am right now laying in my OWN bed, at my OWN house, after having dinner that I did not have to hunt for (even finding a grocery store or restaurant can be considered a hunt when you are in a foreign place every second or third day), and have just taken a shower in a shower I was familiar with. I am back.
It may be the exhaustion (as of the writing of this it is in my mind's time 6:30a.m and I have not been asleep for a bit over 24 hours) but it all seems a bit surreal. Like I just cannot believe I survived 6 weeks in Europe (and another 3 in Iran) going through 11 countries, 21 cities, over 63 days, and doing something new and different almost every day and facing challenges I never imagined.
ANYWHO. Let me back up a bit and start at the beginning of today, when I woke up in Frankfurt (and am now in Campbell. Such a weird thought in it of itself). I woke up at 6:29a.m, a minute before my watch was set to go off, and had an immediate sense of panic as I knew I hadn't woken up to the sound of my watch's alarm and thought it meant I had overslept. But this was not the case and I got up, dressed, and since I had my bag packed the night before, was out the door and on the train platform towards Frankfurt airport by 6:40 with a ticket I had bought with 2.80 of my last 5 euros (not completely true as I fount 3 more euros in my jean pocket a few hours ago).
Anywho, I got on the right train and to the right airport (you will see the importance of RIGHT train/airport as I update my blogs) and through the check-in and all with no problem and by 7:45 was waiting at the gate for my flight at 9:50. Yea, just a taaaad early. haha. I sometimes forget how efficient I became in this trip at this whole travelling thing.
A few quick naps and some pages of reading ("Plot Against America") later, I was on board and on my 11 hour flight home and soon to discover that some crazy bed-bug or something had devoured my arms and back as I was madly itching. But I did not care, I was going home, hopefully not with any of the crazy bugs that had bitten me though.
Eleven hours, 2 movies (one of which I managed to watch, and kind of understand, in Spanish because of my new determination of learning languages which you will read about eventually), 2 border-line shitty airline meals, and at most 3 hours of asleep later and it didn't really sink in that I was going home and away from the life-style I had become used to over the past 6 weeks until I saw San Jose on the little tracking screen of the flight.
The entire time San Francisco was on there but finally about 1 hour before landing San Jose came on there along with Oakland, Sacramento, and other places I knew and recognized. It might sound mundane to you but for me it was the first time that I knew more than just the name of the place I was heading to and it was interesting. Because of this familiarity I was almost overwhelmed with a mixture of patriotism and a sense of belonging. Like I just wanted to seriously shout: "AMERICA, FUUUCK YEAAA."
Off the plane and at the baggage claim I waited far too long for my one little 12kg of a backpack to come thorough but after it did I made my way through customs where I was randomly checked. The lady asked about my trip and all the places I went and hesitantly, but not wanting to get in trouble for hiding it if she was smart enough to figure out the three week gap between my date of departure and my stamp for entering Frankfurth, I also mentioned Iran. I then readied myself for hours of questioning (you will see why when I get to write on my trip to London), but they just looked through my bag a bit to see what I had and I was on my way. My mom and dad were outside to greet me and it was the first familiar faces I had seen in the past 6 weeks. It was just awesomely relaxing to say the least.
After the hugs and kisses we were on our way, through familiar streets filled with familiar cars driving on a familiar side of the street with signs in a familiar language. And having been picked up (not having to find a bus, a train, or another mode of transportation to my destination), it was just all too awesomely boring to be going from a station to a destination without having to worry about all the hassle of the in-between. I was home and now I am back on my laptop, I am sending text messages on my phone, and I even got to drive to Radioshack to buy an overpriced phone charger because mine seems to have disappeared over the 9 weeks I was gone.
The entry may not have crazy stories like the ones I will have to write about over the coming weeks or include any seeing of significant sites like Eiffel tower or the pantheon or leaning tower of Pisa, but the truth is for someone on a trip for so long the breath-taking must-see OMG I am here moments are actually what becomes a bit ordinary and this almost NOTHING of the day becomes a bit more memorable.
So now let me stop and take a moment to look back and try to answer some of your questions and kind of wrap up my experience in a few sentences for those who I may not get a chance to talk personally to:
-My favorite place:
ALL OF THEM. You can't ask that question and expect a real answer. They are all different and they are all unique. Yes some, maybe most, I would never want to live in, but as a visitor and tourist each city has a tremendous number of things to offer and a unique personality and poses its own challenges (language, transportation, food, lodging, ect.) that you cannot pick a favorite. One had amazing natural beauty (Switzerland), one was amazingly fun (Barcelona), one was amazingly cliche (Paris), one was amazingly picturesque (cinque terre), one was amazingly historic (Rome), one was amazingly frustrating (Pisa), and on and on and on. There is no favorites to pick here and I wont.
-Did you have fun? What was fun?:
It's a weird question to answer because this trip was SOOOO much different than any and almost ALL expectations I had going into it. If I answer it with the expectations and what I thought the trip was going to be then I would have to say almost, no. But the truth is I had no clue what I was doing and had no clue about the magnitude of the task I was undertaking. I just did it because I thought it be "fun."
HOWEVER, now looking back (and I have gotten to this conclusion for about the past 4 weeks as you will see as I catch up with my posts), this was the GREATEST time of my life and I had the most fun and the craziest experiences and honestly experienced the most extreme of most emotions I have ever felt in my life. I felt happy, sad, lucky, alone, depressed, excited, accomplished, exhausted, foreign, familiar, and ON AND ON.
The problem with the did I like it question is like this: If you ask a kid before he ever rides a bike, "What is fun about riding a bike?" he can tell a host of things he may think are fun and will be fun about riding a bike but not until he rides it will he really be able to answer your question. Vise versa, a person who has never ridden a bike asking the kid who has ridden the bike "what is fun about riding a bike?" will not be able to really understand the answer until he rides a bike. What I am trying to say is this trip was fun but not exactly in the ways I imagined.
For me, the most "fun" part was the challenge of learning to travel. Travelling is like any new sport or activity you start doing. For the sake of this argument I will use running a mile as an example. You start out maybe running/walking in 10minutes and being tired. And then a day later you run again in 10 min. again. Another week goes by and now you are at 8. And another two weeks and you are at 7. So you get better at it. At first it may be hard, but you get better, and it is cool to get better at something. Well, travelling is like running but instead of just 10 minutes a day and then you can relax and go about your normal life and come back to the challenge the next day or if you really don't feel like it take a day off, travelling is like running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for as long as you travel. You have no choice but to keep running and EVERY mistake or fall you take (wrong bus, train, lost, hungry, tired) add up and you can't just go do something familiar and easier for a while and then try again. YOU HAVE TO KEEP GOING.
For me, this was the most "fun" part of travelling. I was terrible at finding my hostels (if you keep reading my entries you will see some places where it took me over two hours to find a hostel under a quarter of a mile from my train station/bus stop). I was terrible at packing. I was terrible at finding food. I was terrible at getting on the right bus, train, reading a map, planning my next couple of days, and ect. ect. I was terrible at travelling because well I never traveled before. But unlike ANYTHING ELSE I had ever taken on, what I was doing was not a PART of my life that I could get better at a little bit at a time over days and weeks, it WAS my life and I could not really walk away from it and needed to get better NOW.
You see, at the end of the day, I saw the Eiffel tower, went to a hundred different (famous) churches, saw a countless museums, ate crazy food, met awesome people, partied until past dawn, and I did ALLL the cliche things I imagined myself doing before the trip. HOWEVER, none of them, at least to me, were as special and important and memorable as the overall experience of learning how to travel and live and survive on the go. For me, these 9 weeks and more specifically the 6 weeks in Europe, were by far the most challenging time of my life and for me THAT was the most fun thing about the trip. I love challenging myself, and even though I honestly didn't realize that is what I was doing by deciding to go on this trip, I am glad I forced myself into this because it was an experience I will obviously never forget (until I get old and get dementia).
Thanks for following my blog/twitter
-NZ
I am right now laying in my OWN bed, at my OWN house, after having dinner that I did not have to hunt for (even finding a grocery store or restaurant can be considered a hunt when you are in a foreign place every second or third day), and have just taken a shower in a shower I was familiar with. I am back.
It may be the exhaustion (as of the writing of this it is in my mind's time 6:30a.m and I have not been asleep for a bit over 24 hours) but it all seems a bit surreal. Like I just cannot believe I survived 6 weeks in Europe (and another 3 in Iran) going through 11 countries, 21 cities, over 63 days, and doing something new and different almost every day and facing challenges I never imagined.
ANYWHO. Let me back up a bit and start at the beginning of today, when I woke up in Frankfurt (and am now in Campbell. Such a weird thought in it of itself). I woke up at 6:29a.m, a minute before my watch was set to go off, and had an immediate sense of panic as I knew I hadn't woken up to the sound of my watch's alarm and thought it meant I had overslept. But this was not the case and I got up, dressed, and since I had my bag packed the night before, was out the door and on the train platform towards Frankfurt airport by 6:40 with a ticket I had bought with 2.80 of my last 5 euros (not completely true as I fount 3 more euros in my jean pocket a few hours ago).
Anywho, I got on the right train and to the right airport (you will see the importance of RIGHT train/airport as I update my blogs) and through the check-in and all with no problem and by 7:45 was waiting at the gate for my flight at 9:50. Yea, just a taaaad early. haha. I sometimes forget how efficient I became in this trip at this whole travelling thing.
A few quick naps and some pages of reading ("Plot Against America") later, I was on board and on my 11 hour flight home and soon to discover that some crazy bed-bug or something had devoured my arms and back as I was madly itching. But I did not care, I was going home, hopefully not with any of the crazy bugs that had bitten me though.
Eleven hours, 2 movies (one of which I managed to watch, and kind of understand, in Spanish because of my new determination of learning languages which you will read about eventually), 2 border-line shitty airline meals, and at most 3 hours of asleep later and it didn't really sink in that I was going home and away from the life-style I had become used to over the past 6 weeks until I saw San Jose on the little tracking screen of the flight.
The entire time San Francisco was on there but finally about 1 hour before landing San Jose came on there along with Oakland, Sacramento, and other places I knew and recognized. It might sound mundane to you but for me it was the first time that I knew more than just the name of the place I was heading to and it was interesting. Because of this familiarity I was almost overwhelmed with a mixture of patriotism and a sense of belonging. Like I just wanted to seriously shout: "AMERICA, FUUUCK YEAAA."
Off the plane and at the baggage claim I waited far too long for my one little 12kg of a backpack to come thorough but after it did I made my way through customs where I was randomly checked. The lady asked about my trip and all the places I went and hesitantly, but not wanting to get in trouble for hiding it if she was smart enough to figure out the three week gap between my date of departure and my stamp for entering Frankfurth, I also mentioned Iran. I then readied myself for hours of questioning (you will see why when I get to write on my trip to London), but they just looked through my bag a bit to see what I had and I was on my way. My mom and dad were outside to greet me and it was the first familiar faces I had seen in the past 6 weeks. It was just awesomely relaxing to say the least.
After the hugs and kisses we were on our way, through familiar streets filled with familiar cars driving on a familiar side of the street with signs in a familiar language. And having been picked up (not having to find a bus, a train, or another mode of transportation to my destination), it was just all too awesomely boring to be going from a station to a destination without having to worry about all the hassle of the in-between. I was home and now I am back on my laptop, I am sending text messages on my phone, and I even got to drive to Radioshack to buy an overpriced phone charger because mine seems to have disappeared over the 9 weeks I was gone.
The entry may not have crazy stories like the ones I will have to write about over the coming weeks or include any seeing of significant sites like Eiffel tower or the pantheon or leaning tower of Pisa, but the truth is for someone on a trip for so long the breath-taking must-see OMG I am here moments are actually what becomes a bit ordinary and this almost NOTHING of the day becomes a bit more memorable.
So now let me stop and take a moment to look back and try to answer some of your questions and kind of wrap up my experience in a few sentences for those who I may not get a chance to talk personally to:
-My favorite place:
ALL OF THEM. You can't ask that question and expect a real answer. They are all different and they are all unique. Yes some, maybe most, I would never want to live in, but as a visitor and tourist each city has a tremendous number of things to offer and a unique personality and poses its own challenges (language, transportation, food, lodging, ect.) that you cannot pick a favorite. One had amazing natural beauty (Switzerland), one was amazingly fun (Barcelona), one was amazingly cliche (Paris), one was amazingly picturesque (cinque terre), one was amazingly historic (Rome), one was amazingly frustrating (Pisa), and on and on and on. There is no favorites to pick here and I wont.
-Did you have fun? What was fun?:
It's a weird question to answer because this trip was SOOOO much different than any and almost ALL expectations I had going into it. If I answer it with the expectations and what I thought the trip was going to be then I would have to say almost, no. But the truth is I had no clue what I was doing and had no clue about the magnitude of the task I was undertaking. I just did it because I thought it be "fun."
HOWEVER, now looking back (and I have gotten to this conclusion for about the past 4 weeks as you will see as I catch up with my posts), this was the GREATEST time of my life and I had the most fun and the craziest experiences and honestly experienced the most extreme of most emotions I have ever felt in my life. I felt happy, sad, lucky, alone, depressed, excited, accomplished, exhausted, foreign, familiar, and ON AND ON.
The problem with the did I like it question is like this: If you ask a kid before he ever rides a bike, "What is fun about riding a bike?" he can tell a host of things he may think are fun and will be fun about riding a bike but not until he rides it will he really be able to answer your question. Vise versa, a person who has never ridden a bike asking the kid who has ridden the bike "what is fun about riding a bike?" will not be able to really understand the answer until he rides a bike. What I am trying to say is this trip was fun but not exactly in the ways I imagined.
For me, the most "fun" part was the challenge of learning to travel. Travelling is like any new sport or activity you start doing. For the sake of this argument I will use running a mile as an example. You start out maybe running/walking in 10minutes and being tired. And then a day later you run again in 10 min. again. Another week goes by and now you are at 8. And another two weeks and you are at 7. So you get better at it. At first it may be hard, but you get better, and it is cool to get better at something. Well, travelling is like running but instead of just 10 minutes a day and then you can relax and go about your normal life and come back to the challenge the next day or if you really don't feel like it take a day off, travelling is like running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for as long as you travel. You have no choice but to keep running and EVERY mistake or fall you take (wrong bus, train, lost, hungry, tired) add up and you can't just go do something familiar and easier for a while and then try again. YOU HAVE TO KEEP GOING.
For me, this was the most "fun" part of travelling. I was terrible at finding my hostels (if you keep reading my entries you will see some places where it took me over two hours to find a hostel under a quarter of a mile from my train station/bus stop). I was terrible at packing. I was terrible at finding food. I was terrible at getting on the right bus, train, reading a map, planning my next couple of days, and ect. ect. I was terrible at travelling because well I never traveled before. But unlike ANYTHING ELSE I had ever taken on, what I was doing was not a PART of my life that I could get better at a little bit at a time over days and weeks, it WAS my life and I could not really walk away from it and needed to get better NOW.
You see, at the end of the day, I saw the Eiffel tower, went to a hundred different (famous) churches, saw a countless museums, ate crazy food, met awesome people, partied until past dawn, and I did ALLL the cliche things I imagined myself doing before the trip. HOWEVER, none of them, at least to me, were as special and important and memorable as the overall experience of learning how to travel and live and survive on the go. For me, these 9 weeks and more specifically the 6 weeks in Europe, were by far the most challenging time of my life and for me THAT was the most fun thing about the trip. I love challenging myself, and even though I honestly didn't realize that is what I was doing by deciding to go on this trip, I am glad I forced myself into this because it was an experience I will obviously never forget (until I get old and get dementia).
Thanks for following my blog/twitter
-NZ
Monday, August 16, 2010
07-06-2010
Hello there everyone,
It's Monday August 16th and I am sitting here in a HOT room in Rome at my camping hostel using a computer in the computer room that must be no joke 100 degrees at least. Maybe I should be out exploring Rome with my last 6 hours before leaving for the airport for Geneva or maybe I should go to the pool they have here and read or something and not be stare at a 15 inch screen. Maybe I should have actually gotten out of bed at 6a.m when I was awake and ready to go to the Vatican to see the Sistine chapel but then turned over and slept. I did get up early on Saturday to go see it but it was closed Sat/Sun for some holiday so I guess it was just not ment to be.
Whatever it is that I should "maybe" be doing, the truth is I just don't care because this is what I want to be doing right now. At this point of the trip with only 7 days left I have learned well enough to stop thinking about all the things I "should" be doing or didn't end up doing and do whatever it is I feel like. Anywho, I could blab on about a lot of things on my mind right now, a lot of which I actually did write for about 15 minutes but decide to make dissapear with the backspace button before replacing it with solely this sentence.
So without further adu (spelling?), I present you July 6th, 2010 [as we are over a month away from that time now I am relying HEAVILY on my journal enteries but I think they are fairly accurate.]:
We woke up and were going to my mom's friend's house for lunch. We planned to go on taxi and my mom hailed a taxi and negotiated the price to her friend's house before we got in. It may sound plain and not a big deal but when we first started the trip my mom was a lot more reserved and to me it almost seemed as though she was in a foreign country even though she spent most of her life in Iran instead of America so it was cool to see her getting her inner persian back. haha.
So we got to the house at about noon and it was my mom, my sister, the friend (female) the daughter of the friend, the mother of the friend, another one of my mom's friends (female), the mother of this other friend, aaaaaaand me (male)....YEAH.
This trip has definitely been HEAVILY female dominated and sometimes it is just awkward and weird specially since they see me as a grown up and a "man" and I see myself as a little kid. Obviously the mannerisms of the two are different and I sometimes I just wanna be a kid man. I don't think I will ever truly grow up or act completely grown up. I just like it better this way.
Anywho, we had lunch there and it was absolutely DELICIOUS.
[sidenote away from that day and back to August 16th. The food in Europe is good, even great, but the truth is it is just most of the time a more authetic version of the food you find in America. The food in Iran was different and that was one of my favorite parts of the trip]
Back to the food and the lunch: Iranians do parities a loooot diffferently than Americans. In America when you go to a party there is one or at most two types of food. You are having burgers, or pasta, or chicken, or steak and you have your vegetable. In Iran there is at least 5 different types of food at each table. There is your rice that has a bean or something in it and is stand-alone can be eaten. There is your white rice that has at LEAST one type of umm topping (khoresht), which has meat or chicken, to pour on top. Usually though there is two of these. And then there is salad, yogurt, and usually some oven roasted chicken pieces seperately by themselves. It is really a feast and full of various colors and options and flavors. SO AMAZING.
Anywho, we ate and the friend and her daughter did a great job of setting the table and bringing fruits and then bringing the lunch and then bringing the tea and dessert. In Iran EVERYTHING you do revolves around food it seems. It's odd but everywhere you go the entire time there is a different eating product being presented and if you refuse it they argue with you like you are anorexic and don't eat anything but it is mainly because they just fed you 9000 things over the last two hours and you are stuffed and you just can't have that fourth piece of cake or that 3rd orange or something. It's funny though and almost like a little game of constant offerings.
A random thing also this mom had AMAZING drawings and wood carved pieces and me and my sister chose a couple pieces of her work to take with us back to the states. I hope it makes it back because it is a neeeat little keepsakes.
After the food we had tea and listened to more stories of the corruption in Iran. I had brought this up earlier I THINK in another post with a different story possibly but this one was interesting also. It was about hospital nurses who get some money from the patients (like $50) and will keep them in private rooms by falsifying paper-works regarding an infection requiring her to be in a private room and stuff like that. Low level curroption seems to run rampid and a bit later that night when we were having guests over at my aunt's house for dinner and tea more wild stories came up. For example a cop who pulled over this friend and she tried to give her a $50 but he said no please put away and just gave her the ticket. And that doesn't sound like curroption but the fact that this is normal shows that maybe once, twice, three times the guy says no please put away but with his salary it will be so easy to eventually say "ok mam, now please don't speed" and then eventually "you know mam you can avoid the full ticket by paying now in cash instead of later" or something along those lines.
I donno. As I said, low level curroption seems to be everywhere and almost accepted. In America it seems that there is less of this low level curroption and more high level curroption (although that I am sure also exists in Iran).
Anywho, so back to that dinner+tea thing. Well yeah after we ate lunch at my mom's friend's house and had tea and talked and stuff we left and came back to my aunt's house where we had about 8-10 people come over for tea and dinner and more tea and talking. It was mostly my aunt's friends and they all seemed to remember me although I did not remember any of them. HOWEVER, there was this weeeird feeling of comfort and familiarity I had with them. I don't know if it was real or not but for people who I didn't remember at all SOMETHING felt like I knew them. Maybe I was just feeling extra social or something, but I don't think that was it.
Before the night ended the good family friends of ours, the ones we went to the villa in northern Iran with that I mentioned we grew up together and stuff, came over one last time because they were going to America for a visit. It was werid for me because when I was a kid and was leaving to America I truly had thought that I would never see them again and had cried and was sad. However, having them come to America last year and now me going to Iran a year later, saying bye to them was more of a see you later and I loved that feeling. The feeling that I will most likely see them again. I told the dad this and he said "Life goes and turns and twists and goes." And to you that may sound like rubbish but when I thought about it, maybe because of the emotions I was feeling then, it made a lot of sense.
Anywho, that is all I have for that day. I don't think I will be able to update this anymore as my last 7 days are PAAACKED traveling through 5 cities (Geneva, Interlaken, Vienna, Munic?, Frankfurth) and 3 countries (Switzerland, Austria, Germany) because I heard such good things about Interlaken that I had to try to squeez it in. And if you are following my twitter you know that I broke my iPod in Cinqqueterre so I can only write at PCs and not while on trains and while travelling to a place, which is my preffered way to update this blog as it doesn't take away from my time in a place.
SOOO, I will update this when I am back in America. I WILL, I promise.
I miss you guys from back home, you know who you are, and I love you guys and will see you very soon.
-NZ
It's Monday August 16th and I am sitting here in a HOT room in Rome at my camping hostel using a computer in the computer room that must be no joke 100 degrees at least. Maybe I should be out exploring Rome with my last 6 hours before leaving for the airport for Geneva or maybe I should go to the pool they have here and read or something and not be stare at a 15 inch screen. Maybe I should have actually gotten out of bed at 6a.m when I was awake and ready to go to the Vatican to see the Sistine chapel but then turned over and slept. I did get up early on Saturday to go see it but it was closed Sat/Sun for some holiday so I guess it was just not ment to be.
Whatever it is that I should "maybe" be doing, the truth is I just don't care because this is what I want to be doing right now. At this point of the trip with only 7 days left I have learned well enough to stop thinking about all the things I "should" be doing or didn't end up doing and do whatever it is I feel like. Anywho, I could blab on about a lot of things on my mind right now, a lot of which I actually did write for about 15 minutes but decide to make dissapear with the backspace button before replacing it with solely this sentence.
So without further adu (spelling?), I present you July 6th, 2010 [as we are over a month away from that time now I am relying HEAVILY on my journal enteries but I think they are fairly accurate.]:
We woke up and were going to my mom's friend's house for lunch. We planned to go on taxi and my mom hailed a taxi and negotiated the price to her friend's house before we got in. It may sound plain and not a big deal but when we first started the trip my mom was a lot more reserved and to me it almost seemed as though she was in a foreign country even though she spent most of her life in Iran instead of America so it was cool to see her getting her inner persian back. haha.
So we got to the house at about noon and it was my mom, my sister, the friend (female) the daughter of the friend, the mother of the friend, another one of my mom's friends (female), the mother of this other friend, aaaaaaand me (male)....YEAH.
This trip has definitely been HEAVILY female dominated and sometimes it is just awkward and weird specially since they see me as a grown up and a "man" and I see myself as a little kid. Obviously the mannerisms of the two are different and I sometimes I just wanna be a kid man. I don't think I will ever truly grow up or act completely grown up. I just like it better this way.
Anywho, we had lunch there and it was absolutely DELICIOUS.
[sidenote away from that day and back to August 16th. The food in Europe is good, even great, but the truth is it is just most of the time a more authetic version of the food you find in America. The food in Iran was different and that was one of my favorite parts of the trip]
Back to the food and the lunch: Iranians do parities a loooot diffferently than Americans. In America when you go to a party there is one or at most two types of food. You are having burgers, or pasta, or chicken, or steak and you have your vegetable. In Iran there is at least 5 different types of food at each table. There is your rice that has a bean or something in it and is stand-alone can be eaten. There is your white rice that has at LEAST one type of umm topping (khoresht), which has meat or chicken, to pour on top. Usually though there is two of these. And then there is salad, yogurt, and usually some oven roasted chicken pieces seperately by themselves. It is really a feast and full of various colors and options and flavors. SO AMAZING.
Anywho, we ate and the friend and her daughter did a great job of setting the table and bringing fruits and then bringing the lunch and then bringing the tea and dessert. In Iran EVERYTHING you do revolves around food it seems. It's odd but everywhere you go the entire time there is a different eating product being presented and if you refuse it they argue with you like you are anorexic and don't eat anything but it is mainly because they just fed you 9000 things over the last two hours and you are stuffed and you just can't have that fourth piece of cake or that 3rd orange or something. It's funny though and almost like a little game of constant offerings.
A random thing also this mom had AMAZING drawings and wood carved pieces and me and my sister chose a couple pieces of her work to take with us back to the states. I hope it makes it back because it is a neeeat little keepsakes.
After the food we had tea and listened to more stories of the corruption in Iran. I had brought this up earlier I THINK in another post with a different story possibly but this one was interesting also. It was about hospital nurses who get some money from the patients (like $50) and will keep them in private rooms by falsifying paper-works regarding an infection requiring her to be in a private room and stuff like that. Low level curroption seems to run rampid and a bit later that night when we were having guests over at my aunt's house for dinner and tea more wild stories came up. For example a cop who pulled over this friend and she tried to give her a $50 but he said no please put away and just gave her the ticket. And that doesn't sound like curroption but the fact that this is normal shows that maybe once, twice, three times the guy says no please put away but with his salary it will be so easy to eventually say "ok mam, now please don't speed" and then eventually "you know mam you can avoid the full ticket by paying now in cash instead of later" or something along those lines.
I donno. As I said, low level curroption seems to be everywhere and almost accepted. In America it seems that there is less of this low level curroption and more high level curroption (although that I am sure also exists in Iran).
Anywho, so back to that dinner+tea thing. Well yeah after we ate lunch at my mom's friend's house and had tea and talked and stuff we left and came back to my aunt's house where we had about 8-10 people come over for tea and dinner and more tea and talking. It was mostly my aunt's friends and they all seemed to remember me although I did not remember any of them. HOWEVER, there was this weeeird feeling of comfort and familiarity I had with them. I don't know if it was real or not but for people who I didn't remember at all SOMETHING felt like I knew them. Maybe I was just feeling extra social or something, but I don't think that was it.
Before the night ended the good family friends of ours, the ones we went to the villa in northern Iran with that I mentioned we grew up together and stuff, came over one last time because they were going to America for a visit. It was werid for me because when I was a kid and was leaving to America I truly had thought that I would never see them again and had cried and was sad. However, having them come to America last year and now me going to Iran a year later, saying bye to them was more of a see you later and I loved that feeling. The feeling that I will most likely see them again. I told the dad this and he said "Life goes and turns and twists and goes." And to you that may sound like rubbish but when I thought about it, maybe because of the emotions I was feeling then, it made a lot of sense.
Anywho, that is all I have for that day. I don't think I will be able to update this anymore as my last 7 days are PAAACKED traveling through 5 cities (Geneva, Interlaken, Vienna, Munic?, Frankfurth) and 3 countries (Switzerland, Austria, Germany) because I heard such good things about Interlaken that I had to try to squeez it in. And if you are following my twitter you know that I broke my iPod in Cinqqueterre so I can only write at PCs and not while on trains and while travelling to a place, which is my preffered way to update this blog as it doesn't take away from my time in a place.
SOOO, I will update this when I am back in America. I WILL, I promise.
I miss you guys from back home, you know who you are, and I love you guys and will see you very soon.
-NZ
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
07-05-2010
Hey everyone,
Today is AUGUST 3rd 2010 and I'm waiting in the train station in Mompelliar sitting like an absolute homeless man next to a plug I found and a bit scared of the night ahead. I have a train at 3pm TOMORROW and no place to stay tonight because this place has no hostles and I wasn't about to pay $100 for one night of hotel which in hindesight, even though we are not yet done with this night, may be one of the stupidest things I do. I can't imagine train stations are very safe places to be all night but these are the cards that I am choosing and w'll see what happens. My plan is to approach a nice looking person or group and try to sit with them but for now my iPod needs a charge and it is relatively early (9pm) so I'm not too worried yet. I donno, my last hostles Internet was kind of shit and I didn't feel like going out to find Internet to plan out the next few days so I am in a bit of a pickle having to plan everything as it comes. I've survived through 50% of the 6 weeks, I'm hopeful the rest will work out.
Anywho, onto the real entry of JULY 5th. Man I'm almost a month behind, good thing I'm a jobless bum when I get back to the states and will have time to catch up with this blog and hopefully and ideally with my other one, today I learned.
Seriously though, onto July 5th:
Today was actually a pretty relaxed day as I sat in the lobby of the hotel and worked on my blog enteries while the rest of the gang went out in Shiraz. It was actually rather nice time with the lobby of this hotel being pretty extravegant in terms of view of a pool in front of you and a mini waterfall providing nice relaxing sound.
After I was done working on the blog I definitely snagged the menu from the place for my collection on the way back up to my room. Once the gang ot back we had a lunch of sandwiches from this same shop we had ate the day before. It was very good and after lunch we checked out and went to airport to fly back to Tehran.
Once back in Tehran, an off the hot-as-hell plane, we went back home and changed to go to atisaz, the home I lived at as a child. It was a strange visit as the place had changed a lot and yet stayed the same. For example, the yard that I used to bike at or the areas I played soccer as a kid were all the same but a lot smaller than I remembered them. For me atisaz was huuuge as a child and I guess I really have grown because it no longer seemed so large.
There were definite changes too in terms of an increase in the number of units in the community (more than 3x as many now) and a explosion in number of cars. When I lived there as a child there were plenty of empty spaces for cars but now they were parked everywhere a car could possibly fit. It was a strange site cuz although the overall number of units has increased, the new units are in a new area so these cars haaave to be those of the same number of people living in the units I used to live in but now these people have multiple cars I guess.
There were a couple more things of note from atisaz. One, this place is siiiignificantly cooler than central Tehran were we are staying. Even though it is only 15minutes away from the center I think a mixture of elevation (it is a bit higher) and whatever else is making it cooler. Two, there are a great number of trees and flowers here and it gives the place an overall a homee ambiance. Thirdly, the place seems a bit more liberal as we saw a couple of girls sitting and chatting without wearing their headress.
After our visit to atisaz we went to a reallly nice restaurant for dinner and I had a food my mom makes, fesengoon, to see how it was compared to my mom. For me it was too sweet and I didn't like it so much but when my mom tried it she said this was reallly excellent and how they really make it. I found it interesting that I guess you get used to how something tastes from what your mom makes and that becomes the "right" and version.
Once we got back home we watched a bit of tv and suddenly I found myself in a reallllly deep discussion of capitalism with my uncle. He is a Marxist and obviously does not like capitalism at all and I wanted to see why. I obviously though chose a tooough lil opponent to argue in favor of capitalism. He was verrrry thorough and one by one rejected my position.
Because I found the argument so interesting I actually wrote down few of his points that I remembered afterwards to maybe on day find a responce to them.
One he argued that although the system shows the winners and encourages ideas through monetary reward it fails to show the losers. He, somewhat correctly, argued that for every winner in the capitalist system there are many many losers and that is a big flaw.
Furthermore, because money equates to power in this system, the interest of few people are represented. For example, if companies or rich people pay to advertise the benefits or negatives of some laws, the truth of the affect of these laws for the genral public may remain hidden.
Another good and thought-provoking argument he had is that advancement without a monetary reward still can occur and will occur. I argue that this is not true entirely but I do think that a great number of people do things for the idea of good rather than the monetary reward and his argument becomes interesting because if you increase the social safety net and increase the size and accessibility of the middle class (by shrinking and taxing those who earn more) then people will be less afraid to take a chance and do something for sake of good with fear of failure and poverty. The problem with this model however is it assumes that there is enough people willing to do something (anything) yeh are truly passionate about without the motivation of the monetary gains. I don't think that is a type of society we live in nor one we will have anytime soon. The strenght of his argument in this point though (even though he failed to mention it) is current systems that already use this no reward model. For example wikipedia, goodle dev team, firefox, and Linux. Although there are a few people who do make money in these ecosystems, th majority if the power of the systems is drived from the while community and they hav shown to be successful. One caveat however is that these system use a very large population on the Internet and many things cannot be redused to and represented in the same way to such a gigantic audience.
The final point he had was an expansion of winner and loser idea where he pointed out that the losers in a capitalist system are not only the people who are competing for making that discovery or opening a business. Rather the losers extend all the way through the world as the human resources are limited and those living a life of riches are taking unnecessary resources from the poor. Wether it be that fourth car, the third house that has two pools or whatever it may be, living in luxary means that you are taking resources that could e used maybe by a family who needs the first cart or first house.
At the end of the day, as sound as his argumets were, I was not completely convinced because even if the US follows more of a soialist path rather than a capitalist, I think some other country will see the opportunity to fill that void. I don't know, I just wonder how a capitalist could convince me against these arguments he presented.
Anywho, that was all for that day. It's about 10pm here and I'm gonna go try to find some peeps to sit with and see what the night has for me and also enjoy my dinner of nutella, bread, and redbull.
I had pretty low standards of happiness before this trip in terms of luxaries. I eat anything and can asleep anywhere and was not very picky but this trip is erasing any and all standards I ever had for life. Hah.
Wish me luck,
-NZ
[as of this posting it is actually 11am the next dy and I survived the night.]
Today is AUGUST 3rd 2010 and I'm waiting in the train station in Mompelliar sitting like an absolute homeless man next to a plug I found and a bit scared of the night ahead. I have a train at 3pm TOMORROW and no place to stay tonight because this place has no hostles and I wasn't about to pay $100 for one night of hotel which in hindesight, even though we are not yet done with this night, may be one of the stupidest things I do. I can't imagine train stations are very safe places to be all night but these are the cards that I am choosing and w'll see what happens. My plan is to approach a nice looking person or group and try to sit with them but for now my iPod needs a charge and it is relatively early (9pm) so I'm not too worried yet. I donno, my last hostles Internet was kind of shit and I didn't feel like going out to find Internet to plan out the next few days so I am in a bit of a pickle having to plan everything as it comes. I've survived through 50% of the 6 weeks, I'm hopeful the rest will work out.
Anywho, onto the real entry of JULY 5th. Man I'm almost a month behind, good thing I'm a jobless bum when I get back to the states and will have time to catch up with this blog and hopefully and ideally with my other one, today I learned.
Seriously though, onto July 5th:
Today was actually a pretty relaxed day as I sat in the lobby of the hotel and worked on my blog enteries while the rest of the gang went out in Shiraz. It was actually rather nice time with the lobby of this hotel being pretty extravegant in terms of view of a pool in front of you and a mini waterfall providing nice relaxing sound.
After I was done working on the blog I definitely snagged the menu from the place for my collection on the way back up to my room. Once the gang ot back we had a lunch of sandwiches from this same shop we had ate the day before. It was very good and after lunch we checked out and went to airport to fly back to Tehran.
Once back in Tehran, an off the hot-as-hell plane, we went back home and changed to go to atisaz, the home I lived at as a child. It was a strange visit as the place had changed a lot and yet stayed the same. For example, the yard that I used to bike at or the areas I played soccer as a kid were all the same but a lot smaller than I remembered them. For me atisaz was huuuge as a child and I guess I really have grown because it no longer seemed so large.
There were definite changes too in terms of an increase in the number of units in the community (more than 3x as many now) and a explosion in number of cars. When I lived there as a child there were plenty of empty spaces for cars but now they were parked everywhere a car could possibly fit. It was a strange site cuz although the overall number of units has increased, the new units are in a new area so these cars haaave to be those of the same number of people living in the units I used to live in but now these people have multiple cars I guess.
There were a couple more things of note from atisaz. One, this place is siiiignificantly cooler than central Tehran were we are staying. Even though it is only 15minutes away from the center I think a mixture of elevation (it is a bit higher) and whatever else is making it cooler. Two, there are a great number of trees and flowers here and it gives the place an overall a homee ambiance. Thirdly, the place seems a bit more liberal as we saw a couple of girls sitting and chatting without wearing their headress.
After our visit to atisaz we went to a reallly nice restaurant for dinner and I had a food my mom makes, fesengoon, to see how it was compared to my mom. For me it was too sweet and I didn't like it so much but when my mom tried it she said this was reallly excellent and how they really make it. I found it interesting that I guess you get used to how something tastes from what your mom makes and that becomes the "right" and version.
Once we got back home we watched a bit of tv and suddenly I found myself in a reallllly deep discussion of capitalism with my uncle. He is a Marxist and obviously does not like capitalism at all and I wanted to see why. I obviously though chose a tooough lil opponent to argue in favor of capitalism. He was verrrry thorough and one by one rejected my position.
Because I found the argument so interesting I actually wrote down few of his points that I remembered afterwards to maybe on day find a responce to them.
One he argued that although the system shows the winners and encourages ideas through monetary reward it fails to show the losers. He, somewhat correctly, argued that for every winner in the capitalist system there are many many losers and that is a big flaw.
Furthermore, because money equates to power in this system, the interest of few people are represented. For example, if companies or rich people pay to advertise the benefits or negatives of some laws, the truth of the affect of these laws for the genral public may remain hidden.
Another good and thought-provoking argument he had is that advancement without a monetary reward still can occur and will occur. I argue that this is not true entirely but I do think that a great number of people do things for the idea of good rather than the monetary reward and his argument becomes interesting because if you increase the social safety net and increase the size and accessibility of the middle class (by shrinking and taxing those who earn more) then people will be less afraid to take a chance and do something for sake of good with fear of failure and poverty. The problem with this model however is it assumes that there is enough people willing to do something (anything) yeh are truly passionate about without the motivation of the monetary gains. I don't think that is a type of society we live in nor one we will have anytime soon. The strenght of his argument in this point though (even though he failed to mention it) is current systems that already use this no reward model. For example wikipedia, goodle dev team, firefox, and Linux. Although there are a few people who do make money in these ecosystems, th majority if the power of the systems is drived from the while community and they hav shown to be successful. One caveat however is that these system use a very large population on the Internet and many things cannot be redused to and represented in the same way to such a gigantic audience.
The final point he had was an expansion of winner and loser idea where he pointed out that the losers in a capitalist system are not only the people who are competing for making that discovery or opening a business. Rather the losers extend all the way through the world as the human resources are limited and those living a life of riches are taking unnecessary resources from the poor. Wether it be that fourth car, the third house that has two pools or whatever it may be, living in luxary means that you are taking resources that could e used maybe by a family who needs the first cart or first house.
At the end of the day, as sound as his argumets were, I was not completely convinced because even if the US follows more of a soialist path rather than a capitalist, I think some other country will see the opportunity to fill that void. I don't know, I just wonder how a capitalist could convince me against these arguments he presented.
Anywho, that was all for that day. It's about 10pm here and I'm gonna go try to find some peeps to sit with and see what the night has for me and also enjoy my dinner of nutella, bread, and redbull.
I had pretty low standards of happiness before this trip in terms of luxaries. I eat anything and can asleep anywhere and was not very picky but this trip is erasing any and all standards I ever had for life. Hah.
Wish me luck,
-NZ
[as of this posting it is actually 11am the next dy and I survived the night.]
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