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”

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.

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

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

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

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.]

07-04-2010

Hey everyone,
Today is July 30th and I am on a 5 hour train ride to Nice from Paris so I plan to catch up on a few enteries on my way. I had a wonderful 3 days spending time with a family who is distant in relation to me but is filled with a ton of love. I adventured out during the day by myself and spend the afternoons and nights with them eating at French restaurants and drinking wine and talking. Totally wonderful. 
 
Anywho, sorry I have been bad at updating my blog the last week or so but it's because I took up reading a book. I'm reading Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol, which if you know Dan Brown you know his style of writting is like pop music, easy to read and understand but kind of empty in substance.

No crazy revalations on this entery before I start. Only thing worth of noting is how much better I have gotten at finding my way around and not getting as lost and more importantly not getting as frustrated when I am lost. If you know me well know you that I loveeee learning and i feel like a little kid who is learnig to ride a bike. I have fallen down quiet a few times but I am getting the hang of it and I'm glad I have three more weeks to work on it. 

Now onto July 4, 2010. The first and most important thing to note here I feel is that I spent the entire day and only at night when I started to write in my journal (fine you can call it diary if you want. Whatever...) and wrote the date did I realize it was 4th of July. I mean I had seen it on my watch all day but hadn't realized it was independence day and all. I donno I thought that was a bit interesting.

Having missed the fourth also reminded me how much I missed 1st world life in general. Although it was fun at first having to deal with 3rd world issues, the constant struggle and lack of luxaries we take for granted in America starts to wear on you here. There is always trouble with either water, electricity, Internet, and phone as those of you who read my past enteries know. Furthermore grocery shopping is its own little hassle as you need to go to three stores to buy bread, fruit, and yogurt. Although this is fun and exciting at first sometimes you are just too tired for the process and want that instant satisfaction. 

This all helped me realize that about 3 weeks in annny country is more than enough to get you a good sense of the culture, the people, and the lifestyle. Not that you'll be a pro at it after but you'll have a good healthy glimpse. 

Anywho back to the day from the beginning instead of the end. Since I was so tired at the end of last night I skipped breakfast this morning to get about an hour of more asleep. The thing you learn well abut traveling with others is that everyone travels different. For example I like to rest once in a while, specially with this knowledge that I have 6 weeks left in Europe once my trip here in Iran end. I don't wanna exhaust myself and possibly get sick. I need my asleep, and therefore I sometimes just disregard what others are doing and become more selfish.

Anwho, after everyone came back from breakfast I got up, dressed, and we went to the bazar in Shiraz. There are soo many beggers, many around 7-10 years old, and they really mak you feel bad for not buying what they are selling. I know I have more, I know I should help them a bit, but I just can't do it for all of them.

Anywho after bazar we went to a museum, well it was an old hamam (public bath) that was turned to a museum. My aunt approached to buy our four tickets and the guy wanted to sell her foreigner tickets cuz thought my mom and sister were not Iranian. I found this very interesting as it showed clearly how America has changed not just our behavior but maybe even our appearance. Anywho, after talking to my mom, who responded with the smart allic comment of "you are right, we are from outside of Shiraz" (of course in Farsi) the guy let us in for the lower price.

The hammams were interestig (we went to two) as they still smelled damp even though they probably had not been used for tens if not hundreds of years.

After our lil adventure of hammams we headed over and saw a number of mosques. The age of the mosques (some around a thousand years old) is a good reminder of the deeeeep religious roots of this coutry. Often I thought about Iran as a religious nation only after it's revolution about 30 years ago but the fact is the empire of Persia was verrry muslim and it left this mark throughout Iran after its collapse. Even though it was a Sunday (for Iranians this is the middle of the week as they only have Friday off), the mosques were full of people praying.

Overall, the mosques were very beautiful, full of stained glass, mirrors, and tile-work. Interestingly it was a library or a hostle for some as more than a few people were studying or sleepig on the floor of the mosque.

We saw a few other things that day too and even though I wrote in my journal that very night I did not make a note of these other places except a little complaint I put regarding the fact thati feel I am seeing too many places and too many things and cannot possibly actually learn anything as it just flashes by as you go but does not really leave an impresssion. 

Othe than this the only two other notes of the day I have is another taxi driver to whom I talked to regarding the hardships of life in Iran. This reminded me of how much people complain here. In America when you ask someone how they are or how is work or how is life you usually get a posiive response. It may be a lie and things may not be well, but in America you usually get a positive response. Here in Iran it seems you rarely get a positive response. As soon as you ask someone how there life is they give you a ton of things that reminds you how many troubles exist here. I'm sure thy are not lying and I appriciate there stories tremendously but it's interesting the contrast in this culture and US. 

The only other note I had was about how I am getting tired of eating here. It doesn't ever leave you feeling healthy and full and always manages to give you tummy ache and make you feel bad. 

That is all for this day,
I am not really in the mood to write more as I just feel a bit down. Traveling alone is suuuch an emotional roller-coaster and currently I miss my life back home. 
I miss my friends, my family, my girlfriend, and my ultimate and currently I feel distanced from most of it and even worst feel the distance growing in some of the areas. I have very few outlets to home, this being one, and outside of here (and gmail and gvoice) I don't really get to talk with people I actually know. That I would have to say is the hardest part of this trip and something I am glad I didn't think too much about beforehand because this was something I HAD to do for myself and I'm going to deal with the consequences as they come. You know in life I have made goals and dreams and strived to achieve them. However it is not till now that I realize there is an opportunity cost, an emotional rather than monetary one in this case, in living dreams.  

Anyyywho, it'll all work out in the end, I'm sure of it, it always has AAAND I can't possibly ever regret travelling and seeing the world AND there was no way I could have waited for someone to do it with me as you ncer know the paths of life. For now though I am hoping a little nap and a night out in Nice will hopefully fix my funk or as with other thugs in this trip I'll learn to get used to it and ignore it. 

If bored please feel free to email me, whatever it is that you are doing. My contacts to back home seem to have dwindled, which is understandable as people are always busy and over time without your physical presence some seem to forget and move on with their lives. However if you aren't too busy do feel free to contact me with emails or texts to my gvoice phone or whatever else form of contact you use.

Love from back home is always welcomed,
-NZ                    

07-03-2010

It's Monday 7-19 at around noon and I'm at the bus station in Glasgow waiting for my bus to Edinburg. I've had an interesting few days in Glasgow. It rains about 10 hours a day eveery day (or it seems like it does) so activities were mostly limiTed to pubs but they had a great result. 

It might sound a tad obvious and dumb to those reading but it was here that I finally realized I'm travelling and doing what I was saving for the past four years of my lifd and that it's time to really break the bank and do the things a city has to offer until the well of cash I've made myself runs dry.

I think there was this fear of running out of money before the six weeks are over but after a week I notice that I've barely gone through a couple hundred dollars but also have skipped some things, like the London eye for $30, because of the cost even though I kiiind of wanted to do it. 

But something, maybe the fantastic pubs with TWO taps of most beers (chilled and SUPER chilled) or maybe the constant rain or probably Craig who bought a $12 toy limo at 3am after our night at the club and continually asked the girls we passed if they wanna come home with us on a limo and then 20 minutes later gave me the limo, I donno what it was but I know that I realize now that it be better to blow through my money in three weeks and do everything I feel like without caring a bit about cost than go through all six weeks, see half the things I want and just fill up passport stamps and have some money in my account when I get back. What do I need the money for? An iPad? No I'm good without one. 

I have no kids, I have no loans (thanks greaaatly to my parents), and I have no real need for the 4K sitting in my account. I skipped nights out in college, shared a room, bought $5 foot-longs, and made pasta waaaay too many nights so I can do this trip now.  So mark this as a changing point in my travels, it may have taken me a week to realize but at least it didn't take me 5. I will blow through that money asap and I will not think twice anymore :) business owners of the world, it's your lucky coming weeks. I may be coming home early but I'll have 4k of stories to tell!!!

Anywho, so back to my reaaaaal entry about July 3rd 2010, our first day in Shiraz. We woke up a bit early, around 8:30, to have breakfast and then go to perspolis, a place 60km outside of Shiraz. 

Most likely you do not know what perspolis is or have only seen some pictures. After being there I myself barely know what it is but I hav a general idea now about the massive extent of the Persian empire a few thousand years ago.

Perspolis (takh jamshid as it is called it Iran) was a sort of paradise town create by a king of Persia about three thousand year ago.

It is in the middle of the desert and because of that extremly hot. However, you soon forget about the heat as you lay your eyes on the massive scale of the engineering and marvel at the sufistication in design present over 3,000 years ago.

Although muh of what remains is ruble an a few pillars, with a little use of your imagination one can only fathom the place as whole, probably colored and glittered with majestic jewls.

The small city seemed to have everything from water system (at least a place to store large quantity of water that is), a bank, various palaces, halls, and even an army and housin for the soldiers.

It seems that perspolis was obviously a great symbol of Persian empire and it is no wonder the Romans attacked it so often (3 times to their failure if I'm remembering the literature correctly). 

This was really the first time in my life that I had a glimpse atthe extent of the Persian empire. It is quiet astonishing that Iran has such sites right in its backyard but is too dumb and stubborn to abuse the tourist potential better. 

The site charges a mere 50cents for entry. Even forthe locals that is a joke. It is less than a bottle of coke at dinner. However I do see that if they attempted to charge more a ton of corruption may take over and not much more of the money would get to good use in protecting sn persarving the site. Afterall it seems that already muuuuch of the site was raided and emptied by looters after the revolution and the pieces sold to meuseums around the world. Imagine if there was even more money in the site and more reason for people to try to abuse it. 

A neat thing about perspolis was that the king who ordered its creation also ordered to have a whole carved into the mountain side nearby about halfwayup the mountain. In this whole he ha a mural of himself painted. When you climb up this mountain and stand t the mural you have the entire perspolis below you. It is like a throne seat having the best view of the site.

After perspolis we went to a place a few miles away and looked at the grave site o four famous kings and soldiers of Persian empire. The graves, like that thrown seat, were carved into the mountain. I can only imagine the number of hours and the number of people who worke on this sites literally poking at rocks with their simple tools to creat something so grandose and majestic. 

Anywho, on the drive there and back with our taxi I started talking to our taxi driver and got to hear his stories. (Over my time in Iran I did a good job of this but fo some reason so far in Europe I am more reserved and scare of talking to randos). I will out them here for no other reason than I thigh they were a bit interesting. Our driver was a retired high-school superintendent and after 30 year of work he ha now taken this up in order to help make eneds meet at retirement. The guy was interesting and passing some fields where farmers were burnig the field to destroy any remaining roots he said of the trajedy that is humankind in it's current state. How we continually take from the earth as much as we can and that will make the gods angry and they will take back from us. It was an interesting words he used and worth at least a mention here. He also said some words that I'll likely not ever forget. He said that "God's greatest gift to man was a mother and I say that being a father myself."

When we got back we went to lunch and again had kabab. The variety of foods at restaurant is realllly lacking here as people do not seem to eat out very often and when try do it is for a special occassion and that deserves kabab I guess.

After lunch and an hour or so of rest we went and saw the tombs of Hafez and Sadi (two of Iran greatest poets. Equivalent to Shakespeare I guess in a way) and although both were rather nice, they were neither majestic nor breathtaking. There were a lot of people there paying respect and I felt a bit left out because I didn't understand their true history and role in Iran.

After these we went and looked at a 400 year old palace and the park that was it's backyard (Eram gardens). It's hard to put really the time of building and the type of architecture into perspective. 

After all that we went to dinner with some of my aunt's friends and had a verrrrry wonderfully cliche dinner. We talked and laughed and ate while a live band played persian music in the background. 

That was all for that day and seeing as I am getting slightly car-sick on this bus-ride over to edinburg I will stop here.
Cheers,
-NZ          

7-02-2010

Hey everyone,

Today is July 16th and I'm in a weeeeeird state of limbo. My flight for Glasgow leaves at 7a.m which means I would have to be at the airport at like 5, which would mean I would have to leave at like 3. Because of that I found it pointless to get a room for the night so I am chilling at my old hostel and will just go to the airport to asleep in couple of hours. For now I am writing on their computer. I am ABSOLUTELY exhausted and will asleep ALL day tomorrow I'm sure but have no-clue how I will get through the night tonight. Oh well, part of travelling.

I will go on a mini rant before I start the real entry. The logistics of traveling beat the crap out of you. Catching the right bus, making the right turn, getting to at a specific time, booking your next day's home. It has only been a week but there is serious level of exhaustion goin on in my brain and a slight fear for when I will be in countries I do not know the language of. But I'm taking it all in as it comes. I originally imagine this as a trip to relax, see some famous cool stuff, and meet some cool people. However I already realize this trip will be more about determination and learning how to be an individual rather than just seeing big ben, St. Paul's cathedral, Westminister, and any other site. I've already learned how to read a map like a pro and for those who know me that's a big deal. I've walked further in a day than I would normally in a month. I've missed buses, made planes, held in my pee, and pretended I understood a drunk Englishman even though he could have been speaking chinese and I would have gotten the same gist from the convo. I've felt happy, sad, alone, excited, exhuasted, mad, hopeless, ectatic. I cannot tell you yet if I would not trade these days for anything but I know I will come out different because this is only week 1.

Anywho, this entry is about our second full day in Esfehan. We woke up and had breakfast at the hotel before going off to the town of Jolfa. It is a small but tight catholic town within this Muslim country. We went and saw two of its famous churces and a museum within one church's premise. Picture taking was not allowed but these were by faaaar the best perserved and most beautiful paintings and places we saw in Esfehan. The churches had wall-to-wall paintings of various Jesus scenes all telling an expanded story.

The museum was neat also. It contained some very old bibles and also various letters from Shaws sending orders to the Armenians. The orders were a mix of positive and negative and it showed the roller-coaster the Armenians went through in Iran. One letter would declare them free and give them land while another would require them to turn over some of their belonging or pay some tax. Either way it was definitely neat that these things were kept for this long and it portraid well the struggle of the Armenians throughout the history of Persian empire.

After the churches we decided to go on an extreme hunt mode for this little known site that is held holy among the Jews of Iran. It was called Sarabetasher (or something to that sort). It was about 40km outside Esfehan and I was tired but I went along. We got there and our worst nightmare was realized, there was no one to answer the door. Even though there seemed to be a car parked inside, no one was answering. We didn't know what to do so we called my cousine back in Tehran. Because this is such a small community we figured he would know the person, and he did. However, he also told us that he has been told to NEVER open the door for anyone unless people from the cinnagogue call in advance. This is because Jews are not very liked in Iran and being an open place for visitors would be very dangerous.

While waiting around at the door and banging suddenly out of nowhere a guy in his early twenties at best came by on his bike. He asked us what we were doing and gave us a number of the groundskeeper we could call. Interestingly though he told us we could not use his phone and he did not gave us a name and quickly stormed off. It was perplexing where he came from. Was he just crusing by or did he hear about us being at this place and came to see what kind of people we were or something. Either way, the number he gave us turned out to not work. With the ambient noise and the Esfehanian accent a number seemed to have gotten lost in translation.

We finally gave up and drove all the way back to the city and to the airport. ONE LAST THING about this trip though was that the entrance arch was a conspicuous shape of a Menorah. It wasn't completely visible unless you knew what you were looking at. I found this interesting as it showed their desire to "advertise" the establishment as Jewish while at the same-time be very descrete about it.

Anywho, so we got to the airport and our flight was mysteriously delayed for over three hours just until after the Brazil World-Cup game ended. Within the last 20 minutes the entire airport gathered around the couple of t.vs (including the workers)and it was raaather fun to see so many people watching.

When our plane was finally ready to board a handful of angry women were loudly vocal about the delay and demanded to know answers. It was interesting, maybe a coincidence, but all the three people who spoke up were women. To me I think it was more than just a coincidence and showed the strenght and determination Iranian women have after so many years of being treated as second-class citizens (which still prevails).

After getting to Shiraz we went to our hotel and spent the night in our rather rediculously nice hotel looking over the skyline of Shiraz.

YEAAAAP, that's allll she wrote for that day. I am now going to go to the airport some 7 hours before my flight...maybe catch a nap a the airport. I have no clue what time I will be allowed to check-in tomorrow. Man this may be a looooong few hours.
-NZ

07-01-2010

Fuuuuck mang, I just wrote most of another entry on my train ride back from Heidelberg and through some magic when I stood up to get out I looked back onto my iPod and the notes was blank and I couldn't figure out how to get it back.

Things like this really bother me sometimes because I feel like I am wasting time rewritting this a bit but I am now showered and enjoying a beer back at my hostel so really there isn't much else I rather be doing.

Anywho, I had put before that there is this evolution of my blog it seems where I talk both about the present (when I am actually writing) and the past (when this entry happened). I personally really like it and will continue it. I enjoy the dichotomy in time it creates so if you are reading this, deal with it. Not that many people are actually reading this. Hah

Anywho, back to the little bit boring task of re-writting my day of July 1, 2010.

On this day we woke up and had breakfast at the hotel. It was bread, cheese, eggs, some cold-cuts, and fruits. Not too bad. 

After the breakfast we went back to the imam square and finished going through the bazar from the day before. After that we deided to check out the main mosque which is on one side of the square. It was really cool to see all the intriquete tile work that was done all over the dome of the mosque. The thousands, if not tens of thousands, of tiles were each hand-painted, fired, and then placed into their correct place. The amazing part of this in my oppinion is the idea that back then there was no computer that would allow them to visualize the inished product and know exactly where each tile went before any stroke of the brush. 

[This is where I stopped last night so I am now, 7-13-2010, restarting the rest of the story. However you must have a background of why I suddenly have time to write. It's 2:30pm and I have a flight to London at 5:40 leaving from Frankfurt HAN. Why do I capitalize that last part? Because I am sittig at Frrankfurth M, an hour thirty minute bus-ride away. The next bus comes at 3:15 which would put me t the airport at 4:45. It was suggested to be no less than two hours early. Yeah, gonna have to pull a miracle and may just miss the flight :/. But anywho you gotta stay tuned to hear about that.]

Back to our day in Esfehan. So as I sai it was really nice to see the tile-work of the mosque up-close. There was a small problem though. If you wanted to stand back an see the tile work from the opposite side of the mosque's courtyard and just take in the dome as a hole, you couldn't. You see, the couryard has recently been turned into a place for Friday prayers am this includes a canopy to block the sun from the seculist below. In a way, as I have beat this point to the ground, it is cool that this 400 year old structure is still providing it's initial purpouse. After-all it is possible that rugs and carpet were scattered everywhere an that a similar canopy covered the old elite religious sha an his company from the sun. However it just takes away from th visual beauty a bit is all.

There wa only about 8 people in the entire mosque, two of whom where a european couple. It was a bit surprising and also nice to see that foreigners know, appriciate, and still come to Iran with all the challenges such a trip poses in terms of logisics and ease of travel. Within the mosque these Europeans were approached kindly by a soft-spoken student mullah of that mosque who welcomed them there in pretty good English who after making small talk told them to feel free to ask him anything.  

Anywho, after that we went and saw the private house the shaw had built in this square to watch events that went on in the center. The house had a spectacular view of the entire square. 

[well I just tucked myself by getting on the wrong bus that was going to Frankfurt the city instead of Frankfurt Han the airport. The stops are like three inches apart and the buses come two minutes apart. There is a 99% chance I sill kiss the flight as the right bus will get there around 5:40 so unless my flight is delayed I am screwed. While I was waiting I checked the ticket price to London via train and it's $450. Hopefully last minute airplane price is less via Ryan air. I'm not very hopeful though as they definitely know this is the train ticket price and will not price it significantly less. But lesson learned. Double check all names so you know you ar going tothe righ place and um FUCKING ASK SOMEONE. usually expensive lessons are best learned so let's just say I will not forget this one.]

Anyway, back to my story of esfehan. It was our first day there and while waiting in line fo one of the museums around this square I was approached by an Iranian who spoke to me in English trying to sell me a tour. It was interesting that apparantly I didn't look Iranian enough to be spoken to in Farsi at first. 

Throughout the rest of the day we traveled through the city isiting other famous landmarks such as fourty pillars and 8-paradise garden. It was a typical day and by the end of it I was exhausted of siteseeing. 

For dinner we bought four personal pizzas and sat by one of the bridges like the rest of th people and enjoyed our dinner. Btw in Iran pizzas are a bit different as there is no pizza sauce on it so people eat pizza with ketchup. Yeah. Crazy stuff. Hah. 

After dinner we strolled home and bought some Persian ice-creak along the way. About halfway through the icecream mine fell and I ended that day sad and dissapointed in myself :(.
-NZ

BTW: I got on as they were closing the gate. They let me on!!!! What. A. Fucking. Experience. I am absolutely sweating a lot because of the running but I don't care, I'm here!!!!!

06-30-2010

Hey everyone,

Today is 7-12 and I'm on an hour and half train ride to Heidelberg so I have some time to update my blog. I kind of understand what Jeremy was saying about having a book to read on the road. I don't know if I'll be in the mood to update my blog on all these train rides but for now I am. It is soo freaken hot and it's only 10am. The weather is weird here in Germany, it's humid hot so even though it is only probably about 75 degrees you sweat and feel way hotter. Oh well, everyone just has a glow about them is all. Hah. This entry is a pretty good one. It is about the first day of my trip to esfehan, a really beautiful city in the middle of a dessert built solely around a river that is fed from a nearby mountain range. 

On June 30th we went to the airport to head off to Esfehan. If you've ever been to an airport for the first time you know how hard it is to find anything. You need to look at hundreds of signs and sometimes drastically change lanes at the last minute trying to get to where you want to go. That's all good and well. It's part of being in an unfimiliar place and signs help you get there. Now imagine that airport you were just at with NO SIGNS. That's what you have going on in Iran. The airport we went to had essentially no signs. If you didn't know where you were going you would be lost for hours.

This leads me onto a little wierd side rant I noticed while traveling throughout Iran. People here ask eachother directions alllll the time. It is both cool and weird to see. Without the widespread use of GPS and Internet, everyone has come to accept the fact that they don't need to know how to get somewhere. Rather just know general direction toward their destinaion and ask when you get close. You can ask taxi drivers, store owners, and pedestrians. Anyone near an area you are visiting is fair game. It's like a wikipedia project where everyone knows their hometown streets (even the tiny ones) reaaallllly well and contributes in the overall transport of the foreigners. Wikipedia is similar that the idea is you know the topic you contribute toward ideally and then people that want to know more come to the site and sort of ask you. 

Anywho, back to my story. So we get to the airport and like many other things in this coutry, security is both disfinctional and also seperated by gender. The latter is pretty self explanatory, men go one way and women another for going through security. Pat downs ar really frequent so it kiiiind of makes sense. But let me tell you about the former. Firstly there is little to no limit to what you can bring on. People brought on bags of all sizes and shapes and I got on with a razor and nailclippers. And whatever the limit is to what can be brought on, the chances of the airport security actually catching you and confescating it is slim to none. 

On multiple occassions while picking up my bag on the other side of the machine I saw the two guards sitting behind the x-Ray monitor screen and completely turned and talking to eachother. Paying no attention at all to what was passing them and out the other side. They were seriously facing eachother rather than the screen. There is an interesting thing to note here though, it seems they never have a problem. I mean in America we would be irate an terrified if our airport secuity was like that but in Iran it is how its done and nothing happens. But then again Westeners do not bomb Iranian planes but SOME FEW middle easterners would bomb and abuse such a lacks system if it where implemented in America so it would not happen. 

So now onto the 45minute flight to esfehan. Here I leaned that Iranian airlines take infinitely better care of their passanger nutritionally but infinately worst care temperaturely (although nt completely there fault as you'll see below). In this 45 minute flight we got a full sandwich, juice, and a piece of choclate, but no airconditionng.  

In this 45 minute flight we got roasted. Iranian airlines face harsh limits on jet-fule because of all the sanctions and to save fuel the airlines do not turn on their a/c. btw neither do taxi drivers because of the same reason. Everyone receives a quota of gas, tracked through a personal gas card, and taxi drivers can't afford to use up their gas on anything but driving because that is how they make their living. Some even leave off their headlights off at night because they don't want their alternator to be turnig an charging the battery which soends gas. 

Seeing the affect of sanctions on the people of Iran is a bit troubling because the government does not seem to give a rat's ass about how its people feel and live. So eventhough the sanctions are working and pressuring the citizens, the government, and rich people, are unaffected because their are always more expensive black-market options. For example in the case of gas, if you run out of your quota you can buy from someone else for a high price or buy uneubsidized gas at 8x the price. Te taxi drivers can't afford to pay 8x the gas price and not change his rates. 

Anyho, so we got to Esfehan and boy is it beautiful. On the plane ride there, after about 25 minutes the land becomes a sandy dessert below. However, about 5 minutes before getting to esfehan everything changes and you see literally a strip of oasis in this dessert which surrounds a flowing river coming from the mountain range nearby. Really cool to see and totally shows how this city was created and survived because of that river hundreds of years ago. You don't need a book to tell you it, it's all right in front of you. 

Anywho, we got to our hotel which was magneficent. For some reason my aunt had decided to literally treat us like royalty. We stayed at hotel Abbasi which was used as a guest house for visitors of the king a couple hundred years ago when esfehan used to be the capital of the Persian empire. Of course it was renevated and the rooms where not actually really crazy king nice or anything but still cool. 

Anywho, after checking in and chilling a bit we decided to hit the main square, imam square. There wa a giiiiiant bazar surrounding the square and we walked through about half of it. Bazars are reallly awesome and barganing is part of the price since there is a 100% chance a nearby store will have the exact same thing. Also no price is marked which makes things more interesting and cofusing. Tourists and outta-towners get an automatic surcharge that they have to bargain and shop around a bit to try to best avoid.

After the bazar we went to a restaurant in a little catholic part of Esfehan. After dinner while walking around for the first time I noticed something for I think the first time, the girls in Iran have really found a way to look "good" even with all the hejab restrictions. I use the quotes because a looot of the people have taken this attempt too far and it has backfired. They wear a ton of make-up, are for some weird reason all into being blonde, and act a bit too prissy for my taste. But all in all some have found a happy medium and really do look good. Even though it is technically illegal they all wear their headdress half off their hair, have painted nails, and the coat thing you must wear over your shirt has now morphed into a long sleeve shirt that is a bit long lenght-wise. When I left 12 years ago this was significantly different and people would not dare wear what is now commonplace. 

After walking around a bit more we then took a taxi ride to the river to walk around and look all the old and awesome bridges built 400years ago when the town started. The neat thing about seeing such old structures is that they are still being used to this day and that is really a positive thing I think.

Another cool thing was the huuuuge number of people and families having a picnic around the river on the grass. Because of the heat, people flea their homes and come by the river where the flowing water keeps the temperature a bit more moderate.  

Through the day my aunt had noticed the water level of the bridge being lower than she remembered so on our next taxi ride she brought it up. The taxi driver then told us a little tale that is depressing. Recently the government had allowed the construction of a tunnel that diverted water from the mountain to another town in order to help with pistacheu production which takes a lot of water. There was a person who had a huge stake in these farms that also knew the right people in the government and was abke to pass the bill without Esfehanians really knowing what was going on. It was really a sad tale and it reminded me of the importance of enviornmentalist groups in the us that watch out for things like this and try to bring it to the attention of the people affectected. Although these groups are not always best funded in America, it is a marke comparison with their role in Iran. In Iran enviornmental groups are small if not nonexistent and as I said the government really does not care what the people think so even if they had more funding laws could be passed one way or another. 

That was really all on that day. We retuned to our hotel and enjoyed expensive (relatively as it was still only $1.60) ice cream and then went to asleep. 
-NZ   

06-29-2010

Hey everyone,

Today is slurpy day, 7-11, and it's my first night in Germany. It's about 2am and I took a three hour nap earlier since I didn't sleep at allll the night before. My flight to Germany left Iran at 3 and it pretty much killed my night's rest.  Since I can't fall asleep I'll update my blog a bit here on my iPod touch. This is going to be a pretty short entry actually. 

Today, June 29th, I woke up and decided to work on my blog some and upload some pictures to the Internet.  Since I was going to have the morning to myself, having requested it off from my mom and aunt about a week ago, I leasurely ate breakfast and began what I thought was going to be the simple task of using the Internet. 

However, as I have learned with many other things throughout my time in Iran, easy is nothing (que "impossible is nothing" speech I gave at my highschool graduation). I started writing my first entry and about 2 pages through the electricity went fluctuated, causing the surge protector on the comp to kick in and turn in off. 2 pages lost but lesson learned. Instead of making blog enteries on blogspot I strictly use Microsoft word on 1 minute autosave.

This new method came on handy as the electricity continued to be a significant nusance and repeatedly trigger the surge protector throught the day.

This was not the end of the issues though. No serry bob. While writting my entries I was trying to also upload pictures from my first week in Iran. However, not only was the Internet slower than a 90 year-old parapligic, no fence to them, it broke down more than a Ford (Fixed Or Repaired Daily, joke courtesy if father mark). It would randomly stop working in the middle of an uplaod and require a restart of the modem. 

What I had planned to be a one-two hour relaxing Internet session documenting my trip ended up being a five hour stressaton. Thanks Iranian Internet and electricity for reminding me why I love America.

After lunch and some more attempts a uploading pictures, after 5 hours of work I was done. I reste a bit and for dinner we went to my mom's friend's house again. However this time she had made the best albalo polo of my life (sour cherry rice) it was sooooooooo delicious and tasty I ate plate full. There was also a really good lasagna she made in the lasagna pan we ha brought her from America. I find it interesting that people here make it a point I think to use the stuff you give then as a gift in front of you. 

After dinner, stuffed to the brim, I relaxed to watch the world-cup game of the night. However a few minutes after sitting, the dad of my mom's friend asked my uncle to play backgammon.

Now if you have read my blog you know my personal belief in my backgammon skills. I am the shit. Now I know my uncle is not good at all and I had heard stories about this guy, at this point in his late 80's, being pretty good, so I told my uncle I'll play him. 

It started out well and I had him in a death-grip in the first game. However, with one or two rolls of the dice and some really good strategic play before that, he turned the game completely around and beat me. 

He was old and the game had took a while so I imagined this was the only game we were gonna play. After-all it was around midnight now. However, he looked at me and told me to set it up again. 

We played and this time I got beat baaad. I couldn't even collect any of my pieces before he was done going him 2 points. Backgammon is usually best of three, and with his luck in the irat fans he beat me 3-0.

It was the first time in a looooong time I had lost a best of three. My mom's friend asked his dad who was better, me or my uncle, and without saying a wor he pointed to me.

He then again asked me to set it up. I was even getting tired of playing. With some luck an sloppy play from his part though I won this game the same way e beat me last game, without him collecting any pieces. 

H wasn't going to go down like that though an asked me to set it ONCE again. This time we played and he just quit in the middle of this game saying he was tired. It was clear why e quit though, he was gonna win and he knew it. He had beat me handedly. 

After we packed everything up my mom's friend told me he doesn't play more than two games max with anyone let alone almost four. I think rightly I take that as a complement. 

It was an awesome little day and only a thing you can experience when you are in a country with people you know. Now being in Germany and setting off on my Europe trip I realize the little treasures I will never experience here no matter how hard I try. 
-NZ

06-28-2010

Hello everyone.

Today is 07-07-2010 and about 9:30a.m. We are going to rasht later today and I cannot make the internet work I am going to write a few entries. It is really hard to catch up on all these days because on top of finding time to do it I simply don’t feel like writing all the details of a day. I have a feeling this may be something that I fall about 10-15 days behind over the course of this vacation and will have to finish when I get back to U.S of A.

Woke up on the 28th with the water saga continuing as the water seemed to be off again. However, it came back and was on the rest of the day (for as long as we were there at least). We were leaving our villa and heading back to Tehran. I noticed my stomach pain and diarrhea were gone and I was a happy camper.

I took a moment to take in the place one last time because I honestly am not sure when I will be back again, and with what company. There was a constant chatter of crickets in the air, an occasional sound of rooster (I know it has a name that noise they make, I just don’t know it nor have internet to look it up), and the constant hum of water pump and a/c unit inside. Of course these noises were constantly being drowned out by the sweet voice of the people talking there and preparing breakfast. I was right as a child, this place was perfect.
We closed the big iron red door and head back toward Tehran. As you’ve learned from my previous explanations of a car trip in Iran, this was no dash to home. Overall we stopped six times during the 80 or so mile trip back home. That’s one stop every 13 miles if you are not good with the math.

First we stopped for my sister to buy a Persian basket to find that the stores that used to sell those things now sell all types of Made in China junk instead. Then we stopped a little farther along to buy fruits. Apparently these fruits are better and cheaper than the ones in Tehran, alllrighty. A bit later we stopped to get tea at this nice little tea-house in the woods. I was told we used to stop here all the time on our way to our villa but I did not remember it. The only thing that rang a bell was the fact that I was told they have horseback riding here. As a kid I remember riding the horse in a jungle somewhere and I guess this was it. A bit later we stopped at the tallest point along the way. My grandpa started the tradition of stopping here. There is a mosque at this place and even though we are Jewish, my grandpa always donated a few dollars to the mosque up here. We stopped once again to by a vase and I bought 5 mini vase looking things to use as shot-glasses. Total cost of $1. I have NO CLUE why I did not buy an even 6 though to make a complete set. DUMB move. We went a bit more and we stopped one last time and ate Persian ice-cream. It was raaather good. The trip, it took 10 hours total. That’s an average of 8mph if you are not good with the math. Yeah, I can run faster than that (obviously not for the entire 80 miles but you get the idea).

During the trip we passed by mount Damavand, the mountain my uncle climbed before he died of ALS. It was very interesting to see and brought more emotion than I thought. I feel like one day one of my cousins (or I) will climb that mountain again in his name. It’s just suuuch a rational thing to do to try to get close with him in a spiritual kind of way thing.
After I finally got home and had a moment to sit I realized how tired I was from everything that had gone on the past week or so. I started to miss home and certain people…It was really the first time in my life feeling home-sick I think but I could not help it. Vacationing in a 3rd world country, although VERY interesting because of the culture you are thrust into, is a lot of work. Overall the stress level of this country is orders of magnitude higher than in U.S. We have been constantly either doing something or going somewhere or visiting with someone this entire time and I’m close to exhausted.

(For the first time I will quote you straight from my diary and not summarize/expand. As I was writing about my day and how tired I was from everything we done I came to a reallllly weird/obvious conclusion and I want to share that word-by-word.)
“Soo tired from this trip. I feel I can’t enjoy things as much as I like to because stress here is sooooo high. Everything is fun but has stress also. During vacation to shomal I was terrified of the drive there/back and so very stressed. Then we were doing something 90% of the time. I rather relax/rest also as part of vacation. It is worrying me for my Europe trip I think I need one day of complete rest per week.”
Now if you know me you know that I am not religious AT ALL but this was a weird conclusion to come into in my exhaustion. I will continue a bit more.
“What a realization. I was nothing thinking that is the point of all religions. Religions were created during periods of really high intensity and stress life and it seems like you need at least one day of rest a week before you can continue on or you will burn out. I just wonder though if this was a top-down or bottom-up realization”
The last sentence just means I wonder if I subconsciously came to this conclusion (that you need rest once about every seven days) because of my knowledge of how religions are or really because of my fatigue. Either way it was an interesting little bit I thought I had to share from my journal.

Anywho, I will now go on two random tangents here but they are both from my journal of that day. One, I am getting exponentially better at speaking Farsi. It was REALLY tough for me to speak full Farsi here at first. Even though I grew up here for 9 years it was 12 years since I was in the country and had to speak full Farsi. It’s not as easy of a transition as it would seem because in America all the Farsi I speak is mixed in with English words when I cannot remember something. These less often used words over time completely leave my mind and now having to dig for them is both challenging and sometimes funny. For example sometimes in my search for the right word I say the right sounding word but it has an extra “r” or “d” or whatever. Since I cannot exactly remember the word I just say it and people burst in laughter because for example I add a “d” to the word talk and said tadelk. Yeah. It is a bit embarrassing but it is also funny. However, over the first week I have gotten sooooo much better at this. Another aspect of the language I have gotten better at is reading. I left here in 3rd grade and was a proficient reader but the Persian alphabet has left me a bit. I mean they have 32 letters, three “s,” two “z,” and a host of other letters not even represented in the English alphabet. To top it off, Farsi has no written vowels. So for example my name “Navid” is really written “Nvid” but that “I” can be a “EEE” sound or a “v” sound depending on the situation. So the context of the surrounding letters changes the sound. Now not having read Farsi for 12 years, I forget some letters and some context things and whenever I get bored I start reading the road signs out loud to everyone. It is a GREAT comedic show actually as I read like a R-tard.

Second rant is about the question I get asked almost daily here from anyone I meet for the first time. “Is Iran or America better?” For me it is a really simple answer, “America.” I am more comfortable there and I am more used to the way of life and the people. However, I cannot say with certainty one is better than the other. Millions of people still live here and life in Iran is so different (in terms of priorities and standard of living) that it is not fair to even compare. It’s like apples and oranges. Iran is not like other modernized European countries where the differences with America are language, tax-rate, free-market laws, weather, and some logistics that one can decide which one they like over the other. Iran is fundamentally different. I don’t know how to explain it. If you are asking me to apply modernized standards of living I am used to in America to answer this question it be like asking if an anorexic or sumo wrestler is fatter. What’s the point of asking? You know the answer. It’s a question that bothers me when I’m asked because I know they are just making small-talk but I cannot bring myself to just give them a straight answer of yes or no. I have to explain to them that there are a lot of differences in styles of life in the two countries that make the comparison really irrelevant and I feel like a dick.

-NZ

06-27-2010

Hello everyone.

Today is 07-06-2010 and about 10:45a.m. We are leaving to go have lunch with another one of my mom’s best friends from high-school and I’m sure I will not get to finish this entry before I have to leave but in these few minutes I’ll write something down and I’ll finish it when I get back.

Waking up in the villa on the June 27th reminded me all the things I loved about this place growing up. Sometimes still to this day when I am in that groggy state during waking up and happen to be in a really good mood I think for a second I’m at the villa. Today, I actually was there. It was awesome waking up to the sound of the moms making breakfast and the pots and pans being moved around and the mayhem that ensues when 9 people are in a house no bigger than 1300sqf.

Once I woke up and got my wits about me though, I realized today was going to be a bit of a challenge. For some reason the water was off and would not work. When the water does not work though you are not sure if this is a pump issue (the one we connected when we got there) or the actual water is out. So you go and ask the neighbors and hear the news. Someone around must know. After about 15minutes my aunt returned saying the water was off and from experience the neighbors suggested it would return by noon. We borrowed some water from the neighbor’s well (yes they had a well) and washed our hands and prepared breakfast. Oh the joys and issues you face in the 3rd world country.

After breakfast we went to the beach. I had spent many of days at the beaches of shomal. However there is one difference you may not immediately think of in the beaches of Iran relative to other countries, they are segregated by gender. There is a male side and a female side. Yeah, WAAAAY to ruin the beaches Iran. There is a tarp that encloses two areas of the beach. One for women, one for men. However, the water was warm, calm, clean and I really enjoyed splashing around with the son of my mom’s friend. This time the re-living of a childhood was free and very enjoyable.

When we got back, the water was back on. By now my stomach had been hurting for a few hours and I was looking forward to going to the bathroom. However by the time I was prepared, the water was off again. Going to the bathroom with no running water unless it is absolutely vital is not the best.

The saga continued and the water returned. We had water for a while and were able to make barbeque chicken for lunch. All was well except my persisting stomach pain. After lunch we all went to sleep and I woke up still not feeling better so I decided to stay back from the afternoon trip to the Jungles of northern Iran. However, not doing something in a group is not as easy as you would imagine. There is such pressure for everyone to do everything together even though the presence of a single person during an activity does not really change the activity.

Anywho, my stomach pains had grown into a minor case of diarrhea now and with the boat-loads of information I had read about traveler’s diarrhea before my trip (ok, maybe a small boat), I was ready to battle. I took a couple pills and I drank over a liter of water with a teaspoon of salt and some lemon. The biggest danger of diarrhea was dehydration and from my middle school volleyball teacher I had learned the recipe of “poor-man’s Gatorade.” Now in a 3rd world country and far away from any drinks that would replenish my lost electrolyte I turned to this concoction.

The rest of the night the water saga continued as we would have water for 15-20 minutes then not for about an hour or so. It was a fun topic of conversation and kept us scrambling to make things work. My diarrhea also subsided and I was able to eat a simple breakfast meal for dinner without having stomach pains or having to visit the bathroom.
I played 14 more games of backgammon and went 11-3 but got my butt handed to me in my attempt to play chess. I kind of want to get better at chess I think. It seems like an interesting thing to be good at. Anywho that is all really for that night.
-NZ