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
Monday, August 23, 2010
Monday, August 16, 2010
07-06-2010
Hello there everyone,
It's Monday August 16th and I am sitting here in a HOT room in Rome at my camping hostel using a computer in the computer room that must be no joke 100 degrees at least. Maybe I should be out exploring Rome with my last 6 hours before leaving for the airport for Geneva or maybe I should go to the pool they have here and read or something and not be stare at a 15 inch screen. Maybe I should have actually gotten out of bed at 6a.m when I was awake and ready to go to the Vatican to see the Sistine chapel but then turned over and slept. I did get up early on Saturday to go see it but it was closed Sat/Sun for some holiday so I guess it was just not ment to be.
Whatever it is that I should "maybe" be doing, the truth is I just don't care because this is what I want to be doing right now. At this point of the trip with only 7 days left I have learned well enough to stop thinking about all the things I "should" be doing or didn't end up doing and do whatever it is I feel like. Anywho, I could blab on about a lot of things on my mind right now, a lot of which I actually did write for about 15 minutes but decide to make dissapear with the backspace button before replacing it with solely this sentence.
So without further adu (spelling?), I present you July 6th, 2010 [as we are over a month away from that time now I am relying HEAVILY on my journal enteries but I think they are fairly accurate.]:
We woke up and were going to my mom's friend's house for lunch. We planned to go on taxi and my mom hailed a taxi and negotiated the price to her friend's house before we got in. It may sound plain and not a big deal but when we first started the trip my mom was a lot more reserved and to me it almost seemed as though she was in a foreign country even though she spent most of her life in Iran instead of America so it was cool to see her getting her inner persian back. haha.
So we got to the house at about noon and it was my mom, my sister, the friend (female) the daughter of the friend, the mother of the friend, another one of my mom's friends (female), the mother of this other friend, aaaaaaand me (male)....YEAH.
This trip has definitely been HEAVILY female dominated and sometimes it is just awkward and weird specially since they see me as a grown up and a "man" and I see myself as a little kid. Obviously the mannerisms of the two are different and I sometimes I just wanna be a kid man. I don't think I will ever truly grow up or act completely grown up. I just like it better this way.
Anywho, we had lunch there and it was absolutely DELICIOUS.
[sidenote away from that day and back to August 16th. The food in Europe is good, even great, but the truth is it is just most of the time a more authetic version of the food you find in America. The food in Iran was different and that was one of my favorite parts of the trip]
Back to the food and the lunch: Iranians do parities a loooot diffferently than Americans. In America when you go to a party there is one or at most two types of food. You are having burgers, or pasta, or chicken, or steak and you have your vegetable. In Iran there is at least 5 different types of food at each table. There is your rice that has a bean or something in it and is stand-alone can be eaten. There is your white rice that has at LEAST one type of umm topping (khoresht), which has meat or chicken, to pour on top. Usually though there is two of these. And then there is salad, yogurt, and usually some oven roasted chicken pieces seperately by themselves. It is really a feast and full of various colors and options and flavors. SO AMAZING.
Anywho, we ate and the friend and her daughter did a great job of setting the table and bringing fruits and then bringing the lunch and then bringing the tea and dessert. In Iran EVERYTHING you do revolves around food it seems. It's odd but everywhere you go the entire time there is a different eating product being presented and if you refuse it they argue with you like you are anorexic and don't eat anything but it is mainly because they just fed you 9000 things over the last two hours and you are stuffed and you just can't have that fourth piece of cake or that 3rd orange or something. It's funny though and almost like a little game of constant offerings.
A random thing also this mom had AMAZING drawings and wood carved pieces and me and my sister chose a couple pieces of her work to take with us back to the states. I hope it makes it back because it is a neeeat little keepsakes.
After the food we had tea and listened to more stories of the corruption in Iran. I had brought this up earlier I THINK in another post with a different story possibly but this one was interesting also. It was about hospital nurses who get some money from the patients (like $50) and will keep them in private rooms by falsifying paper-works regarding an infection requiring her to be in a private room and stuff like that. Low level curroption seems to run rampid and a bit later that night when we were having guests over at my aunt's house for dinner and tea more wild stories came up. For example a cop who pulled over this friend and she tried to give her a $50 but he said no please put away and just gave her the ticket. And that doesn't sound like curroption but the fact that this is normal shows that maybe once, twice, three times the guy says no please put away but with his salary it will be so easy to eventually say "ok mam, now please don't speed" and then eventually "you know mam you can avoid the full ticket by paying now in cash instead of later" or something along those lines.
I donno. As I said, low level curroption seems to be everywhere and almost accepted. In America it seems that there is less of this low level curroption and more high level curroption (although that I am sure also exists in Iran).
Anywho, so back to that dinner+tea thing. Well yeah after we ate lunch at my mom's friend's house and had tea and talked and stuff we left and came back to my aunt's house where we had about 8-10 people come over for tea and dinner and more tea and talking. It was mostly my aunt's friends and they all seemed to remember me although I did not remember any of them. HOWEVER, there was this weeeird feeling of comfort and familiarity I had with them. I don't know if it was real or not but for people who I didn't remember at all SOMETHING felt like I knew them. Maybe I was just feeling extra social or something, but I don't think that was it.
Before the night ended the good family friends of ours, the ones we went to the villa in northern Iran with that I mentioned we grew up together and stuff, came over one last time because they were going to America for a visit. It was werid for me because when I was a kid and was leaving to America I truly had thought that I would never see them again and had cried and was sad. However, having them come to America last year and now me going to Iran a year later, saying bye to them was more of a see you later and I loved that feeling. The feeling that I will most likely see them again. I told the dad this and he said "Life goes and turns and twists and goes." And to you that may sound like rubbish but when I thought about it, maybe because of the emotions I was feeling then, it made a lot of sense.
Anywho, that is all I have for that day. I don't think I will be able to update this anymore as my last 7 days are PAAACKED traveling through 5 cities (Geneva, Interlaken, Vienna, Munic?, Frankfurth) and 3 countries (Switzerland, Austria, Germany) because I heard such good things about Interlaken that I had to try to squeez it in. And if you are following my twitter you know that I broke my iPod in Cinqqueterre so I can only write at PCs and not while on trains and while travelling to a place, which is my preffered way to update this blog as it doesn't take away from my time in a place.
SOOO, I will update this when I am back in America. I WILL, I promise.
I miss you guys from back home, you know who you are, and I love you guys and will see you very soon.
-NZ
It's Monday August 16th and I am sitting here in a HOT room in Rome at my camping hostel using a computer in the computer room that must be no joke 100 degrees at least. Maybe I should be out exploring Rome with my last 6 hours before leaving for the airport for Geneva or maybe I should go to the pool they have here and read or something and not be stare at a 15 inch screen. Maybe I should have actually gotten out of bed at 6a.m when I was awake and ready to go to the Vatican to see the Sistine chapel but then turned over and slept. I did get up early on Saturday to go see it but it was closed Sat/Sun for some holiday so I guess it was just not ment to be.
Whatever it is that I should "maybe" be doing, the truth is I just don't care because this is what I want to be doing right now. At this point of the trip with only 7 days left I have learned well enough to stop thinking about all the things I "should" be doing or didn't end up doing and do whatever it is I feel like. Anywho, I could blab on about a lot of things on my mind right now, a lot of which I actually did write for about 15 minutes but decide to make dissapear with the backspace button before replacing it with solely this sentence.
So without further adu (spelling?), I present you July 6th, 2010 [as we are over a month away from that time now I am relying HEAVILY on my journal enteries but I think they are fairly accurate.]:
We woke up and were going to my mom's friend's house for lunch. We planned to go on taxi and my mom hailed a taxi and negotiated the price to her friend's house before we got in. It may sound plain and not a big deal but when we first started the trip my mom was a lot more reserved and to me it almost seemed as though she was in a foreign country even though she spent most of her life in Iran instead of America so it was cool to see her getting her inner persian back. haha.
So we got to the house at about noon and it was my mom, my sister, the friend (female) the daughter of the friend, the mother of the friend, another one of my mom's friends (female), the mother of this other friend, aaaaaaand me (male)....YEAH.
This trip has definitely been HEAVILY female dominated and sometimes it is just awkward and weird specially since they see me as a grown up and a "man" and I see myself as a little kid. Obviously the mannerisms of the two are different and I sometimes I just wanna be a kid man. I don't think I will ever truly grow up or act completely grown up. I just like it better this way.
Anywho, we had lunch there and it was absolutely DELICIOUS.
[sidenote away from that day and back to August 16th. The food in Europe is good, even great, but the truth is it is just most of the time a more authetic version of the food you find in America. The food in Iran was different and that was one of my favorite parts of the trip]
Back to the food and the lunch: Iranians do parities a loooot diffferently than Americans. In America when you go to a party there is one or at most two types of food. You are having burgers, or pasta, or chicken, or steak and you have your vegetable. In Iran there is at least 5 different types of food at each table. There is your rice that has a bean or something in it and is stand-alone can be eaten. There is your white rice that has at LEAST one type of umm topping (khoresht), which has meat or chicken, to pour on top. Usually though there is two of these. And then there is salad, yogurt, and usually some oven roasted chicken pieces seperately by themselves. It is really a feast and full of various colors and options and flavors. SO AMAZING.
Anywho, we ate and the friend and her daughter did a great job of setting the table and bringing fruits and then bringing the lunch and then bringing the tea and dessert. In Iran EVERYTHING you do revolves around food it seems. It's odd but everywhere you go the entire time there is a different eating product being presented and if you refuse it they argue with you like you are anorexic and don't eat anything but it is mainly because they just fed you 9000 things over the last two hours and you are stuffed and you just can't have that fourth piece of cake or that 3rd orange or something. It's funny though and almost like a little game of constant offerings.
A random thing also this mom had AMAZING drawings and wood carved pieces and me and my sister chose a couple pieces of her work to take with us back to the states. I hope it makes it back because it is a neeeat little keepsakes.
After the food we had tea and listened to more stories of the corruption in Iran. I had brought this up earlier I THINK in another post with a different story possibly but this one was interesting also. It was about hospital nurses who get some money from the patients (like $50) and will keep them in private rooms by falsifying paper-works regarding an infection requiring her to be in a private room and stuff like that. Low level curroption seems to run rampid and a bit later that night when we were having guests over at my aunt's house for dinner and tea more wild stories came up. For example a cop who pulled over this friend and she tried to give her a $50 but he said no please put away and just gave her the ticket. And that doesn't sound like curroption but the fact that this is normal shows that maybe once, twice, three times the guy says no please put away but with his salary it will be so easy to eventually say "ok mam, now please don't speed" and then eventually "you know mam you can avoid the full ticket by paying now in cash instead of later" or something along those lines.
I donno. As I said, low level curroption seems to be everywhere and almost accepted. In America it seems that there is less of this low level curroption and more high level curroption (although that I am sure also exists in Iran).
Anywho, so back to that dinner+tea thing. Well yeah after we ate lunch at my mom's friend's house and had tea and talked and stuff we left and came back to my aunt's house where we had about 8-10 people come over for tea and dinner and more tea and talking. It was mostly my aunt's friends and they all seemed to remember me although I did not remember any of them. HOWEVER, there was this weeeird feeling of comfort and familiarity I had with them. I don't know if it was real or not but for people who I didn't remember at all SOMETHING felt like I knew them. Maybe I was just feeling extra social or something, but I don't think that was it.
Before the night ended the good family friends of ours, the ones we went to the villa in northern Iran with that I mentioned we grew up together and stuff, came over one last time because they were going to America for a visit. It was werid for me because when I was a kid and was leaving to America I truly had thought that I would never see them again and had cried and was sad. However, having them come to America last year and now me going to Iran a year later, saying bye to them was more of a see you later and I loved that feeling. The feeling that I will most likely see them again. I told the dad this and he said "Life goes and turns and twists and goes." And to you that may sound like rubbish but when I thought about it, maybe because of the emotions I was feeling then, it made a lot of sense.
Anywho, that is all I have for that day. I don't think I will be able to update this anymore as my last 7 days are PAAACKED traveling through 5 cities (Geneva, Interlaken, Vienna, Munic?, Frankfurth) and 3 countries (Switzerland, Austria, Germany) because I heard such good things about Interlaken that I had to try to squeez it in. And if you are following my twitter you know that I broke my iPod in Cinqqueterre so I can only write at PCs and not while on trains and while travelling to a place, which is my preffered way to update this blog as it doesn't take away from my time in a place.
SOOO, I will update this when I am back in America. I WILL, I promise.
I miss you guys from back home, you know who you are, and I love you guys and will see you very soon.
-NZ
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
07-05-2010
Hey everyone,
Today is AUGUST 3rd 2010 and I'm waiting in the train station in Mompelliar sitting like an absolute homeless man next to a plug I found and a bit scared of the night ahead. I have a train at 3pm TOMORROW and no place to stay tonight because this place has no hostles and I wasn't about to pay $100 for one night of hotel which in hindesight, even though we are not yet done with this night, may be one of the stupidest things I do. I can't imagine train stations are very safe places to be all night but these are the cards that I am choosing and w'll see what happens. My plan is to approach a nice looking person or group and try to sit with them but for now my iPod needs a charge and it is relatively early (9pm) so I'm not too worried yet. I donno, my last hostles Internet was kind of shit and I didn't feel like going out to find Internet to plan out the next few days so I am in a bit of a pickle having to plan everything as it comes. I've survived through 50% of the 6 weeks, I'm hopeful the rest will work out.
Anywho, onto the real entry of JULY 5th. Man I'm almost a month behind, good thing I'm a jobless bum when I get back to the states and will have time to catch up with this blog and hopefully and ideally with my other one, today I learned.
Seriously though, onto July 5th:
Today was actually a pretty relaxed day as I sat in the lobby of the hotel and worked on my blog enteries while the rest of the gang went out in Shiraz. It was actually rather nice time with the lobby of this hotel being pretty extravegant in terms of view of a pool in front of you and a mini waterfall providing nice relaxing sound.
After I was done working on the blog I definitely snagged the menu from the place for my collection on the way back up to my room. Once the gang ot back we had a lunch of sandwiches from this same shop we had ate the day before. It was very good and after lunch we checked out and went to airport to fly back to Tehran.
Once back in Tehran, an off the hot-as-hell plane, we went back home and changed to go to atisaz, the home I lived at as a child. It was a strange visit as the place had changed a lot and yet stayed the same. For example, the yard that I used to bike at or the areas I played soccer as a kid were all the same but a lot smaller than I remembered them. For me atisaz was huuuge as a child and I guess I really have grown because it no longer seemed so large.
There were definite changes too in terms of an increase in the number of units in the community (more than 3x as many now) and a explosion in number of cars. When I lived there as a child there were plenty of empty spaces for cars but now they were parked everywhere a car could possibly fit. It was a strange site cuz although the overall number of units has increased, the new units are in a new area so these cars haaave to be those of the same number of people living in the units I used to live in but now these people have multiple cars I guess.
There were a couple more things of note from atisaz. One, this place is siiiignificantly cooler than central Tehran were we are staying. Even though it is only 15minutes away from the center I think a mixture of elevation (it is a bit higher) and whatever else is making it cooler. Two, there are a great number of trees and flowers here and it gives the place an overall a homee ambiance. Thirdly, the place seems a bit more liberal as we saw a couple of girls sitting and chatting without wearing their headress.
After our visit to atisaz we went to a reallly nice restaurant for dinner and I had a food my mom makes, fesengoon, to see how it was compared to my mom. For me it was too sweet and I didn't like it so much but when my mom tried it she said this was reallly excellent and how they really make it. I found it interesting that I guess you get used to how something tastes from what your mom makes and that becomes the "right" and version.
Once we got back home we watched a bit of tv and suddenly I found myself in a reallllly deep discussion of capitalism with my uncle. He is a Marxist and obviously does not like capitalism at all and I wanted to see why. I obviously though chose a tooough lil opponent to argue in favor of capitalism. He was verrrry thorough and one by one rejected my position.
Because I found the argument so interesting I actually wrote down few of his points that I remembered afterwards to maybe on day find a responce to them.
One he argued that although the system shows the winners and encourages ideas through monetary reward it fails to show the losers. He, somewhat correctly, argued that for every winner in the capitalist system there are many many losers and that is a big flaw.
Furthermore, because money equates to power in this system, the interest of few people are represented. For example, if companies or rich people pay to advertise the benefits or negatives of some laws, the truth of the affect of these laws for the genral public may remain hidden.
Another good and thought-provoking argument he had is that advancement without a monetary reward still can occur and will occur. I argue that this is not true entirely but I do think that a great number of people do things for the idea of good rather than the monetary reward and his argument becomes interesting because if you increase the social safety net and increase the size and accessibility of the middle class (by shrinking and taxing those who earn more) then people will be less afraid to take a chance and do something for sake of good with fear of failure and poverty. The problem with this model however is it assumes that there is enough people willing to do something (anything) yeh are truly passionate about without the motivation of the monetary gains. I don't think that is a type of society we live in nor one we will have anytime soon. The strenght of his argument in this point though (even though he failed to mention it) is current systems that already use this no reward model. For example wikipedia, goodle dev team, firefox, and Linux. Although there are a few people who do make money in these ecosystems, th majority if the power of the systems is drived from the while community and they hav shown to be successful. One caveat however is that these system use a very large population on the Internet and many things cannot be redused to and represented in the same way to such a gigantic audience.
The final point he had was an expansion of winner and loser idea where he pointed out that the losers in a capitalist system are not only the people who are competing for making that discovery or opening a business. Rather the losers extend all the way through the world as the human resources are limited and those living a life of riches are taking unnecessary resources from the poor. Wether it be that fourth car, the third house that has two pools or whatever it may be, living in luxary means that you are taking resources that could e used maybe by a family who needs the first cart or first house.
At the end of the day, as sound as his argumets were, I was not completely convinced because even if the US follows more of a soialist path rather than a capitalist, I think some other country will see the opportunity to fill that void. I don't know, I just wonder how a capitalist could convince me against these arguments he presented.
Anywho, that was all for that day. It's about 10pm here and I'm gonna go try to find some peeps to sit with and see what the night has for me and also enjoy my dinner of nutella, bread, and redbull.
I had pretty low standards of happiness before this trip in terms of luxaries. I eat anything and can asleep anywhere and was not very picky but this trip is erasing any and all standards I ever had for life. Hah.
Wish me luck,
-NZ
[as of this posting it is actually 11am the next dy and I survived the night.]
Today is AUGUST 3rd 2010 and I'm waiting in the train station in Mompelliar sitting like an absolute homeless man next to a plug I found and a bit scared of the night ahead. I have a train at 3pm TOMORROW and no place to stay tonight because this place has no hostles and I wasn't about to pay $100 for one night of hotel which in hindesight, even though we are not yet done with this night, may be one of the stupidest things I do. I can't imagine train stations are very safe places to be all night but these are the cards that I am choosing and w'll see what happens. My plan is to approach a nice looking person or group and try to sit with them but for now my iPod needs a charge and it is relatively early (9pm) so I'm not too worried yet. I donno, my last hostles Internet was kind of shit and I didn't feel like going out to find Internet to plan out the next few days so I am in a bit of a pickle having to plan everything as it comes. I've survived through 50% of the 6 weeks, I'm hopeful the rest will work out.
Anywho, onto the real entry of JULY 5th. Man I'm almost a month behind, good thing I'm a jobless bum when I get back to the states and will have time to catch up with this blog and hopefully and ideally with my other one, today I learned.
Seriously though, onto July 5th:
Today was actually a pretty relaxed day as I sat in the lobby of the hotel and worked on my blog enteries while the rest of the gang went out in Shiraz. It was actually rather nice time with the lobby of this hotel being pretty extravegant in terms of view of a pool in front of you and a mini waterfall providing nice relaxing sound.
After I was done working on the blog I definitely snagged the menu from the place for my collection on the way back up to my room. Once the gang ot back we had a lunch of sandwiches from this same shop we had ate the day before. It was very good and after lunch we checked out and went to airport to fly back to Tehran.
Once back in Tehran, an off the hot-as-hell plane, we went back home and changed to go to atisaz, the home I lived at as a child. It was a strange visit as the place had changed a lot and yet stayed the same. For example, the yard that I used to bike at or the areas I played soccer as a kid were all the same but a lot smaller than I remembered them. For me atisaz was huuuge as a child and I guess I really have grown because it no longer seemed so large.
There were definite changes too in terms of an increase in the number of units in the community (more than 3x as many now) and a explosion in number of cars. When I lived there as a child there were plenty of empty spaces for cars but now they were parked everywhere a car could possibly fit. It was a strange site cuz although the overall number of units has increased, the new units are in a new area so these cars haaave to be those of the same number of people living in the units I used to live in but now these people have multiple cars I guess.
There were a couple more things of note from atisaz. One, this place is siiiignificantly cooler than central Tehran were we are staying. Even though it is only 15minutes away from the center I think a mixture of elevation (it is a bit higher) and whatever else is making it cooler. Two, there are a great number of trees and flowers here and it gives the place an overall a homee ambiance. Thirdly, the place seems a bit more liberal as we saw a couple of girls sitting and chatting without wearing their headress.
After our visit to atisaz we went to a reallly nice restaurant for dinner and I had a food my mom makes, fesengoon, to see how it was compared to my mom. For me it was too sweet and I didn't like it so much but when my mom tried it she said this was reallly excellent and how they really make it. I found it interesting that I guess you get used to how something tastes from what your mom makes and that becomes the "right" and version.
Once we got back home we watched a bit of tv and suddenly I found myself in a reallllly deep discussion of capitalism with my uncle. He is a Marxist and obviously does not like capitalism at all and I wanted to see why. I obviously though chose a tooough lil opponent to argue in favor of capitalism. He was verrrry thorough and one by one rejected my position.
Because I found the argument so interesting I actually wrote down few of his points that I remembered afterwards to maybe on day find a responce to them.
One he argued that although the system shows the winners and encourages ideas through monetary reward it fails to show the losers. He, somewhat correctly, argued that for every winner in the capitalist system there are many many losers and that is a big flaw.
Furthermore, because money equates to power in this system, the interest of few people are represented. For example, if companies or rich people pay to advertise the benefits or negatives of some laws, the truth of the affect of these laws for the genral public may remain hidden.
Another good and thought-provoking argument he had is that advancement without a monetary reward still can occur and will occur. I argue that this is not true entirely but I do think that a great number of people do things for the idea of good rather than the monetary reward and his argument becomes interesting because if you increase the social safety net and increase the size and accessibility of the middle class (by shrinking and taxing those who earn more) then people will be less afraid to take a chance and do something for sake of good with fear of failure and poverty. The problem with this model however is it assumes that there is enough people willing to do something (anything) yeh are truly passionate about without the motivation of the monetary gains. I don't think that is a type of society we live in nor one we will have anytime soon. The strenght of his argument in this point though (even though he failed to mention it) is current systems that already use this no reward model. For example wikipedia, goodle dev team, firefox, and Linux. Although there are a few people who do make money in these ecosystems, th majority if the power of the systems is drived from the while community and they hav shown to be successful. One caveat however is that these system use a very large population on the Internet and many things cannot be redused to and represented in the same way to such a gigantic audience.
The final point he had was an expansion of winner and loser idea where he pointed out that the losers in a capitalist system are not only the people who are competing for making that discovery or opening a business. Rather the losers extend all the way through the world as the human resources are limited and those living a life of riches are taking unnecessary resources from the poor. Wether it be that fourth car, the third house that has two pools or whatever it may be, living in luxary means that you are taking resources that could e used maybe by a family who needs the first cart or first house.
At the end of the day, as sound as his argumets were, I was not completely convinced because even if the US follows more of a soialist path rather than a capitalist, I think some other country will see the opportunity to fill that void. I don't know, I just wonder how a capitalist could convince me against these arguments he presented.
Anywho, that was all for that day. It's about 10pm here and I'm gonna go try to find some peeps to sit with and see what the night has for me and also enjoy my dinner of nutella, bread, and redbull.
I had pretty low standards of happiness before this trip in terms of luxaries. I eat anything and can asleep anywhere and was not very picky but this trip is erasing any and all standards I ever had for life. Hah.
Wish me luck,
-NZ
[as of this posting it is actually 11am the next dy and I survived the night.]
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