I always finish what I start.
I came back from my trip about one year ago and over the last few days I have been thinking about my trip, and all the things (some good and some bad :/) that came from it. It reminded me of the private journal I kept. While reading a few of my entries, I was reminded of this blog and my promise to finish all the entries at some point. Now oever a year ago, my memory is much more hazy of events so I am relying heavily on my journal to remind me of exacts of a day so the flow of the entry will not be as nice as before. Deal with it.
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As my trip in Iran was coming to an end today, I needed to make some last minute preparations for the six weeks I was about to spend in Europe. I needed flip-flops for showering, a lock for the lockers at hostels, and sheets. Interestingly, only one of these three things, the lock, actually came in really handy as the flip-flops took too much room and I left somewhere in my trip in Europe and the sheets were of no use because when getting hostels I realized I could just book ones where sheets are provided. But I'm jumping the gun a little bit now and telling you the end of the story so let me backtrack back to this day.
For flip-flops we went to three shoe stores and what I learned was Iranians have the oddest colors for flip-flops. The only colors we could find were hot pink and some weird yellow which was not in my size. I ended up buying the hot-pink ones but as I said earlier, they didn't stay with me for too long.
For lock we went to a lock store. I think I've mentioned this before but in Iran there isn't like a Home Depot or a Walmart. Shops sell a few kind of things. It's kind of neat actually. You go to shoe store for shoes, lock store for locks, fabric store for sheets. Anyways, within all the sizes and types of locks I chose one.
For the sheets, we walked down the street to a fabric store. No great story here.
After getting back we changed and went to my mom's friend's house to celebrate the 50th birthday of my mom and her two best high-school friends. All of them were going to have there 50th birthday in the coming few weeks and as I was leaving tonight.
Being at the party was interesting as it reminded me of my two best childhood friends back in Campbell. I have known these guys since I was in 6th grade and through the years we have become very close. I hope one day I could celebrate a 50th birthday with them.
When we got back from the birthday I took a two hour nap as I knew with the upcoming travel, sleep was going to be an issue. After waking up, I packed my backpack and ended up with 11kg (24.2lb) of stuff. For my RyanAir flights coming up, I was supposed to have a pack no bigger than 10kg so I wouldn't have to check in any luggage but I couldn't make it any smaller and figured I will make it work out when the time comes.
After having dinner and saying some goodbyes, a few of us went to the airport to see me off. On my drive to the airport I finally started feeling really nervous about my trip and slightly questioning myself and what I was about to do. I wasn't sure if having no travelling experience, six weeks and 9 countries would just be too much to handle. I also was worried a little that I will be looking so raggedy the entire time. After all let me remind you of the ENTIRE contents of my 11kg backpack contained: four shirts, two pairs of underwear, two pairs of socks, three pairs of pants, a rain jacket, travel guide, journal, two pens, iPod touch, camera, day pack, travel towel, three pairs of contacts, glasses, deodorant, shampoo, body wash. (of course all the liquids poured from their bottle inside 3o.z containers that were put inside one zip-lock bag...) This wasn't going to be an easy trip and I wasn't sure if I had prepared myself well enough.
Anywho, we got to the airport and I went through security and made it to my terminal. While sitting and waiting for my flight, an old lady came and sat next to me and nicely asked me to look at her ticket to make sure she was in the right place. I did and afterwards I nicely tried to make conversation and asked did you have a good time in Iran to which she responded yes. Thinking the next logical question was where are you headed, I asked it, only to be told "you don't need to know do you?" Shortly after saying this, the lady stood up and went and sat somewhere else and although I felt a little bad. Now to you reading this, you may think either I was being too annoying or that she was being rude. But neither is true, (well maybe I was being a little nosy/annoying but I was trying to make nice conversation). However, what I really believe this conversation showed was how afraid individuals in Iran are of their government and how it affects their daily life. People are too scared to tell someone else too much as that someone else may be the wrong person to be telling too much to. It's funny that this is my last memory of Iran.
I went back listening to my music on my iPod and reading my travel guide over the next minutes until I saw people starting to line up. I looked at my watch because I thought it was time to go but it was still over an hour before boarding. Iranians crack me up sometimes. Eventually it was time to go and I boarded the plane to Frankfort around 3a.m. The rest of the flight and my first day in Germany will go under 07-11-2010.
