well my last days in france have come to an end. arrived in iran last night and have been pleasantly surprised by some rain, which has thankfully cooled it off quite a bit...wasn't looking forward to the heat;) my last few days in france were very enjoyable....went to see the conciergeri and sainte chappelle...managed to get in free-I'm currently a eu student from england:) speak in french and then don't have to worry about the british accent...just lovely;) it made visiting museums very economical;) could skip the conciergerie..wasn't anything too special just the prison where mary antoinette and louis the 16th were held captive. but sainte chappelle was beautiful...has stained glass windows all around telling the story of the bible...unfortunately the tour was in french but Anne told me it is a very worthwhile tour. went to visit laetitia in nantes and then we drove through the beautiful loire valley to her new home in tours. it was a beautiful drive and thankfully the sky cleared up into a beautiful sunny day. stopped at a few castles (including one that gave the idea for sleeping beauty and which I had seen when I was about 5 years old during my first visit to france). I can see why so many people love to go biking through the loire valley...for the most part its flat with gently rolling hills and a river and greenery and trees everywhere...top it off with castles and wine and what else do you need??

spent my last night having dinner in a delicious french restaurant with jamileh and anne...the perfect way to end my trip:) salad with roquefort cheese and a delicious lite sauce, salmon with some sort of green veggie on top in a buttery sauce but the kicker is the side dish-mashed potatoey dish but with a special white cheese that made it gooey and creamy and downright heavenly...very healthy:) and filling but delicious. wish you were there arman...the guy at the table next to us reminded me of you...there was a bowl for three people and they finished that and he asked for another and he ate it all alone! it was a huge bowl too and very filling. stick thin too, which made me very jealous. then we shared three desserts which were out of this world....I definitely appreciate french culture....good food (especially cheese and dessert and bread;), good wine, and great company..what more could you ask for? plus the music and theater/opera scene and literary scene is very tempting.

when I arrived in iran I noticed something that I really enjoyed in france.....upon entering a store, you always say hello, and upon leaving thanks, bye. you wait your turn in line and are respectful to the others. in iran, it was like a mashpit with everyone shoving to get in "line" and off the plane, their bags, and then into the elevator...my aunt got into a fight with the man behind us in line as he claimed we "budged" but we had clearly been waiting there longer than he, but one of the elevators was out of order so we side stepped in front of him. even though he knew we had been waiting longer than him, he still continued to btch and groan a bit. i realize it's a different culture and all, but this, quite frankly, I can easily live without. I hate confrontation. and I hate rude people. and I hate people telling me what to do. but I guess that's just the way they are brought up. On the plane, I met a nice old lady who enjoyed talking but I was entertained so it was fun to listen. but the kicker is how i met her...I was putting my bag into the overhead compartment and when I got done and was going to sit down next to her, she says, "why don't you put your bag into this one" pointing to the bin above her head. thinking complacently in my head, "does it really matter where my bag goes lady??" I decided I wasn't in an argumentative or explainative mode so without saying a word I moved my bag 6 inches over so it would be in the "correct" compartment and proceeded to sit down. after that I learned she had quite an interesting life. however, she claimed she wasn't like the rest of iranians and was more westernized which quite frankly, she was extremely iranian in my opinion ( i mean, what westerner tells a complete and total stranger to move their bag over 6 inches when there is clearly plenty of room??)....ok she may be a little more open minded about western culture, like by listening to jazz and she certainly wasn't too keen on Iran, at least present day Iran. she has 4 kids, living in england, germany and canada, but currently resides in france (where the family moved from iran, but all the kids ended up marrying off to various nationalities) and spends part of the year in iran. given the fact that her kids married non-iranians who know english, german, and french, she still is unable to communicate with her son/daughter inlaws and grandkids as she knows only farsi and they know none! how sad. she said she studied english when she was younger but as they moved to france, she forgot it all after many years and the french was too difficult for her to learn and her husband (who died recently) knew french and did all the talking usually. like me, she had her notebook full of words;) I tried to convince her that she really should learn at least english and to get a tutor in iran...bc heck the poor lady is so depressed she has no one to talk to. oddly enough, she kept talking about how "galbam dard migire" her heart hurting, which is what I did my paper on in my anthro course.....iranians tend to express their social problems and unhappiness through problems with the heart, and it was so cool to hear the expressions she used to express her unhappiness. apparently one of her grandkids (who's really little keep in mind) talked to her in english and she didn't understand so he told his mom his grandma had something wrong up there...how horrible. the poor lady. apparently she took it in stride though and one time went to talk to him all in farsi and when he looked at her blankly because he couldn't understand, she told him the same thing back! anyhoo, back to her iranianness...we were on a plane chock full of iranians and she's talking loudly in farsi about how she hates the hezbollahs and how she saw about 20 of them on the plane...then she started pointing them out to me (one of them was the guy my aunt argued with at the elevator on our way out of the airport, and although he was in front of us, he was obviously straining to hear everything we said...which didn't bother her, she continued to point him out) and how "hezbollahi" he looked. then she pointed out this lady and man right next to us who were chatting it up and how they were probably hitting on each other and cheating on their spouses (they were both middle-aged) and they did get each others numbers at the end of the flight. she said iranians cheat on each other a lot and she'd prefer they get divorced, which I'm in agreemement with. the guy was weird...never seen a middle-aged man reading elle and glamour magazine before, actually, no man for that matter. then she talked about how much she hated the chador, and the lady next to us proceeded to put one on as the plane landed. then she talked about how everyone changes as soon as the plane touches the ground, and they suddenly become good little muslims. but the kicker was as everyone was walking off the plane (she was waiting for her wheelchair so I stayed with her) she commented on EVERYONE, right as they were walking by and could clearly hear her...some of them were even looking at the things about other people she pointed out. she would say "oh that lady is so fat, she shouldn't be wearing that" or "look, that guy is probably cheating on his wife" or "look he's a hezbollah, look at how he looks at women." entertaining but boy did I just shrink down into my seat and hope no one remembered my face;) I mean, for crying out loud, if you are gonna talk about other people right in front of them, at least lower your voice!

but it was funny, as I got on the plane the flight attendant started directing me to my seat in english, but when he saw my iranian passport he got all excited and said oh your iranian, I thought you were french, you look french. which I will take as a complement;) it's fun to pass as every nationality (ok not every one) but the one you are:)

a little taste of heaven...

got back to France the other day and have been spending an enjoyable past few days. Went to Le pere lachaisse cemetary in Paris where Oscar Wilde and Chopin and many others are buried. As we were walking along, I past by the burial site of the sculptor Arman, which was pretty funny to see...I keep running into him in odd places and reminds me of my brother...saw the sculptures in Italy a few years back, then last year in France when I went champagne tasting there were special bottles designed by Arman, and now his burial site...don't jump for joy arman;) Also went to see Monet's garden which was beautiful...the flowers were all in bloom and the aroma was blissful. so many different flowers with wonderful color combinations and his pond was so wild yet beautiful. the house was interesting as well and his kitchen was my favorite...blue patterned tiles throughout with the copper pots hanging all along the wall and a huge, old really cool stove.

also went with Anne to see the museum quai branly which is one of my all-time favorite museums...it had objects (artistic and everyday) from all over the world, organized by region. It was really cool to see them and learn about different parts of the world and what they used stuff for. I def need to go back some day and spend more time there...they had a very nice mix of artifacts, descriptions, and then video and sound....they had video footage of rituals and dancing and fighting and lots more..and then they had music and singing and such. they had rooms that you were surrounded on three sides with different films showing clips from the people and then music from the region playing. it was very well done. they had another area with tvs with touch screens that you could go and look up topics about cultures from the various regions. it was quite interesting to see the contrast and similarities between the different regions. they definitely could expand it more in the future and things from more cultures, but as is it took the better part of the day to go through. but I'm dying to go back. plus the building itself is pretty cool...designed by the french architect jean nouvel, the same guy who designed the new guthrie, it is a pretty cool building. if you're into that stuff, I'd highly recommend it...it's a nice break from the painting museums.

We had lunch at the museum cafe, sitting outside we were close by to the eiffel tower and had superb view of it...made for a very pleasant atmosphere. have a few more days in france before I'm off to Iran for a few weeks.

btw, uploaded pictures from my travels so check them out on my picasa site, found on the left hand column of this page.

st-rike two? nope...train;(

Prague was amazing. Wandered around the palace and old churches and went to a museum about the history of the palace...which was pretty cool as I didn't know much about the history of the Czech's before. As I was wandering around, I saw a silk carpet hanging on the wall and I thought, wow, that looks Persian, but the center is interesting...never seen that before. Then I checked out the description and sure enough, it was from the 1800's. The edges were very Persian in design but the center had the gear of a european warrior or something. very unique. Saw the house where Kafka lived for a bit. Prague was similar to Budapest in that the city was split across the river...one bank had the commercial and trendy restaurant area, whereas the other side (mostly) had the historical castles and such and wilder hilly area with trees and such, which makes for a pretty surrounding. plus they both had islands with lovely paths and green places to relax. The old square in Prague is out of this world...an amazing huge clock that on the hour has a little show as the clock rings the bell and moving little guys on the clock. pretty cool. walking along the cobblestone street is very enchanting albeit probably a major pain for the locals (saw a guy attempting to push a cart along and he was going about 1/10 the speed he would have were it paved). but you know, for asthetics, it's wondrous. after awhile though, the tourist shops (practically every third shop in some areas) get dull quick as they all sell pretty much the same stuff. found a cafe with a french chef though, so I had a good backup place to eat. Ate some yummy goulash which is a bit like gheymeh....meat in a tomatoey sauce. although they eat theirs with dumplings. it's a bit more modernized and glamorous than budapest was...better shopping which I was thankful for when it rained...spent the better part of an afternoon on the park on the island basking in the sun and reading my book which I got at a cute little english book store where the shop owner helped me pick out a book (narrowed it down from about 10 choices to "my name is red" by orhan pamuk...so far it's amazing).

Took the night train back to Budapest to catch my flight back to Paris. Got a sleeper as the lady at the train station nodded her head vigorously when I asked if a sleeper was a better idea rather than just a seat. a bit pricy, but not a bad idea...much more comfortable than indian trains;) As I got on the train I asked the conductor if it was going to budapest (as it was rather unclear). He didn't understand much english but said it was. Had the compartment all to myself and was getting ready to sleep...it was only about 9:30 pm but I was for some reason very exhausted. Just as the train starts moving, the conductor comes into my room to check my ticket, then says something to me in czech...woa, what?? says I. after much confusion, he finally says budapest no. I'm looking out the window at the train station thinking, crap, I'm on the wrong train. then I find out (after a few minutes of perplexion) that the hungarian trains are on strike and the train will be stopping at a small town called sturovo. where was sturovo? I had no idea, and the train guy didn't either..at least he didn't understand my questions regarding that topic. then I found out it was a few hours from budapest (turns out it's right on the border on the slovak side). I asked if there were buses or taxis in sturovo that I could take...he just shrugged. upon further questioning, he says, well normal taxi yes, but sturovo small, who knows (shrug). exhausted and about 10:30 pm by this time, I decided to get off in sturovo and take the risk. met two other american girls from seattle (grad student and undergrad researcher in cancer bio oddly enough) who had no clue what was going on (I think my traveling has made it easier to understand people who speak no english oddly enough) and I told them what I had figured out and we decided to try to share a taxi to budapest together. at 7:30 am upon arriving in sturovo, we got off the train to see tons of others getting off also and we all were quickly ushered in to a herd of taxis eagerly awaiting our arrival. for 15 euros each, we piled into a van that took about an hour and a half to get to budapest, at which I quickly hurried to catch my shuttle bus to the airport, which I missed by about 10 minutes, so I ran into another taxi and spent another 24 euros to get there in time (I'd heard the airport taxis were bit of sharks, as the guy was trying to tell me that 5600 forint was about 30 euros when really its not more than 20, but we settled it by giving him 24)...I was in no mood for arguing or paying much more at that point. made my flight thankfully but it was an adventure.

so, something I've noticed, but there seems to be some German influence in Vienna and even Budapest. at a stoplight, pedestrians don't cross if it's red, even if there are NO cars in sight! it's insane. at one point, there were about 20 people waiting to cross the street and there were no cars coming, yet no one moved an inch...I kept creeping forward trying to get up the nerve to cross, but peer pressure hit and I just couldn't. it's weird and not obvious at first, but once you notice, you see it all the time. guess they listen to the rules strictly, but personally I feel like laws are made for a certain sense of order but people should be able to interpret them and figure out when it's ok to go around them...in fact, it's better if the people can show that they think a bit for themselves rather than think strictly to rules.

anyhoo, back in france for another week...woot;)

ok change of plans....I'm going to med school in prague...

arrived in prague today after a four hour train ride from vienna, and boy does it seem like I've gone back in time a few hundred years. it's the most beautiful town I've ever seen. cobble stone streets, lots of old buildings that are well-preserved, and just the whole vibe of the town is out of this world. gonna go explore tomorrow...woot;)

the landscape on the way over here was really beautiful...at times almost felt like i was up in northern minnesota with the rocky cliffs and evergreens, then the gently rolling green hills. think im getting a bit homesick;) kept thinking about going for a run around calhoun, biking lots of places and playing with bailey...and of course hanging out with you all:) (if anyone is still even reading this??) it was pretty funny though...the train was 10 min late, and they kept coming on the loudspeaker and apologizing for the inconvenience..i kept thinking, man rock on, we're doing pretty well for timing;) hehe, i think all three places ive been to def have that german influence of timeliness. met these venezuelan kids in vienna who were pretty awesome and one of them is studying (chem!) in germany right now and told all these funny stories about them. apparently when they are working there is abosultely zero tolerance for chit chat (they dont even say hello sometimes) but as soon as theyre done they wanna go graba drink or hang out. he was telling lots more funny stories when two german kids walked in the door, at which point it was "man those "iranians" are so on time" which made us all burst out laughing as I told them persian culture with regards to time is very similar to latino. then the german kid came up to us in a very socially awkward way and was like "ahem, so people are trying to sleep so i think there should be no more talking now." pretty good..maybe you have to be there though. anyhoo, off to bed but hope u are all well. ciao from prague.

vienna...part two

so today was the museum filled day...yesterday I just wasnt in the mood for it, although the weather was a bit dismal so it would have been a good day for it. Instead yesterday I walked around town a bit and looked at the shops. also went to an open market and bought some cheese and bread for my train lunch tomorrow. not the most amazing market ever, but they had some nice looking food shops. went to the legendary cafe central with toula, my new aussie friend and we had coffee and apple strudel with vanilla sauce..it was a cute well decorated cafe with a grand piano and lovely music while we ate. also went to the haas and haas tea shop and smelled all the lovely teas. with all the sweets ive been eating its a good thing my hostel is about a 25 minute walk out of the center of town....been basically doing tons of walking everyday, so much so that my feet have really weird blisters on them...inward blisters really with cuts on the inside? hurts like heck to walk on them and im not really sure what i can do to help them out. anyhoo, today I woke up early and went to the schonnbrunn palace then went to the domayer cafe for some breakfast. spent a few hours reading a book-basking in the sun of the gardens....very beautiful and relaxing. the palace is quite lovely and had a very interesting audio guide along with it. the thing i liked the most was they had gold decorations around the mirrors and in some of the rooms the decorations had little holders that displayed all sorts of gorgeous vases...they also had a pretty room of monglo-persian miniatures covering the entire rooms walls which were pretty cool...apparently the king was a pretty no frills type of guy and his bed looked simpler than mine even. i was pretty impressed. learned a bit about the royal family and their lives which was pretty cool. forgot most of it by now though:) also went to the sisi museum and imperial apartments which were quite nice. then met up with toula again and we went to eat some legendary sachertorte...very yummy chocolate cake...yes austria hasnt been too kind to my diet:)

other than that, lifes been pretty relaxing. heading off tomorrow to prague for a few days so should be good. getting excited to come back home...

hungary hungarian days turning into coffee-apple strudel filled viennese ones:)

so my last few days in budapest were lovely...turned out the trains werent on strike, but i still stayed an extra day anyways...was staying at an awesome hostel (called thumbs up, how could it not be amazing?) and met some cool people. met an aussie girl and we spent a day together eating lots of yummy food and spending two hours trying to find a cave...even the information dude didnt know where it was. finally found it and it looked super lame so we didnt go in. went to the opera together (xerxes by handel) but it was surprise surprise in hungarian and had this really weird modernized vibe to it that just didnt work...we couldnt figure out the storyline as there were planes and cars and semi 'arab' slash hip hop dancing involved...but crazily enough the set had an apartment building with persian writing all over it....said something about love and shiraz and hafez and then on another side said iran on it...I was pretty surprised. we left at intermission and grabbed a yummy chocolate brownie dessert instead and didnt look back:) someone of my true kind.

won a beer off gabe the hostel owner as he said it was gonna rain, and i bet him that it wont. got it at 6 am this morning as i was on my way to vienna...anyone want some hungarian beer?? took a very quick and comfy train ride to vienna and spent the entire day roaming the streets. today is a bank holiday in europe and they had all these festivities going on the streets. started to rain a bit so I ran into the opera house just as fidelio was about to start...4€ for standing room ticket...boy was it a painful and hot few hours...was all in german so again had no idea what was going on...just read the bio on wiki and was surprised by the storyline...hehe...was like, woa that happened?! but I did understand some of the german stuff andits weird how some of my german from high school has come back a bit. albeit only a bit.

went to landtmans famous cafe and had a coffee and apple strudel this evening which was lovely...cant wait to try out some more lovely coffee places around town.

on a side note im in the internet cafe right by my hostel and the two guys right next to me got into a fight displaying their masculinity by an interesting display of english swear words...ended in the white german dude calling the arab a skinhead...interesting. for a sec i thought it was gonna escalate into a physical fight and i was getting ready to jump out of the way but thankfully it died down rather quick.

anyhoo, heres to more wunderbar coffees tomorrow...cheerio.

Budapest

few quick last things on Paris...crazy but one day I was walking around and some girl in front of me passed out and fell down...didnt see it but the people just in front of me did. her shopping bags were sprawled ont he groudn and she was breathing, but not conscious. it was creepy. ambulance came and took her away, not sure what happened but i think it was some weird neurological thing. anyhoo, one last comment on the difference bw france and iran....it was a big shock in the beiginning as the french girls were so down to earth and had natural tones...verz little makeup, natural tones and short unpainted nails with hair that was just in a pony tail or verz little done to it. in contrast, iranians have tons of bright usuallz makeup on, long painted nails fake looking eyebrows and done up hair. thez also always talk about how others look whereas in france it wasnt too often. not sure for the reason behind the differences but it was very noticeable...it was nice to cut my nails in france and just be myself without worrzng too much what I looked like.

anyhoo, budapest is amazing. very safe feeling and nice mix of beautiful old buildings and relativelz newer uglz as heck commi buildings. the foods not the healthiest and not the best...not enough spices for me...but thez use a lot of paprika which i love. got a gyro on te street the other day which was nice...yoghurt sauce was made with dill which was a very nice touch. went to the baths yesterdaz which were amazing...beautiful outside thermal heated pool with a gorgous building surrounding it. thez also had these pumps that would go on everzonce in awhile and the water would push zoou around in a circle which was prettz cool. it was so relaxing and the locals even plazed chess in the water. mmm, so budapest is actuallz two towns...buda on the left and pest on the right side of the danuble river. buda is hilly and green with the castle and such. pest is the commercial side and more busy. went to an amazing underground hospital today....started out a couple hundred zears ago as a bunch of cave cellars that people used to store wine and such to avoid taxes then thez were rediscovered in the 40s and joined together to be used as a safe hospital underground for the armz and aslo as a secret militarz meeting place with the germans. then in the 50s it was used as a nuke safe area and also a secret hospital. it has been kept a secret until onlz about 5 years ago and this cuople have been cleaning it and keeping it a secret for the last 40 years or so and doctors would go there everzonce in awhile to practice drills in case of nuclear attack. it was super cool and still had lots of original stuff from the 50s. verz neat. apparentlz used t be the state of the art surgery rooms and equipment which was cool to see as now it doesnt look like much, but thez even had an ekg and xray and autoclave. their own generator too and everthing hidden so no one would know it was there. at one point had 600 patients during the war. the guide told us a funnz storz about the different protocols if a nuclear attack occurred...the germans said that u should measure everzthing about it and give the info to zour superiors, and thanks for your service. the russians said u should lie on the ground with ur feet facing the explosion and ur soul would protect u from the attack. and the hungarians protocol called for u to wrap yourself in a wet blanket and try t omake it to the cemetary in time bc it would help clean up later:) lol it made me laugh a lot besides being a little creepz for official protocol.

anyhoo after walking around forever todaz (took me and this aussie girl about 2 hours to find the underground hospital as the signs here are nonexistent and horrible if existent) mz feet are killing me. sleep feels so good after a long days walk) off to the market and bumming around tomorrow then off to the opera at night and leaving for vienna on friday (apparentlz trains are on strike tomorrow so Ill be delayed a day). cheers from budapest!

Easter in France

I think I've fallen in love....with Paris =) I've been in France now for the past 2.5 weeks and it has been blissful. I've been surrounded by lovely people, excellent food, beautiful sites and amazing weather...what more could one ask for? ok, probably a million dollars, but I'm being realistic here;) I spent a lovely Easter with our good family friends, the Wimmers, and it was a very special time. We drove up to their summer house in Carnac, a cute town in Bretagne, NW France on the coast. We went for many bike rides and runs along the beach, and I even got taken out for a wonderful ride on a sail boat. We went to mass, which was my first time ever going for Easter and it was really incredible...to be sitting in an ancient cathedral from the 1500s with amazing architecture and beautiful stained glass windows/paintings was quite an atmosphere. Plus, the Easter night mass was exceptionally eventful. The candles that we all held and light during different stages of the ceremony let off so much smoke that the fire alarm went off...and continued for a good 10 min before it finally stopped. Then there was a drunk man who after everytime the priest said "Jesus is our lord" shouted out "yeah!" It was quite amusing as the place was quiet and it was quite a formal affair...but they finally showed him to the door. We proceeded to eat amazing food that day (like all the others) and I ate, for the first time, pate, which was excellent. It was a very relaxing time with lots of great company and good wine;)

The French is, well, coming along albeit slowly. My brain has been filled with Farsi and now it is making a very slow transition to French, but I still think of things in Farsi first and occasionally spit out some Persian words mid-sentence, which I only realize when I get a weird look from someone else and realize that that was the wrong language. But they have told me that my accent isn't too bad, and is not the horrid American accent, so there is hope yet:) I think I have to return during med school for a longer period so that I can really buckle down and concentrate on learning it...right now it is kinda (as our good Armenian friend has said) a "half-arse show." And return I must...Paris is such an amazing place with so many cute little neighborhoods, amazing shops (although if I keep wandering into them I think I may be broke very soon...the european clothes are just so much cuter than american ones;) and restaurants/cafes.

Spent the last week with Jamileh which was wonderful...she showed me some of her favorite places which were fantastic and brought me along to the most amazing (and cheap) creperie. It's in a really cute part of town by the Sorbonne where a lot of University professors live with a very harvard-type feel to it....lots of cafes/restaurants and a very intellectual feel to it...I was in heaven. I also got to check out her lab which was pretty cool. I wandered around lots of neighborhoods in Paris, but there are still many more places to go to. The other day though I wandered into a mosque, which was in Moroccan style, and it was beautiful...a little haven right in the middle of busy Paris. I was shocked to find it and pleasantly surprised when I went in. The guy at the door asked me for my ticket (u are supposed to pay on entrance), but I wasn't about to pay to go in so I said (surprising myself with my french:) "c'est une mosque, n'est-ce pas?"(it's a mosque, no?) to which he replied, "oui, bien sure"(yes, certainly) and I said, "mais je suis musulman" (but I'm muslim) and he immediately happily said, "allez-y madame, allez-y" (go on in) and he was quite amused and on my way out asked me if I saw everything. It was fun;) Spent my birthday with her and had a tasty pear-chocolate cake and a special dinner. I treated myself to a bit of a shopping spree for my bday, which was fun;) and to top stuff off, one of the girls working the cash register asked me if I wanted a discount card for the store and I told her I wasn't French...she then said, "Oh, Italian? German? Spanish?" and I was like no, American. Then she said excitedly, "Beyonce!" and I laughed. then we talked a bit more and she told me I had really good French, which was the perfect bday treat:) so I guess in some ways, money CAN buy happiness...hehe:) guess I just have to do some more shopping:)

Anne-Claire and I had a crepe party the other night and it was pretty cool...everyone brought something along for the crepes and it was quite a success. I'm in lovely Versailles now and it's such a relaxing place. The palace is not too far away and has lovely gardens. I found a cheap ticket to Budapest, Hungary, so I will be leaving Monday for a 12 day adventure...I'm going to go to Vienna and Prague as well, and possibly Bratislava. It should be exciting! I've booked my hostels and some of the train tickets and I'm ready to go explore some beautiful cities and drink some amazing coffee and hear wonderful music...ahh, it's going to be hard to go back to school now.

Anyhoo, hope you are all doing well. I got my return ticket and will be coming back stateside on June 5th, so hope you are all ready;)

Celebrating Nowruz in style...on the beautiful island of Kish;)

Well, I spent a lovely two weeks celebrating Nowruz on Kish with Khanom Moghimi and her lovely family;) I learned to wake up everyone morning saying "ammmuuuuuuu" in response to the "emmmmmaaaaannnnn" that came to me from amu Khosro at the breakfast table, which turned into our greeting everytime we saw each other and made everyone burst into laughter. My farsi improved drastically, as I spoke entirely in Farsi, and was always listening to some conversation or other. And the kids had a really good command of english vocabulary, so whenever I ran into difficulties, they had the persian word for me. I was cracking jokes left and right in farsi, that's how good I got. And I learned some very important words, such as zed zed or zan zalil, which basically means someone who's "whipped." It was a lot of fun.

So a little bit about persian new year, or nowruz. It lasts thirteen days and dates back to ancient times (for more details, check out wikipedia). Iranians set up a "halft seen" or table with at least seven things that start with the letter s (in persian) on it. These include:

• sabzeh - wheat, barley or lentil sprouts growing in a dish - symbolizing rebirth
• samanu - a sweet pudding made from wheat germ - symbolizing affluence
• senjed - the dried fruit of the oleaster tree - symbolizing love
• sīr - garlic - symbolizing medicine
• sīb - apples - symbolizing beauty and health
• somaq - sumac berries - symbolizing (the color of) sunrise
• serkeh - vinegar - symbolizing age and patience

Often times these are also included:

• Sonbol - Hyacinth (plant)
• Sekkeh - Coins - representative of wealth
• traditional Iranian pastries such as baghlava, toot, naan-nokhodchi
• Aajeel - dried nuts, berries and raisins
• lit candles (enlightenment and happiness)
• a mirror (symbolizing cleanness and honesty)
• decorated eggs, sometimes one for each member of the family (fertility)
• a bowl of water with goldfish (life within life, and the sign of Pisces which the sun is leaving)
• rosewater, believed to have magical cleansing powers
• the national colours, for a patriotic touch
• a holy book

(complements of wiki)

In addition, this year I learned the tradition of making ashe reshte (a yummy thick noodle/green veggie soup) on the first day of nowruz. Everyone puts in the noodles, and while doing so you are supposed to say your wishes and hopes for the upcoming year. At the exact moment of the coming of the new year, Persians around the world (at the same time everywhere) gather around the halft seen together to celebrate. And, most importantly, parents give out new bills to the kids;)

As the signs everywhere made certain to reinforce, it is the "beautiful island of Kish." and with the lovely sandy beaches and crystal clear blue/green water, they are quite right. It is a beautiful island and if there weren't segregated beaches, tourists would probably flock there from all over. I had a blast with everyone...at one point, there were 17 people in house, 10 of which were kids around my age. and boy did we have a blast together. There was so much love and happiness, it had a quite healing affect and I really felt like I was back home with all of you around;) I made some really good friends and it's going to be very difficult to leave Iran now. Our days were on a very interesting schedule...woke up around 11 am, ate breakfast, if it was nice, we went to the beach for a few hours. went back home around 5 pm, cleaned up and had "lunch." Then we lounged around for a bit, sometimes watching lovely classic tv shows such as Kolah Germezi, and Marde 1001 Chehre, which were highly entertaining. Then around 9 pm we went to one of Kish's many shopping malls and walked around for awhile, sometimes doing a bit of shopping;) Then we either went back home around midnight to have dinner, or went to Mita Kish to eat some yummy pizza or cake/ice cream. Then around 3 am we would go for a run in their gated community, without a scarf and in t-shirt and capris. With the lovely breeze and cooler/rainy weather we got, it was quite lovely. Then we went to bed about 4 or 5 am and started over the next day. It was quite a relaxing time. I got quite used to waking up and seeing about 5 or 6 others sleeping next to me so that when I got back to Tehran and woke up alone, it was quite lonely.

The beach, as previously stated, was lovely. They even had masseurs from Thailand that gave cheap massages. They had huge blow up balls that you could get in and roll around in the water. I've never seen that many women (without any men) at a beach before. You can also go jet skiing or scuba diving in the persian gulf, but unfortunately the weather was a bit grey so we never got around to doing it. The island has changed quite a bit since the last time I was there, about 7 years ago. It is more developed and was quite busy for Nowruz, as everyone went to enjoy the weather. It didn't affect us much we were staying at their house, but it was evident when it came to the water and shopping malls. As they purify the water from the ocean and thus have a limited supply, and with all the people coming, we frequently ran out of water and had to be very frugal with our use. No one wanted to get stuck in the shower when the water cut, bc then they would have to finish off with a bottle of water stored in the bathroom. The shopping malls were packed at night, with everyone practically on the island there, walking around to be seen;) Our favorite shop was the candy store, where I got them hooked on gummy peach o's. One night we went and I got them some candies, and I asked them what they wanted. when I was going to also get some peach o's, they were like, "no, don't get those for us, unless you want them for yourself" and I decided to get them. As we walked out of the store, they tasted them and immediately fell in love. Every night after that, we went back in and got at least two small bags for us. The third time we went in, the shopkeeper, recognizing us, suggested that we buy a whole box to save money and the trip;) It was pretty funny, but didn't stop us from going back and getting more.

We also ate some delicious kabobs...probably some of the best I've ever eaten. The meat was so delicious and tender. We went to a few concerts (Reza Sadeghi, and Ehsun something) which were really fun, and notably, started at 12:30 am! I discovered polaki...a circular, thin, crispy sweet that is amazing with tea. We took a tour of the island's highlights on the "party bus" as we all fit in one huge van and were singing and dancing to the music between tourist sites.

also, now I can claim to have met some underground Persian musicians....two of the guys there were singers and let us listen to their music. funny enough, the other kids recognized some of the songs and didn't know that it was them. interesting what occurs under such governments...

After arriving back in tehran, I received an interesting text message...."hello, what is your name?" to which I replied, "what is yours?" Here's the response: "Amir, 25 years!" lol, I had a good laugh on that one, to which I replied, "Eman, 23 years" and needless to say, there was no further contact (Eman is a guys name in Iran:) I was tempted to reply with "what, you're not interested anymore?" but I refrained. Went to the relatively new and beautiful Azadi cinema and watched the movie Superstar....I was pleasantly surprised that I understood most of the movie (probably about 95%) compared to about 30% of the movie I saw in Iran last year at the cinema...I guess somethings working;)

Anyhoo, leaving tomorrow for France, so should be exciting;) hope yall are well.

Iran

Well I've been in Tehran now for about 2.5 weeks and things are going pretty well. I just realized the other day that in my two years off, I've spent 5.5 months in Iran...that's quite a bit of time. Tehran has started to attain that comfortable feeling of a home away from home for me. The streets have started to find a location in my brain and wandering around on my own or with taxis has gotten quite easy. Some of you might be thinking I'm a bit slow, but just to get a sense of the city, think New York big with the opposite of the lovely ny grid street system...the streets aren't exactly orderly here. Anyhoo, thankfully its easy to orient yourself here as it is often assisted by the slope of the hill. That said, Tehran is so spread out that I've probably really only become familiar with about a third of it (albeit the most interesting third;) One interesting improvement I've noticed since last year is the streets are much cleaner....I've been waking up to go to Park-e-Laleh early in the morning to run (the park is packed with people excercising early am...they even have this aerobics class that all these cute older people go to...and baba, just an fyi vali khodet hasti tuye un guru, vali daghighan nemidoonam aghe unjaham hasti baraye khoshgel factor ya na...schiad 10 sale dige;) Along the way the street cleaners are in full business, cleaning out the canals on the sides of the streets, using huge vacuums to clean the sidewalks and grooming the grass and plants in the park. It's quite a nice change, and very welcomed after India. I've seen some funny things along my walks. For one, there was a young boy in a car trying to turn right at a congested intersection....as he was trying to turn, people (and other cars turning left) were in the street making it difficult so all of a sudden he turned this sound like a police siren on, everyone moved out of the way and he easily turned, the siren went off and he went on his way. The kid next to me and I realized what he did and burst out laughing...it was pretty ingenious. There was also this amazing guy on the street demonstrating a veggie cutter which I watched for a good 10 minutes...in no time at all he cut all these veggies into really cool shapes and made little slinkies out of them. It was pretty sweet. I may have to get one one of these days. I also went to cafe naderi to get a yummy steak with creamy mushroom sauce and crispy fried potatoes...mmm, was so good. Met an armenian girl there who was quite nice. The cute older waiters working there (apparently ever since before the revolution) are entertaining and when I got the bill, he joked with me saying that the $15 on lunch was a common cost in the jomhuri-e-islami. But it is actually amazing that considering the vast differences in income, things like coffee and restaurants (except fastfood) are the same price as back home.

Walking around alone a lot lately I've started to have some interesting encounters with the other kind. It's never been creepy like in some of the other countries I've been to, thankfully. Usually the guys do it when no one else is around and then when they walk by you they say hello or some such thing (racy I know;) Two boys once asked me if I was waiting for them...and a group of suit-clad boys at a bus stop broke out singing for me as I walked by. was quite entertaining although I was a bit annoyed at the time. last year my cousin and I were trying to cross a big intersection and a car all of a sudden stopped for us...I was like woa, that's never happened before, I can't believe they actually stopped to let us walk across, and she informed me that that's what guys do to pick up random girls! hah! man I'm so naive. I've even managed to get some guys phone number of all things...happened in a handicraft shop of all places (persian handcrafts, unbiasedly of course, are hands down the most beautiful). started talking and when I was going to leave he was like my name's ali, come back, here's our card, oh wait, here's my cell number, the name's ali. lol, was pretty funny.

Met a nice anthropology professor and have been going to some of her classes and such with her lately. she told me about her experiences in mongolia and how she stayed for a few days out in the countryside with a tribe...they only ate meat and dairy products but had managed to make vodka out of yogurt! Pretty interesting to go to class and talk to the students. Some of the girls told me that they choose to wear a chador bc it tells boys that they aren't loose and such...they said that if you just wear a scarf and coat it shows that you have different beliefs and may be ok to flirting with boys and such. They said that if they went to the US, they wouldn't wear it and would just wear a scarf, because there it is the equivalent of a chador...was pretty interesting to talk to them about it. She brought me along to her yoga class at her friend's apartment which was cool to go to. mostly was meditation and was very relaxing...two hours of relaxation really helps you stay calm, which is particularly important in hectic Tehran.

Went yesterday to a friends presentation for finishing medical school...was cool to see although it was hard to understand most of it. An interesting tidbit I've noticed in Iran is the concept of the chai server...whatever school or company I go to, they have someone that comes around and gives tea and sweets to the workers everyonce in awhile. It's nice, although personally I like the distraction offered by getting up and grabbing your own coffee and chatting with a friend.

As familiar as I am with some parts of Persian culture, there are some things I don't think I'll ever be fully comfortable with, and there will always probably be things that I will learn about it. Persian culture is so complex, I don't think they even fully understand it. Something I'll never be comfortable with is seeing someone for the first time in awhile and having them immediately discuss whether you've become fatter or skinnier since the last time they saw you. They'll discuss this for awhile, kindly the entire time as if they're discussing the weather, and either way it's not bad. It's just...odd. I think coming from a culture where you generally steer clear of talking about your weight with others and then being in front of people that you don't know well and having them ask how many kilos you are, or discussing your weight in front of you is just uncomfortable. and no matter how much I try to tell myself that it's just their culture, it just comes off as extremely rude and awkward for me. I usually just shut my mouth and go into a zen mode until they get over it, but really inside I just want to be like, you know, it IS so good to see you again and how HAS your life been since I saw you last? but of course I don't.

another thing that's frustrating is ta'ruf. you know, I'm just not used to saying no the first 5 times and then saying yes. if someone asks me to do something and it sounds like fun, I just say yes. It's hard for me to realize that they usually just say stuff and expect you to say no. and they use such tactful language to show that they don't really mean what they say.....things like "if you don't have other plans" or "if you have permission to come" when they really mean that they are inviting you but not really inviting you bc if they truly wanted you to come they would be like "I'd be really happy if you came" or "we'd all really like to see you." I don't think they understand who they are talking to...to me, I take it all literally and if I don't have other plans and want to go, then I say yes. which I think I have unknowingly probably surprised many people and made them think I'm rude. I don't think they understand that 110% of my energy is going into trying to figure out what it is they've just said, and how I can say my response. I don't have the capability of deciphering hidden messages....nor perhaps most importantly, I don't have the mindset for thinking about hidden meanings. I'm a very straightforward person-I say what I mean and I mean what I say (for the most part) and I expect the same out of others. It's very hard for me to lie about things, and usually you can tell by my language because when caught between lying or saying something potentially rude or even slightly impolite, I usually defer to vague language like "yeah it's not bad" or in the case of rock climbing "I'd love to but unfortunately I have plans." ->that one's for you josh;) but usually, I don't even have a strong opinion and am good with going with the flow...as long as the flow is in a desirable direction;) anyhoo, it's tiring and I miss good old america;) I think it's important for people to live in other countries and experience different cultures because then you really get to see your own culture from a different angle and see what you like and don't like or at least get another view or be more understanding of others. (for example a somali girl in high school who had just came from somali once opened up to me and told me she hated the US...at the time, I took it as a personal affront and was a bit hurt-i mean, how could she not like my homeland??-but now I realize that it probably was exceedingly difficult for her to adjust to the new culture and surroundings, and plus, she was probably struggling with the right words to properly display her feelings and maybe she reached for one that wasn't quite right but the only one she thought of or knew at the time) language and words and gestures have so many connotations that we take for granted. I think in the last few years I've really realized the importance of communication and the affects it can have not only between individuals, but between countries. That's not to say I'm perfect at communicating...in fact, far from it. But it is amazing how much affect language can have and I for one need to try to concentrate more on it.

Last night I was at a friend's house and their young son asked me, "I'm not quite sure, are you Iranian or American?" The question took me a bit offguard and I wasn't sure how to answer it, especially in farsi;) at the time I basically answered it by saying the I am Iranian-American, and I still think that's basically true in some sense. I mean, I can speak some Farsi, know some about the culture and have pride for my origins. I like the sense of roots that it gives me...a sense of a history, an ancient culture, an artistically and intellectually rich culture. but upon further reflection, I think what I really am is American. and it's that fact that I am most proud of. I like being an individual, doing what I want, being responsible for my own actions and free to act on my own free will and not confined so strongly by a society. I like being able to voice my opinions and being surrounded by open-minded people (ok so obviously not all americans are, but I would venture more so than Iran...I mean, the more you are exposed to, the more open you tend to become and we certainly don't lack diversity in the us). I like having a more informal society where not so much effort is put into putting up a front. I like choosing my friends not by what they look like or wear or who their family is, but by their personality and goodness and heck, their interesting factor. Not that American culture is better than other cultures...just that it's this culture that I was brought up with, this culture that I understand and am comfortable in, and this culture I feel most like me. I think it's safe to say that a lot of americans have a second or third or fourth cultural influence. and for me, thats Iranian culture. but something I've realized is that I'm American first, with sprinkles of persian flavoring. and personally, I couldn't be more happy. ok enough sappiness...too bad it's not the fourth of july;) but really, I guess what I'm saying is I heart you america;0 I'm really thankful I was brought up in a country where the concept of freedom is for the most part, fully realized.

anyhoo, its chahar shambe suri here (just before persian new year, during which I'll be spending a lovely two weeks on kish, an island in the persian gulf;) traditionally people would jump over smal bonfires in the streets (apparently if they were sick it would heal them) but apparently in the recent past its taken a nasty turn where kids explode fireworks and such and has become exceedingly dangerous. lots of peole lose limbs or get burned from accidents. they showed a nasty show about it on tv last night and made me a little scared to step foot outside tonight...anyhoo, hope you all are enjoying some lovely spring weather!

Bombay, Mumbai, a bay;)

Ali and I successfully survived a 24 hour bus ride from Diu to Mumbai. and boy was it nice to be there. it was rather warm, but the dry warm that is tolerable as opposed to the insufferable humidity. Still technically winter, being February and all, and temps were already in the 30s. I'm so glad we weren't there in the summer! The bus ride wasn't all that bad and Ali and I were actually pleasantly surprised with how quick the time flew by. We had a sleeper, which basically means we had a little box all to ourselves where we could lay down and shut out the craziness that is India. Stayed at the Salvation Army's place for a whopping $4 a night, breakfast included. It's kitty corner from the taj hotel, where all the crazy stuff went down a few months ago. Didn't even phase my mind until we went out to grab drinks with a few Brit girls at Leopold's, the famous foreignor hangout, and saw bullet holes in the windows. Then it hit me, why the whole front side of the Taj was boarded up and blocked off. I know, don't say it, she's a quick one mr. grinch;) anyhoo, mumbai was awesome...I totally could live there for a period of time. There was the feeling of India, but then the comforting presence of the modern world that I'm used to. The first thing that hit us was how clean the streets were! and how little pollution there was for such a large city...we could finally maneuver the streets and sidewalks without having to avoid feces and crap of some kind or other. Lots of modern buildings, interspersed with ones from the Brits, and then adjacent to slums. Kinda a crazy background. Went to see Slumdog Millionaire again, and it was amazing for the second time again. It was so cool to see it in the city it was filmed, and brilliant to be able to recognize where the scenes were filmed. heck, we had just walked by most of them. Had some funny experiences with some street sellers...one guy tried to get us into his shop by claiming he was selling "museum pieces." hah. got some balloons from another guy who was walking around with a GINORMOUS balloon. I got giddy like a kid in a candy shop and got some. imagine all the fun you could have with a balloon the size of a small person. anyhoo, ali decided to get some the next day, and right after she bought them, this guy came up to us and informed us that they had sold us small balloons! duh, we totally should have figured given the size of the balloons in the bag. He demonstrated how far they could get blown up, a decidedly wimpy size compared to the others, not that size matters or anything, but anyways, he was trying to get us to pay more for the bigger balloons that he had. we figure they are probably all in it together and make money off of suckers like us. meh, it was fun.

as far as the food goes, Mumbai warrants a trip all on its own. man was it good. tried some of their faloodeh, although Iran's is much better. they put milk in theirs, and the noodles were like glassy spaghetti noodles, too thick for me. but the ice cream was good. had melt-in-the-mouth chicken kebabs, vegetable raita, vegetable fry and naan at the olympia cafe, a parsi restaurant that served delicious food...the whole meal along with fresh sweet lemon juice cost ali and I together a whopping $2! another day we went to another delicious parsi restaurant called Ideal Corner, where I had some brown rice flavored with lots of spices and some mutton curry sauce that was just like a persian khoresht but spiced up a bit with Indian spices. so yummy!

anyhoo, Bombay was awesome. flew to Iran via Qatar a few days ago, and now I'm nicely settled in Tehran. Thankfully it's cooler here...about 22c or so. it's good to be back. my aunt told me something funny today...she came home and told me I shouldn't eat the sausage/kilbasa anymore. Apparently the cops stopped some truck driver and checked out the back of the truck and found it filled from top to bottom with dead cats...upon inquiring as to what the cats were for, the driver said he was bringing them to the meat factory to make sausage!!!! yuuucckkk! I couldn't help it, I just burst out laughing one of those uncomfortable laughs as I racked my brain tried to count the number of times I actually ate the sausage. thankfully I never was much of a fan so it was probably limited to only a few times. well, at least the meat's halal here...;) man, I still can't believe it. that's so gross. maybe I'll be a vegetarian for life...after all, India showed me that it wasn't that bad...in fact, I really didn't miss meat that much. meh, hope you guys are enjoying your sausage;)

Diu

Diu..pronounced like the French word, meaning God. And for us, it has been a god send. Lying down on the sandy beach, with the sun beating down and a slight breeze with the ocean waves lapping near by has been the best relaxent (I don't think that's a word, but you know what I mean;) I think I know why meditation and yoga have come out of India...all you need to do is step into one of their busy cities and you'll understand the importance of meditation;) We actually went to a free yoga class one morning and it wasn't all that bad...not too much a fan of the spiritual aspect of it, but it was nice to do some stretching and relaxation things. In Jodhpur, we went to return some train tickets and spent nearly an hour and half in a "que" similar to those in Iran...so really just a mashpit in front of the window with everyone squished together pushing to get to the window first. Apparently there was some "order" to the "line" as they alternated between old men and women, but this was rather crude. After finally getting to the window, we discovered we had not filled out one section of the paper, and had to leave the line. Rather pissed (they had let an Indian man stand and fill it out, rather than lose his spot in line) we went near the front and as soon as the next person left, I sneaked my hand over the short Indian lady in front of me and threw my papers into the window saying politely "excuse me but are these correctly filled out now?" to which we were helped almost immediately. Ali was rather amused at my resourcefulness and the Indians around us were quite amused I think at my sneakiness, although they never complained a bit and seemed to think it was quite normal. If I hadn't been soo frustrated, I would have waited docilely another hour in the line. Anyhoo, back to the relaxing city of Diu. Our time has been spent waking up, taking a few hour breakfast with "cold coffee" (delish;) and talking to other travelers, then heading to the beach after a short walk into town and lying on the beach for the afternoon reading and swimming, then heading back to shower and grab dinner then spend the night by the fire talking to other travelers. There is a siesta "hour" here which really lasts from about 1-6 pm in reality. The restaurants don't even start serving dinner until 7 pm here. Many travellers get stuck here for awhile, and it is easy to see why. We've met some really cool people with amazing stories to tell. One, a Canadian, told us about how in Jaipur he got drugged by some food and woke up a day later in his hotel room with his money stolen and a gash on his head. Apparently he was found lying outside some hotel and they found his key and brought him back to his room...pretty scary. And there was a British couple he had met who had taken a rickshaw down from a fort on a hill...along the way they discovered the driver was high and ended up driving off the cliff...the driver is still in a coma, and the guy had broken his arm! we've been pretty lucky thus far...losing some money isn't anywhere near as bad as getting hurt. Last night we had an awesome conversation around the fire talking about travelling and other countries....we had all sorts of insights what from Britain, Canada, France, Denmark and Australia...the Aussie told us about when he went to Papua New Guinea...apparently it is like a fourth world country there, where they eat other people (mad cow disease is prevalent in people), AIDS is high...fastest growing in the world, and the tribes are constantly fighting each other. Some medical friends of his were trying to teach them to use condoms, and were demonstrating on broom handles. 3 years later, they went back to see how things were going and were shocked to find all the women on the island sweeping their houses with brooms with handles topped with condoms! and the men were also very resourceful, discovering that condoms are great for using as tackle for fishing! haha...well, really there is a much greater problem there than safe sex. I mean, really, teaching people to use condoms before they rape and pillage another tribe is rather irrelevant. It's hard to believe what a sheltered life we live back home...but also nice in a way to have such a great safe haven. Our problems are really very miniscule in comparison with some places in the world. Also met this amazing old German postman. He retired at age 53 and has been travelling the world ever since...he's been to India 11 times already. He has really inspired me to go to South America, and the Sputch couple to learn Spanish...so maybe that's what I'll be doing soon. It sounds like such an amazing continent. He went to the island just south of S. America and said it was very wild and untouched. mmm, beautiful countryside with small villages is so much more enjoyable compared to man made mashpits of congestion...hehe, no I'm really not that negative about India, although I think it comes out that I am much more than in reality. It's just that there are so many incredible things that happen here; I guess that's why they say Incredible India...Ali's motto is "impossible India" though, which is also true. Anyhoo, I realized today that I will actually be sad to leave a little...I have finally adapted and started to truly enjoy it, and it is so unlike any place I have been before...perhaps I'll come back during medical school. Sorry for the random babbling, there's just so many different things going on and my brain hasn't quite wrapped around them all yet and they just come pouring out;)

another tidbit about driving here....our driver told us that to drive in India, it is absolutely necessary to have 3 things: good brakes, a horn, and luck. so true. they use the horn incessantly, which is a huge form of noise pollution. you could be walking on the edge of a huge street with no one on it and a motorcycle will come by on the opposite side and honk the horn for 10 seconds while they pass you. I mean really, their use of the horn is absurd and overexcessive! but I have seen some instances where it is very beneficial.

Anyways...onto the really important stuff;)

Street food. man will I miss it. In Jodhpur we ran across a street vendor that took us into his little shop and we sat on little plastic stools as he gave us samples of everything he makes...potato chat (something like a potato cutlet with a bean curry and yoghurt, onions, tomatoes and spices added on top), veggie pakoda, spinach pakoda (fried spinach again with yoghurt and spicy sauces), pani puri (a crunchy empty ball filled with a spicy/sweet liquid...it fills-explodes rather-your mouth with this intense taste...some like it, I felt like puking, but then again, my small mouth can't handle overexpansion;), some yummy chai, and another sweet fried cheeseball with the yoghurt and spicy sauces on top..very interesting although can't say I'll miss the latter two too much. and then there are yummy samosas, and fried peppers with curried potato mix, and all sorts of sweets....ahhh, yes, they will be sorely missed. before coming to India, I was in love with curries...and now, I can't say it's my favorite Indian food. I think I've had my fill of them, although the homemade ones are soo much more tasty than in restaurants. The streetfood however, is to die for. There seem to be many good places to eat in Bombay (where we are headed next, after our 22 hour nonstop bus ride, starting tomorrow morning), and I'm getting excited. Apparently there is a large population of Parsis there (Persian Zoroastrians that left when the Arabs invaded) and they are supposed to have many good restaurants, so I'm excited to try them. I was excitedly talking about Bombay the other night, and Ali was like "but it's a lot farther south and it will be soo hot down there" to which I immediately replied "yeah, but we'll be eating the entire time anyways [in ac restaurants]"...she burst out laughing. For two food lovers, we've been known by the other tourists to be on the gourmet travelling trip across India. not too shabby of a reputation by any means;) Anyhoo, off to the beach now. we're trying to rent a moped to travel around the island...only $2 a day! so let's hope we survive safely;)

Udaipur

We spent an awesome couple of days in Udaipur, a chill town in southern Rajastan province. It was a nice break from the busy, intense cities. It is also known as the city of lakes, as it has a few...but due to the lack of much rain in the past few monsoon seasons, they were just a couple of smelly, dirty ponds...still nice to look at however. Went and saw the sunset from a palace up on a big hill, then checked out a palace and haveli. We met up with the Sputch and Argentinian couples again and had a blast....we all signed up for a cooking course together and learned how to make 3 Indian dishes, along with rice, chapati, parantha, and a yummy desert (golab jamun). It was by far the best Indian food I have ever eaten...so many flavors, and so fresh and not so greasy...you could actually taste the individual spices and vegetables as well as nuts. We were all in heaven except for the Argentinian girl who complained the whole time about it being too spicy (apparently she does this every meal). It was a great experience and really good to have a home-cooked meal finally. I think that in the past 3 weeks, I have only had meat twice...and honestly, there are soo many yummy veggy dishes here, that I don't really miss it. People are much friendlier now and helpful...and when you say no to something, they usually listen on the first attempt, rather than following us around for 5 minutes. Took the sleeper bus to Diu last night, which was soo much better than the train. It was warm and we had our own little cubby hole to lie down in. Diu is an island off the coast of Gujarat province and so far, so good. Ali's got a bit of an upset stomach now, but hopefully we can rent bikes and bike around the island. They are also supposed to have some nice beaches, so it'll be good to relax the next few days. Tonight our hostel has a barbeque with fresh fish, so it should be fun. We are staying in an old church that has been converted to a hostel...Diu apparently was a Portugese colony so the church was from then I believe. Anyhoo, hope you are all doing well and not freezing too much (it's probably in the 80-90s here...and it's only February!)

Reflections thus far...

So things are going much better over here...morale is high;) I think the golden triangle of Delhi, Agra and Jaipur should really be the devil's triangle; the rest of India is so much more pleasant. They are just noisy, polluted cities full of people trying to get as much money from you as possible and they are very good at lying....make you feel like they are genuinely good people trying to help you, until you realize that their uniform is crap, their map false, their cards fake, their government position fake, and every word they uttered completely false. One even went so far as to say there are no buses in Rajastan! Anyhoo, we have come to the realization (along with every other backpacker that we have met...the old folks going on secluded tours dont count as they are in a perfect bliss since they never really interact with an Indians) that every Indian that approaches you is to be assumed to be lying and untrustworthy...and sadly, this has worked wonders to protect us. It is rather unfortunate that it has to be this way, but we've let our guard down many times, and every time we are trampled and used again. I've found the best way to deal is to have a smile on my face and joke around the whole time...things are much more enjoyable for everyone that way.

So some interesting things I've noticed:
sunday/monday is used by shopkeepers to refer to a reversible clothes item
"no hurry no worry, no chicken no curry" is a common saying, along with "anything is possible in India" which is totally true, I might add
men pee constantly on the side of the streets, which contributes to the ever present smell of urine...they even have little "urinals" on the sides of streets which are just protected by a little wall, but you can see everything inside...most don't bother to use them though and simply go wherever they feel the urge...which is intrigueing to me, as it seems that in some regards they have a very conservative culture...but maybe these are just people from the lower classes?

Anyhoo, we've met some wonderful people...a spanish/dutch couple and argentinian couple, whom we've been seeing over the past week and having a blast with. Tonight we have a cooking course together, so it should be fun. The "sputch" couple are medical students and lots of fun to be around...very calm and level headed. the argentinians however, are a hoot...the guy is very calm and laid back, whereas the girl is "just crazy" as the spanish guy says. they were all on the night train with us, except they were in a more expensive cabin...the argentinian girl saw a rat, and got mad when the spanish guy told her it was a just a small mouse...then she went up to her top bunk and saw her pillow and wall infested with cock roaches...apparently at this point she flipped out, and screaming, ran out of the train. her bf rand after her and they ended up hiring a car to the next town;) haha, we had some good laughs about that. apparently the dutch girl simply took out her contacts and went to bed pretending she couldn't see anything...very brave if you aske me;) we had some crackers and bananas for breakfast in a plastic bag which I had placed on the bunk by my head on the train...in the morning we discovered the crackers partly eaten (and plastic wrapper too) as well as parts of the bannanas;) the animals in this country are very well off;) this morning we saw cows on the street with chapatis, and the bus driver through out bread for monkeys on the side of the road as we went. not a bad place to be if you're an animal.

anyhoo, it has taking much longer than usual to adjust, but I think we have finally managed. It's nice to talk to other experienced travellers and realize that we are all in the same boat. At least it seems that now we are finally outsmarting the others and taking better care to protect ourselves, and our money:) anyways...off to cooking some yummy Indian food now!

Jaisalmer

Today was India at its greatest. It was by far our most amazing day yet. We met soo many kind people, laughed very hard, and had some delicious food. what more could you possibly want? First of all, let me just sat that Indian shopkeepers tell you things are reversible, but they just don't simply say reversible, they say "look madam, this skirt, sunday/monday" and then they flip it around. tres cute. We met a little girl who was selling bracelets (of which we had just bought a bunch) and she tried to have us get more. We joked around and tried to sell ours to her. At first she started out at 10 bracelets, 100 rupees, and then went up to 3000 rupees;) it was so cute and we were all laughing a lot. then she helped us put the bracelets on, and many Indian families stopped and came up to us laughing and saying that they weren't bracelets but were anklets. We walked around town some more and some women passed us laughing hysterically. They tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to our "bracelets" and laughed. It was cute. Then we met a really nice shop keeper who was super nice and ended up just giving us cute little coin purses for free. Then we met a group of kids who wanted to take their picture with us....they asked if we were married and then shook our hands (the guys anyways). Their little brother who was probably around 5 then got really excited and shook my hand (trying to marry me;) and then ran off all very shyly. It was funny. They were quite crazy kids. We went into a shop and became friends with Nana (aka brad pitt;) who was an awesome guy. He practically showed us everything in the store and when it came time to bargain, he whipped out his calculator...I was like no no no, put that away. We'll play a game like "who wants to be a millionaire"...you can use your calculator once, your phone once, and your friend once, but otherwise you have to use your head for the price. He was a little worried about this and kept trying to go for the calculator...it was very fun and we eventually ended up getting the stuff...these people are crazy bargainers and are very serious...at one point they really seemed to get pissed at us for offering a price that they thought was too low...whatever, they wanted over a $100 for a few scarves and shirts! and then on our way back to the hotel, we met an awesome family...the kids were outside playing badminton and we stopped and had chai in their house and talked for over an hour...they soon discovered my camera and were having a blast taking photos and dressing Ali and I up...it was a lot of fun. One man from delhi stopped by and started talking to me about Hinduism and the medical problems in Rajasthan (he found out about my wanting to be a doctor) and was telling me about the problems caused by fluoride in the water. all in all it was a wonderful day and we met so many kind people that our impression of India has drastically improved...I mean, I knew all along that the tourist people were probably not good representations of Indians, but there were soo many of them and they were such good liars and cheats that it was very difficult to keep a positive head about it.

anyhoo, Jaisalmer has been awesome. It's a smaller town (population about 60000) in the desert...we spent yesterday out in the desert and Ali went for a camel ride in the sand dunes. We went with a spanish couple who we've been with the past few days and a couple of Aussie sisters and we all had a blast. We've gotten hooked on an Indian show called "dance India dance" which is basically like american idol but for dancing. It's pretty fun to watch them dance. There was a guy on the other night who had gimp legs..no problem, he stuck them behind his head and dance on his hands! it was amazing and he was actually really really good. We went to a Bollywood film...saw Rab nivada di jodi....pretty cool movie and didn't need to know Hindi to understand it;) the clothes and dances were amazing. and best of all, we've eaten some really good Indian food finally:) stopped taking the advice of Indians and went by the guidebooks;)

we're off tonight on the night train to Jodhpur. hopefully it's not as exciting as the last one. it was freezing cold. there was this guy that was the most amazing (and annoying) snorer ever and kept me up most of the night. I finally fell asleep in the early morning only to be woken up early by somone sitting on my feet on my bed...this had happened a few times during the night and I would get up to find someone sitting at the end of my bed staring at me. pissed and tired, I didn't even get up but simply gave them a very firm nudge with my knees...they moved farther down my bed, to which I proceeded with a very strong kick. they got a bit pissed but got up finally to which I was very happy;) they don't have much sense of personal space here I think which can be abit difficult for us. anyhoo, hope it's better this time and I don't get a bottom bunk right in the hallway;) we will sorely miss Jaisalmer.

Vinod and the Taj

Man. I've done a fair bit of traveling lately, but I've never been beaten down like India. It's way intense. Talking to other traveler's it seems like they're in the same boat. There's SOOOO many people, animals, cars, rickshaws, bikes, camels, cows, dogs, bisons and more wandering the streets...you name it, they've probably got it. I think that traditional backpacking is probably very difficult to do your first trip in India...at least through the touristy areas and with limited time. All the other backpackers we've run across have relented and gone through travel agencies to book drivers, trains and/or hotels. Should've probably booked the tix back home, but who can plan for a 3 week trip months in advance? With my ever changing moods, it's just not feasible. Anyhoo, things are on the up and up. We've (thank god) gotten out of crazy Delhi and into slightly less crazy Jaipur (with a stopover in Agra). And our moods have considerably increased. It's not that we were in a bad mood before, but we were a little on edge. Didn't know who to trust or what was legit or not. So far, so good though. For me, I'm just concentrating on breathing;) After my stomach troubles, they conveniently proceeded into a cold, complete with sore throat, drippy nose, and fatigue. I feel like a semi has hit me, and breathing all the polluted air is a huge relief;)

We've had a driver (Vinod) the past few days and he's been awesome. Tells lots of funny stories and looks out after us giving us advice and who to avoid and such. Ali and he always sing "from Chandni Chowk to China" (a recent Bollywood hit) and he's taken to calling her China. The other day she was sleeping in the backseat, and he asked me "is China sleeping?" pretty hilarious. Told me a story yesterday about a Japanese tourist that came and saw a few semis tipped over on the side of the road and was wondering what happened. He told her that they don't have jacks in India to change tires, so they flip the semis over to change the tires....she believed him until he started laughing!! Seems like everywhere I go the locals have funny stories to tell about the Japanese tourists;) He told us how they fly to India just to take a picture of the Taj Mahal and then go right back! He told one guy that a temple was the Taj Mahal...the guy proceeded to take a ton of photos of it and was ready to go back to Delhi! How can you not know what the Taj Mahal looks like, and still fly all the way over to see it?! pretty crazy to me. Anyhoo, Vino's been awesome. and the Taj Mahal...wow, words cannot express how beautiful it was. I'm usually not a fan of huge touristy sties, but this one was incredible. So simply and elegant yet very majestic and detailed. Simply heavenly;) Michelle, Ali and I were all lost for words.

So being an obvious tourist here and going to touristy areas, we've gotten a lot of harassing to buy stuff. Rather than be rude and grumpy about it, it's been a lot of fun to joke around with them, and it makes my day to get a smile from them in return...I'm sure they can't enjoy the grumpy tourists all day long;) So I try to make it fun for both of us, as annoying as it is. I've learned a few Hindi words which has done wonders. One kid was shocked and said "oh Hindi" and left us alone. One persistently buggy kid I told "bas" which means enough, to which he thought a minute and then responded with "bas station is over there madam" to which we both burst out laughing and left on a very cheery note. Another kid I told him I would take his touristy gift for free, to which he laughed and shook my hand good bye. And then there was the cutest little boy in the mosque in Fatehpour Sikri, an ancient abandoned town. He was 8 and knew a few words in lots of languages, even Farsi! He was such a good little salesman and spoke so convincingly I burst out laughing...he was also very persistant. I couldn't resist and gave him and his older brother some gum. Another bunch of boys saw him chewing gum and asked me for some to which the little boy said "no madam has no gum" (which I clearly did since he had been with me for about 15 minutes in which he had gotten the gum)...after realizing it was obvious that I did have some gum and gave it to him he quickly changed his story to "madam has only 5 pieces of gum, to which she has already given to 5 little boys!" what a little shaytun! I always seem to fall for the cute little boys though and he was quite a character.

Did a bit of shopping today. I've never been a huge fan of bargaining, but apparently I've learned some from you dad. I kept talking the guy down and didn't budge much and eventually got it down to a very reasonable level. I was happy but wasn't quite sure how much it actually went for so I asked Vinod and he said the shopkeeper told him in Hindi that I was very smart;) so apparently it went alright. Too bad we were to shocked to do it for our tour;) oh well, you live you learn right?

Unfortunately, (and this really is the saddest thing of all) Ali and I have yet to eat really good Indian food...in fact, I would say so far it's been much better at home. Since becoming sick, I haven't been able to stomach it too much and the stuff we've eaten is just touristy garbage. I'm looking forward to trying some local places again soon once I'm feeling up to par. Tomorrow though we're going to see a Bollywood film in the cinema, so we're super stoked. Jaipur has a beautiful palace and we got to see them preparing to shoot a new Bollywood film inside it....was pretty cool to watch the preparations for it. Anyhoo, here's to better Indian food in the near future.

India 1: Eman 0

Day one in India....Delhi 1, Eman 0. yup, I got a bad case of "Delhi belly" which basically means that the paneer and egg curry kicked my buttay last night. Add on top of that the horrible stressfulness of Delhi without train/hostel tickets and I ran all out of energy. I think if I write anything now it is not going to be too pleasant, so I'm just gonna hold off until later. suffice it to say, todaywas a nightmare, with everyone trying to hound you to go to their office. Even unofficial travel agancies claim to be official government places and "officials" with uniforms on and id's come up to "help" you, but its all a prank. mmmmmeeeehhhh....well we ended up booking all our hostels and train tickets for the rest of our staypretty much and we know we got jipped but retrospectively its nottooo much money for usand it'll be better than being hassled everywhere we go. Needless to say it was a big awakening for us. met a nice older lady who's an experienced traveller who is just as frustrated as us, but we're all happy now;) gonna go see the taj mahal tomorrow, so should be fun!! anyhoo, India so far has been comforting as it is way more develpoped than nepal, which is good after so much time with little electricity. hopefully the next few days will be more relaxing and better for my tummy;) cheerio!

Kathmandu

Kathmandu. I don't know where to begin, other than to say I've never been to a capital city without a street light. Yes, in the entire downtown area I have failed to see one. Imagine Tehran, but with narrow streets and many more motorcycles zipping around. And no sidewalks, so people walking on the sides of the road. Amazingly they are quite "good" drivers because they utilize the horn and aggressive driving skills to finnagle their way cross town. There are all sorts of sounds and smells as well that I never thought to encounter in such a big city. The rooster wakes us up in the morning, and the dogs are plentiful. In addition, a lovely aroma is released when they dig up the dirt streets to unplug the sewage system, essentially "repaving" the dirt road with a darker, more intense smelling type of dirt;) Pardon my French, but that's a very sh**y job. no pun intended.

The tallest building in town is, I believe, only about 5 stories tall. Ali and I climbed up to the monkey temple (named bc of the monkeys that wander around it, stealing food;) a few days ago, which sits on a lovely hill so it has amazing views of Kathmandu Valley. In all directions, as far as the eye can see, there are buildings. They say about 2-3 million people live there, but I would venture perhaps more. Apparently Nepal has more citizens than Australia, with a population of about 26 million. Quite a lot for such a small country. Many people live in rural areas and support themselves off the land. Hiking in the foothills was amazing as we got to see all the terraced hills where they grow many types of vegetation including corn, carrots, potatoes, herbs, rice and more. Viewing the open air meat butchers though has turned me into a vegetarian, at least here. I don't see how the driving cars and flies and open sewage system can add healthfully to the protein;) Houses in the countryside are simple, but better built than in Tanzania....probably due to the heavy rains during the monsoon season. They are mostly out of brick and wood, although poorer people simply have metal siding. They even have electricity way out in the boonies, and I had a hotter shower in the farthest town of our trek than in Kathmadu itself! Although this could be due to the electricity shortages they are experiencing. Ali's Nepali "family" attributed it to the Maoist insurgents in the government who have recently taken more power, however we met a few university grad students yesterday who vehemently denied this and said it was simply due to the lack of rain. I suspect this was due to the fact that they were wary of openly discussing politics (we were in a small local joint, where we ate samosas, tibetan bread, some chick pea soup, and a sweet desert for a whopping $1!) or else they supported the Maoists. Anyhoo, there is suspicion that they are selling electricity to India, as they have never had such sever electricity shortages before until the Maoists took power. Apparently Nepal has huge potential for generating electricity from the water, however they have insufficient means to capture it and the Indians were willing to help if they could get 80% of the power generated...not a fair deal by any means. They are supposedly looking for aid to help them develop better means to obtain the energy. Anyhoo, enough politics.

On our hike we went to Machupuchchre, or Fish Tail mountain, in the Annapurna Mountains of the Himalayas. It was magnificent. We got to see the sunrise from Poon Hill with great views of the range, and then hiked "through" the clouds! Ali unfortunately got a little altitude sickness as we hiked up 4000 feet in one day-the suggested safe range is 1-2000 feet! Luckily she got some gatorade and food in her and got better shortly. Cooking on the trek was tasty, although much I suspect was due to the huge amount of calories we were burning. They made most of the food with ketchup...need I say more. Arman, you would have loved it;) The people are very tolerant religion wise....Buddist, Hindus and Muslims get along sans problem and they seem to be a fairly religious group of people. Temples everywhere, (with lots of people praying) and Buddist prayer flags flying throughout the country. A cool thing we saw on the trek was a corn mill powered by a little creek. It was pretty cool to see how it worked and eventually I'll post the picture.

Yesterday we headed out to Baktapur, an historic town with lots of beautiful old buildings. They are famous for their curd (yogurt) and make a very delicious sweet yogurt. The buildings had amazing wood carving in them...very detailed and beautiful. We also saw them making pots...the "wheel" was literally a wheel....a big fat tire wheel that and old man spun fast with a stick before he proceeded to throw the pots. He managed to produce amazing pots in that one spinning of the wheel. I've never been so impressed, especially knowing just how difficult it is to actually make a pot on an electric wheel! It was a whole family affair as the men pounded the clay, the women dried the pots in the sun and attended to the details. It was really cool to see.

So after 10 days in Nepal, I've managed to learn a meager amount of Nepali. I learned a very important phrase though from our guide Chhining- beware of cat is "biralu hernu." He was so scared of them, it was quite funny. Whenever we passed by one he would put a good 10 feet between himself and the cat. Namaste is the greeting, malaicuchilai is nice to meet you, tapaicostohonuncha is how are you, peribedhonla is by, dhanevat is thank you, boklagyo is are you hungry, dherai mitucha is very delicious, dherai ramrocha is very beautiful, garmi is warm, jado is cold, and titcha is ok. A very cool sounding language and hard to separate the words as they put them all together when they speak. Apparently they can understand Hindi and only differ in the pronounciation of the words. They can watch Hindi movies/music/tv with no problems.

Anyhoo, we're off to Delhi today. All in all, Nepal will be missed although I can't quite say that for Kathmandu;) The countryside is absolutely gorgeous though and the people super friendly and helpful. It's the only place I've been to where the locals make sure you don't get ripped off when riding in a microbus. They actually harangue the ticket guy until he gives you your proper change back!

Nepal

I've been in Nepal for a week now, and I think it's safe to say the Nepali are some of the nicest people I have met. My first encounter was meeting Ali at the airport and getting a cab to our hostel. I was dead tired and the guy asked me if I had been to Nepal before. Through his accent, all I heard was "are you very poor?" to which I paused, a little confused, and then responded emphatically "yes I'm poor, I don't have a job!" He just burst out laughing hysterically with his friends and they were like, man that's gonna be a great story for your friends;) Kind of a funny response given I'm in one of the poorest countries in the world;) anyhoo, the people here are awesome. There are no lewd comments, not too much ripping off, and usually just a general sense of interest. The plane from Bahrain to Kathmandu was interesting...I was definitely the tallest of all the girls and probably the same height as the tallest men. It was a flight packed with Nepali workers returning home....out of 300 passengers I was the only white one. They boarded the women first and when an airport worker saw that I had an American passport, he (embarassingly) let me ahead of everyone else and I was given a business class seat. It felt like a party on the plane although I didn't understand a word. Kathmandu is a very dusty city...not much like a capital you'd picture. There are monkeys, dogs, cows, chickens and more roaming around the dirt streets. buildings are only a few stories tall, but it is a pretty large city. I quickly learned that they drive on the "other" side of the street, which I hadn't known. Things are cheap here. We've hit my record (and probably forever) alltime low of a whopping $1.33 for one night at a hostel. I was pretty impressed. The main food Nepali eat is Dhal-Baat. It's basically rice with a lentil stew, and they serve it to you with some chapati, veggie cury and some pickled dishes. Pretty yummy. They eat it twice a day, for lunch and dinner, and usually only have a cup of milk tea for breakfast.

Ali and I just finished a 5-day trek through the Annapurna circuit....It had amazing views of the himilayas. We hiked about 4-6 hours per day and got extremely tired by the end as it was mostly straight up and then straight down. We still have pain when we walk and get up;) Met an amazing girl from Vancouver though who we spent the first 3 days with, which made for some amuzing conversations as we walked. Our guide, Chhining, whom Ali found through her volunteering at the orphanage, was the kindest boy. He always laughed at my attempts to speak Nepali:) I once said "Nepal dherai mitocha" which I meant to be "Nepal is beautiful" but which really was "Nepal is delicious!" He was very amused. Everytime I said something he couldn't understand, he just smiled an enormous smile and laughed. All in all things are going well here. We've eaten some amazing cheap food...moma (dumplings), noodle soups, and chapati being some of my favorites. They have yak cheese too which is sort of a miz of mozarella and parmesian, and is yummy. We also had fresh milk this morning up in a small village in the mountains which was quite delicious. More to come later...we still have a few more days left in Nepal before heading on to Delhi...hope you all are doing well!