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!