Tehran

Made it to Tehran, sans problems a few weeks ago. Things have been going well and the weather is great…I’ve been doing a lot of swimming lately, and my favorite place is the Simorgh hotel. They have the four nicest ladies working there…always asking if I need anything and making sure I can make it back home ok. There isn’t hardly anyone there during the week and I pretty much have the place to myself. Which is sweet, cuz once you get one other Persian in the pool, the order goes to the sky;) The other day I was swimming laps, and this one girl comes in and starts swimming perpendicular to me…unawares, I ended up running into her. Then a third girl came in, and the genius started swimming diagonally across the pool. Mumbling wonderful words under my breadth, I started swimming in circles;)

Went to school with my aunt one day..she teaches chemistry to high schoolers. The girls were adorable and absolutely went crazy when I came…I spent the morning in the gym talking and playing badminton and ping pong. As soon as I’d walk out into the courtyard, the girls in the classrooms would see me and start screaming and run out, grab my arm and shove me into their room…at which point the teacher would shoo me out. It was pretty crazy…I couldn’t stop them they literally shoved me along. Nice girls though and we had a long conversation where they questioned me about the US and what I thought about Iran. It’s an all girls school where they have to wear chadors to school, and even though there are no men in the place, they still have to wear scarves in class (I was told to get them used to it??) They told me it wasn’t a big deal for them at all though and they were really used to it. They were very curious about school and hw in the US, how much make up girls wear, what movies/music I like, and which place I thought was better. I had a lovely Eman moment while playing badminton where I did a skillful fall flat on my face after going after the birdie and tripping over some box on the ground and crashing into the wall. Not bragging or anything but I think it would have earned me a 10 at the Olympics. They were pretty worried about me after that and didn’t leave me alone much;) After one of the other chem. teachers found out I was also a chem. major, she went off on a 10 min speal really fast in farsi about chem. in Iran, and then she asked me if it was the same in the US, and I was like “uhh…ozmikham?” she was a little annoyed, so I just said “are are, chemie tuye amrika mesle injust”…she wasn’t very satisfied. She then asked me to read some chemistry paper in English, and then had me sit and listen to her try to read it, which was hilarious and I was biting my lip very hard trying not to laugh. Another hilarious thing is how they pronounce IBprofen….I made my aunt say it about 20 times the other day and I was rolling on the floor crying my eyes out….”ibb booo pruuuu feeeeen”said really fast and with a thick accent. I have to capture it on video for yall. Ridiculously hilarious. My aunt then said, “eman jan, man sarma khordam, maghkse man kar mikone uncorrectly” which sent me back rolling on the floor. I can’t be too harsh though, my Persian is nowhere near to perfect. I’ll leave the details out=)

Today is the first day of Nowruz, or Persian New Year and I’ve never seen Tehran like this before. It’s amazing….a city of roughly 15 million with horrible traffic/drivers, is deadly silent. The streets are empty and it’s so peaceful. The weather is beautiful sunny and in the 60-70s, and you can look up the tree lined vali-e-asr street by my aunt’s house and see the snowcapped mountains. Gorgeous. The past week has been full of people scrambling around shopping like during xmas. Wednesday night was chahar shambe souri which is where people out in the streets explode fireworks and jump over bonfires in the streets. A few days before I saw a boy no more than 5 warming up with one that shot fireworks about 20 ft….he was kheyli shaytoon and instead of shooting them into the air, started shooting them off horizontally and almost hit two girls walking farther down the sidewalk.

After the past month and half of horrid nescafes, I am spoiled with one of the best coffee shops I’ve ever been to. Amazing espresso that without fail keeps me up to 4 am. It’s soo good, and those of you who know me will be shocked to know that its so good I can drink it without adding sugar;) yes, it’s quite a feat;) anyhoo, my dad comes in a few days, and it’ll great to have my laptop finally…and see him of course=) hope yall are doing well…send me some emails…and for those of you wondering why I’m ignoring your facebook messages, facebook is blocked in Iran, sorry;(