Well that's another weekend over. They seem to go so quickly!
It's 8.30am, I should start getting ready for work, but I'll get to that in a minute.
This last week has been quite uneventful. After Floor's departure, we settled into a new routine, where the awesome foursome spent the whole time looking around for the missing wheel.
Sadly, Renee goes home tomorrow, leaving the awesome threesome (yeah, it doesn't rhyme) to become the terrible two.
We spent the weekend at Sepehr's place again (I think this is well and truly my second home, and my second family). Our plan was to see the museums etc in Tehran before Renee left, but unfortunately she became quite ill, so we headed to Sepehr's instead.
We became couch potatoes - watching movies allllll day and doing nothing. Was good for the soul :) Iftar was the best thing about the whole day though - I hadn't eaten/had water in about 18 hours (I couldn't sleep the night before, so I had breakfast at 2.30am...don't ask).
I don't know what's going on, but my body-clock is definitely out of whack. We got into Tehran at about 8.30 yesterday morning, which was fine, but I was exhausted because I'd barely slept the night before. So I lie down for a 20 minute power nap before getting ready for work and guess what? I woke up at 1.30 this morning.
That's 17 hours of straight sleep. (And a missed day of work grrr). It was so stupid. So there I am, at 1.30am, wondering what the hell to do! I tried going back to sleep, but it didn't work, funnily enough. So I've been up since then, doing not much.
It's Renee's going away party tonight, so that should be good fun. Then HOPEFULLY I'll be able to get a decent night's sleep.
any tips for getting good sleep is well appreciated.
xoxo Khodafez
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Ramadan and goodbye
Ramadan Mubarak!
It's the beginning of the lunar month of Ramadan, the month where Muslims around the world fast between dawn and dusk.
I'm doing it too :) It involves waking up at 4am to eat a good breakfast (called Suhoor), and finishing off a litre of water or so. If you like, you can go back to bed - the more industrial folks start their day from there.
Then it's no food, water, smokes, sex or anything else until after sunset. Then it's time for Iftar - the breaking of the fast. Traditionally begun with three dates and a glass of water, the practice has evolved into big family gatherings with crazy amounts of delicious food.
So what's my experience so far?
This is only the second day, but I'm enjoying it so far. There was a fair sense of community in the dorms yesterday morning, there were a lot of girls all up together cooking breakfasts. The day went well, I didn't do too much, so I didn't notice anything really different. As it got closer and closer to 8.30pm, when I knew I could break the fast, I got hungrier and hungrier!
I bought some dates from a street seller, in preparation. I was still out in the main street of Karaj looking at perfume (of all things, and not for me!) with Sepehr, Floor and Renee. Sepehr asked the fellow if the time was over, and he said it was. Then he called his friend over and asked him to get me some tea!
So I found myself standing in the street, being given tea, croissant, chocolate cream (yum!), bread and dates. It really was lovely, and very unexpected!
This morning's Suhoor was eaten in the car on the way to the airport. We had to drop Floor there so she could catch a 7am flight home to the Netherlands. Floor's an amazing girl, she really had an impact on all of us. Thankfully, she is returning to Iran in about 3 weeks, to continue working with AIESEC, mainly focusing on External Relations. With luck, I'll be sharing a dorm with her, and that will be perfect.
Dear Renee goes home next Monday also. This is the true peril of AIESEC - we send people all over the world in order for them to get to know each other, and then the internship ends and we send them home!! It's a heartbreaker every time, but knowing I'll see most of them again next year in Germany (woot) makes a massive difference.
Well, I'd better drag my thirsty butt back to work.
xoxo
It's the beginning of the lunar month of Ramadan, the month where Muslims around the world fast between dawn and dusk.
I'm doing it too :) It involves waking up at 4am to eat a good breakfast (called Suhoor), and finishing off a litre of water or so. If you like, you can go back to bed - the more industrial folks start their day from there.
Then it's no food, water, smokes, sex or anything else until after sunset. Then it's time for Iftar - the breaking of the fast. Traditionally begun with three dates and a glass of water, the practice has evolved into big family gatherings with crazy amounts of delicious food.
So what's my experience so far?
This is only the second day, but I'm enjoying it so far. There was a fair sense of community in the dorms yesterday morning, there were a lot of girls all up together cooking breakfasts. The day went well, I didn't do too much, so I didn't notice anything really different. As it got closer and closer to 8.30pm, when I knew I could break the fast, I got hungrier and hungrier!
I bought some dates from a street seller, in preparation. I was still out in the main street of Karaj looking at perfume (of all things, and not for me!) with Sepehr, Floor and Renee. Sepehr asked the fellow if the time was over, and he said it was. Then he called his friend over and asked him to get me some tea!
So I found myself standing in the street, being given tea, croissant, chocolate cream (yum!), bread and dates. It really was lovely, and very unexpected!
This morning's Suhoor was eaten in the car on the way to the airport. We had to drop Floor there so she could catch a 7am flight home to the Netherlands. Floor's an amazing girl, she really had an impact on all of us. Thankfully, she is returning to Iran in about 3 weeks, to continue working with AIESEC, mainly focusing on External Relations. With luck, I'll be sharing a dorm with her, and that will be perfect.
Dear Renee goes home next Monday also. This is the true peril of AIESEC - we send people all over the world in order for them to get to know each other, and then the internship ends and we send them home!! It's a heartbreaker every time, but knowing I'll see most of them again next year in Germany (woot) makes a massive difference.
Well, I'd better drag my thirsty butt back to work.
xoxo
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Office Party (we wish)
Saman (my boss) left to Malaysia for International Congress, AIESEC's largest conference of the year. So while he is meeting all these wonderful new people, (including my friends!), experiencing new cultures, and learning a whole bunch of cool stuff (nah, it's cool, I'm not jealous), we are left behind in the office.
Last weekend was spent at Sepehr's place, doing approximately bugger all. It was so good to just chill out. We watched movies, ate food, all that normal weekend stuff. It felt great! I met his parents, his sister and brother in law, his grandmothers and his auntie. Massive weekend of family time, which was really good, because I'm starting to miss my family a lot.
My language skills are improving slowly. I know more words than I can count on two hands, and can put little things together. It's mostly just words though, little snippets. Sara (Sepehr's sister) was telling a story, and I was so surprised to realise that I could understand it! My reading skills are still pretty crap, I just need a lot more practise. It's not at all helped by the fact that the vowels are invisible in Farsi. They don't write them, so you just have to 'know' if it's an 'ah' 'eh' or 'oh' vowel between the consonants.
The daily life stuff is pretty standard. Wake up, go to work, do stuff, go to bed. The evenings usually are filled with coffee shops (yay!) or visits to the park.
This weekend I am planning to lock myself in my room (did I mention my banshee-roomate has gone on holiday for 3 weeks?!) and work on my Training and Assessment qualification. If I don't have it done soon 'bad things will happen'.
That's enough for now. much love.
Last weekend was spent at Sepehr's place, doing approximately bugger all. It was so good to just chill out. We watched movies, ate food, all that normal weekend stuff. It felt great! I met his parents, his sister and brother in law, his grandmothers and his auntie. Massive weekend of family time, which was really good, because I'm starting to miss my family a lot.
My language skills are improving slowly. I know more words than I can count on two hands, and can put little things together. It's mostly just words though, little snippets. Sara (Sepehr's sister) was telling a story, and I was so surprised to realise that I could understand it! My reading skills are still pretty crap, I just need a lot more practise. It's not at all helped by the fact that the vowels are invisible in Farsi. They don't write them, so you just have to 'know' if it's an 'ah' 'eh' or 'oh' vowel between the consonants.
The daily life stuff is pretty standard. Wake up, go to work, do stuff, go to bed. The evenings usually are filled with coffee shops (yay!) or visits to the park.
This weekend I am planning to lock myself in my room (did I mention my banshee-roomate has gone on holiday for 3 weeks?!) and work on my Training and Assessment qualification. If I don't have it done soon 'bad things will happen'.
That's enough for now. much love.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Another mad weekend
If you had visitors staying with you, and they wanted to see a bit more of the country, would you jump on a bus and go to Melbourne for the weekend??
We did.
Well, the equivalent in distance, anyway. On Wednesday evening we packed our sandwiches and spare undies then jumped on a bus to go to Shiraz, 13 hours away, way down in the south of Iran.
We had a great weekend, the five of us. Saman (Iranian), Sepehr (Iranian), Floor (Dutch), Renee (Dutch) and I.
Shiraz is an awesome little city. It's got the same laid back feel as Adelaide. It made me realise that there is a lot of indirect pressure in Tehran. You feel obliged to have the best clothes and the nicest hair. There are people always yelling, (taxi! taxi! Vanak! Vanak!), trying to stuff flyers in your hands, and you've all heard about the traffic. (I love Tehran and all it's craziness, trust me - I just didn't realise that Iran could be different until now).
So yes. We visited a massive garrison-like castle-looking thing (where's my history book?) of the Zand period.
I think the highlight of the trip was visiting Persepolis. It's the ruins of this kingdom, almost 2500 years old. It really is epic, and the history behind it is amazing. The whole kingdom was built by workers, not slaves. Everyone was paid. The kingdom united 23 different nations. The first Charter of Human Rights was written by the guy that built the place.
Alexander the Great had issues with the Persians, so he came and burnt the whole place down. So all that remains are these giant stone pillars - will upload pictures to FB soon if I have the chance.
The rest of the trip was pretty laid back. Other highlights include:
Eating sheep brain and eye for breakfast. Yep - they have these places called 'head cookers' where they boil sheep heads, and then you get to eat everything. I nearly vomited. The brain had the texture of cream cheese. Sepehr lied to me about what I was eating until after I'd eaten the eye. Bleuch.
Sneaking out to buy breakfast. We missed breakkie at the hotel, so we girls decided to get it for ourselves. (Normally we have our very well intentioned caretakers with us at all times). We found ourselves a bakery and bought fresh sangek (stone bread), then made friends with a shopkeeper and grabbed the rest (fetta, sour-cherry jam, mango juice etc etc).
Changing hotel rooms because there was something seriously wrong with the sewage, which made our entire room stink to high heaven... ugh.
Yes, must history annd hilarity to be had. The only downer the whole trip was on the last day, when Floor and I became terribly sick. We were both just so ill, and the bus trip did not facilitate any kind of recovery at all. But after sleeping it off for most of today, I think I'm good to go.
until next time, Khodafez
We did.
Well, the equivalent in distance, anyway. On Wednesday evening we packed our sandwiches and spare undies then jumped on a bus to go to Shiraz, 13 hours away, way down in the south of Iran.
We had a great weekend, the five of us. Saman (Iranian), Sepehr (Iranian), Floor (Dutch), Renee (Dutch) and I.
Shiraz is an awesome little city. It's got the same laid back feel as Adelaide. It made me realise that there is a lot of indirect pressure in Tehran. You feel obliged to have the best clothes and the nicest hair. There are people always yelling, (taxi! taxi! Vanak! Vanak!), trying to stuff flyers in your hands, and you've all heard about the traffic. (I love Tehran and all it's craziness, trust me - I just didn't realise that Iran could be different until now).
So yes. We visited a massive garrison-like castle-looking thing (where's my history book?) of the Zand period.
I think the highlight of the trip was visiting Persepolis. It's the ruins of this kingdom, almost 2500 years old. It really is epic, and the history behind it is amazing. The whole kingdom was built by workers, not slaves. Everyone was paid. The kingdom united 23 different nations. The first Charter of Human Rights was written by the guy that built the place.
Alexander the Great had issues with the Persians, so he came and burnt the whole place down. So all that remains are these giant stone pillars - will upload pictures to FB soon if I have the chance.
The rest of the trip was pretty laid back. Other highlights include:
Eating sheep brain and eye for breakfast. Yep - they have these places called 'head cookers' where they boil sheep heads, and then you get to eat everything. I nearly vomited. The brain had the texture of cream cheese. Sepehr lied to me about what I was eating until after I'd eaten the eye. Bleuch.
Sneaking out to buy breakfast. We missed breakkie at the hotel, so we girls decided to get it for ourselves. (Normally we have our very well intentioned caretakers with us at all times). We found ourselves a bakery and bought fresh sangek (stone bread), then made friends with a shopkeeper and grabbed the rest (fetta, sour-cherry jam, mango juice etc etc).
Changing hotel rooms because there was something seriously wrong with the sewage, which made our entire room stink to high heaven... ugh.
Yes, must history annd hilarity to be had. The only downer the whole trip was on the last day, when Floor and I became terribly sick. We were both just so ill, and the bus trip did not facilitate any kind of recovery at all. But after sleeping it off for most of today, I think I'm good to go.
until next time, Khodafez
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