Sorry I haven't written in so long!

It's Saturday yet again, so I find myself in the office, getting on top of things before the guys come in. This weekend was lovely, a really good recharge.

We played games (if you were a garden gnome, what would your name be and what colour would your hat be?), chilled out and watched Twilight, again.

Yesterday everyone headed up to hike Tochal, the 'Roof of Tehran'. I stayed at home, because I had a different appointment. A meeting at the Australian Embassy!!

I headed up to the fanciest area of Tehran, mansions everywhere, to find the official Australian Residence. A portion of the expat community gathered to discuss what to do in the event of an earthquake (we are sitting on a fault line, and there was a quake in the south last week). But that took about 15 minutes - the other 2 hours were spent socialising, listening to folks with the same accent as you, talking about where they were from and what on earth they were doing here.

I hadn't spoken to any Aussies in 5 months, and I'd forgotten how much I missed them. I'd also forgotten how to network! I spend most of my days using pidgin- or moderated English, so I found myself a bit rusty speaking in a completely natural, polite way to people.

This week should be a busy one, we are about to come into the busiest period for my area of responsibility.

Lots of love xo

Thursday was a good relaxing day. I tidied up in the morning, swapping emails with mum (hi mum!).

Then I dropped into the Faculty to pick up my salary (No kidding, I got two 1,000,000 Rial notes)

I jumped into a taxi (observation: they are so easy to use, really. I don't know why I was so frazzled before) to Enghelab Sq, on the advice that the place is full of bookshops. I wandered around for ages, questioning my eyesight, before I finally found them all, on the other side of the Square.

I wandered through, 10, 15, 20 shops? all of them full to the brim with books. Most storefronts were displaying how-to-speak-english resources, TEOFL prep packs etc. Dictionaries abounded. I was looking for something to help with my Farsi study, but to no avail. I finally picked up a Farsi-English dictionary, so now I can start to decode the children's book I'm reading...

I inherited 3 novels from my predecessor, and I've read them all twice. I was looking for some fresh material, but no matter how hard I looked, I could not find a single English novel anywhere. It's disorienting to notice that my usual love of bookstores was a little dimmed in this case.

Finally (finally!) I found an english language book, "Great Expectations" by Dickins. I've never really been inspired to read the classics, but I was desperate, so I grabbed it.

More wandering, I came to my favourite coffee place in the whole world (excepting Cibo Rundle St). Translated to "Civilisation Cafe" this place is the bomb. The walls are covered with images of various revolutions (the fall of the Berlin Wall and Tehran 1979 are notable). The vibe is chilled, sometimes there's live music, the hippy guys and gals hang out there, smoke haze wafts around, and the coffee is decent. It's the coolest little place, I could imagine finding it down a Melbournian alley.

I saw out the sunset there, and wandered home.

Last night was grand! Mojdeh gave me a call, so I headed up to Darband with her, Mohammad and some non AIESEC friends of theirs (gasp!). Smoking shisha, drinking coffee and eating cheesecake, followed by dinner in the park. It was just so chilled out, and it's so nice to meet new people. I practice my farsi, and they practice their english, good times. In two weekend's time, I'll be heading to Shomal (the North) for a chillout session with them all, I'm really looking forward to it.

Work is going well, it's challenging to focus on it with all the dorm/visa dramas that have been going on lately. But we're getting there.

A comparative analysis on Tehran and Australian traffic etiquette will follow soon, hopefully :P

taxi fun

Quick story from today:

I had to go down to the Ministry of Alien Affairs again today for visa stuff. (woo).

I got myself down to the junction, and jumped into a taxi ("Tacht Tavos? Merci"). We were cruising along, and suddenly my favourite Iranian song, "Jigili" comes on. So I try to restrain myself from rocking out in the backseat, but it doesn't quite work.

The next track rolls on, "Pure Love", a neat little mix of english and persian lyrics, of which I can sing exactly half. (Guess which half). *continues rocking out as discreetly as possible*

We arrived at Tacht Tevos with no worries. Anyway, I think the driver thought it was a hoot, or he'd just won the lottery or something. Taxi drivers will sometimes refuse to take the payment, because it's polite. Then you have to politely insist they take it, and then they do. Well, this fellow was particularly insistent, "gharbel nadare" over and over. I looked at him, like "are you serious fella?" but he was. I got out, looked at him again, to be sure, but he just smiled and drove off.

I have no idea what that was, but I'm pretty sure it's not a common occurance here!