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