Birthday

Last Wednesday was my birthday. I turned 22. It was a very strange day here in Tehran, and it was certainly the most unique birthday I've had so far.

I got up as usual, getting ready for the day. My roomate made me tasty chocolate biscuits to go with breakfast.

Work was strange. I spent almost the entire day alone in the office.
Why?

On 4 November 1979, Iranian students stormed the American Embassy and took the people inside hostage for 444 days. This year marked the 30th anniversary of that, and the young people this time were out, protesting the current government again. They haven't had a proper chance to do this in months.

So I was alone in the office because one of my collegues lives near a main trouble spot, so he had to stay at home. It was just far too risky to be out on the street. My other collegue didn't come in at all, and it wasn't til that night that he called me to say he'd been at another trouble spot, and had been affected by tear gas.

Finally 5pm rolled around and I headed home. I was under guidance to pack for a normal weekend, and to wear something nice.

The first thing that happened was that I was taken to get my ears pierced. It's been years since I've worn earrings, so it was nice to see them with little stones in there again.

We drove around for an hour, often passing the same places more than once, but no-one would say a word about what we were doing.

Finally we arrived at our regular awesome restaurant, Hafeziere. We headed upstairs, where I was greeted with a bunch of my friends singing 'Happy Birthday'! Complete with a coffee-flavoured cake, candles ablaze.

We had a wonderful dinner, laughing and enjoying ourselves. When it came to cut the cake, my friends did a traditional 'knife dance'... it's Persian dancing, but with the cake knife. Every time I tried to take it, it was danced away again. It was good fun. Finally, I had the knife, and made the cut. Suddenly, I watched my friend dig his hand into my cake. I had just enough time to think, "What the hell is he doing?" before I found cake all over my face! Another Iranian birthday tradition!

We shared the giant cake with some other folk who were having dinner on the other side of the restaurant. We were being pretty loud, and by that stage I'd also heard the Persian Version of the Happy Birthday song.

Well, the people to whom we gave the cake came over and wished me well. A large, well dressed man (complete with red bow tie, no less) said that he couldn't let the birthday girl go without having Happy Birthday sung in Italian! The man, Aldo, had a wonderful voice, and it was such a quirky surprise.

I received some wonderful gifts from my new friends too, I'm very lucky.

The evening ended soon enough. If we'd been at home of course, we would have headed out to while away the night somewhere dark and loud. But, alas, there's nothing like that to be found in Tehran, so instead we headed home.

I spent the rest of the weekend doing not a great deal, just relaxing. I don't think I'll see another birthday like that! (photos to come)