home home home

That's right, I arrived at Adelaide airport at 8am on Monday morning.

Happy to be home, but really missing my life and friends in Tehran.

Will update a lot better soon, but at least you know where I am now :D

time is flying

It's the 19th of May - I leave Iran on the 29th of this month for my new adventure. I have decided where I'm going next and what I'll be doing there, but it's a secret :) I'll let you all know what I'm up to once I get there.

Things have been crazy here, as usual. I had a lot of trouble with work, and the trouble ended up with me not working for the organisation any more. But it's no real problem, because I now have a lot of free time for travelling and enjoying my last weeks here.

I went to a place in the east of Iran over the weekend, to Mashhad. Mashhad is a cool little city. It's main attraction is the Harem, a massive tomb complex all dedicated to, and housing the body of the 8th Imam of Shi'a Islam, Imam Reza. My friend and I had to don chadors (an all-encompassing sheet) to cover all of our bodies except our faces. We walked through the rooms and the courtyards, completely awed by the beauty of the place. We walked through the room where Reza is, watching the devout women scrambling desperatly to reach the golden cage that surrounds his body.

Women and men go there to petition Reza and to pray. People everywhere were reading Quran, praying, crying, and reflecting. It was a powerful sight, and it was strange to be there as an observer, quite disconnected from the emotions and feelings of everyone around us.

I'm back in Tehran now, with just 10 days to go. It's a scary thought, leaving here. I don't really want to. Tehran is my home now, I'm comfortable here, but I'm always learning new things about the culture and religion and politics and history and and and...

My next adventure is going to be awesome, I can't wait for that either. But it's best if I keep that one under my hat until I arrive.

Miss you all xo

Update

Things have been running along as per usual here.

I'm really busy at the moment, I'm focussing on training up Shayda to do a similar job to me, but on a different level. She's really capable, and I know she's going to do a great job at it. I still don't have anyone to take over from me, and it seems like it's a global challenge. National teams all over the network are having trouble filling positions.

It makes our jobs a little more stressful, because at the moment, I have no idea what will happen here after I leave.

Our team is having a few challenges, but nothing unexpected. I haven't seen my boss since February - he went away, then I went away, then it was new year. We're now two weeks into the new year and I still haven't seen him - we think he's on hiatus somewhere.

Apart from that, we had a great time the other night at Floor's birthday party. We danced and sang and ate cake. There were just the right amount of people in their tiny apartment - not too crowded, but not empty either. Iranians know how to have a good time :)

There's really not too much to add for now, I just wanted to say hi again. My term finishes in about 10 weeks, I still haven't guaranteed what I'm doing next, but I don't mind. I'll let you know when I do :)

Take care.

home to Tehran

I've been away for just over a month, and today's the first day back at work, ouch!

I spent about a week in Istanbul with the friends that I mentioned, and it was just the best thing that's happened to me in a very long time. Being able to speak my own language without consideration for the ability of the listener was something that I didn't know I missed. It turns out that my accent has changed - my r's are more American I'm told. I guess it comes with modifying my every day speech.

We went to Gallipoli, and that's something I won't forget. You grow up hearing about this place, you read books about it, watch the movie etc. I always knew I'd go 'one day', but I didn't expect it to be now. I'm so, so glad I went. I'll try to write some more about that later on.

Suddenly the week was over. I packed my bag and headed off to the bus station (the right one this time) and started the looooong journey home.

I arrived in Tehran at about 5am, went home and crashed for a dew hours. I cleaned up and then I got a phone call from a girl who lives in the dorms. She asked me to go with her to stay with her family over the persian new year period. So I picked up my backpack again and jumped on a bus at 6pm for another 12 hours on the road.

Piranshahr is a Kurdish town about 10kms from the border of Iraq. In fact, I can say that I've seen Iraq now, but don't worry, I didn't go there. Strangly enough, it looks just like Iran. Who knew?

I saw a Kurdish wedding, which is a whole lot different to a western wedding for sure. I dressed in Kurdish clothes, and danced Kurdish dances to Kurdish music. I'll try to get the photos and show you all. I stayed with the family for 2.5 weeks. By the end of it I was going a little crazy because it's a lot more conservative out there. I was covering a lot more often and I only left the house 5 times or so in the whole time I was there. Only the girl spoke english, so I was very isolated.

My friends ended up driving to come and rescue me. They picked me up and we spent a couple of days travelling some more through western Iran and then finally back to Tehran again. I spent the last week of the holiday at their apartment, which was wonderful.

And now here I am. It's the first day back at work, and of course the office is empty. I think the boys will be back tomorrow.

It's not long now til I finish up here in Iran. I don't know what I'm going to do next, although I have some ideas. I guess we'll see. But for now I'm just settling back into the routine of everyday life here.

Miss you all.

Adventures continue!

Life is going alright over here.

I've been the only person on my team here for the last week or so, the boys are in Tunisia for a conference.

I'm taking a holiday in a few days. I'm waiting for an exit/re-entry visa. As soon as I get it, I'm literally on the next bus to Istanbul for a week or so. Some awesome friends of mine are all going to be there by some beautiful coincidence. That's the wonder of AIESEC all over again. The four of us have been in different parts of the world for this organisation (Pete - Turkey - internship, Robbie - Tunisia - conference, Jess - the whole world - everything) and we're all just rocking into Istanbul to say hi.

I need it too. I haven't seen a familiar face in 9 months. It doesn't sound thaat long but I'm a people person.

You might've heard that I was going to Jordan too. Plans have changed unfortunately, so I'm not going now. But that's fine, these things happen.

Other than the upcoming travel plans, things have been pretty quiet. Just getting on with things, watching our LC guys be awesome, we're struggling to find people to take up leadership roles, but I think that's a global problem these days.

Lots of love

Back from Conference

Our National Conference is already over! It came and went so quickly, I can hardly believe I'm back in Tehran already.

The conference was on Kish Island, down in the Persian Gulf. It's a small island with lots of things to see and do there.

We stayed in little villas, less than 5 minutes to the beach. I stayed up one night to watch the sunrise over the Gulf on one of the mornings - it was beautiful!

The conference itself didn't quite go as planned, but we still managed to give the delegates the main training that we wanted to.

Our AIESECers are all brilliant. They adapted to the changes realy easily, and they participated fully in the sessions. I know AIESEC Iran is in safe hands when we leave here.

Speaking of leaving here, I am in the middle of arranging my next two travel adventures. At the beginning of March, I'm going to Turkey to see some Australian friends, and then down to Jordan for an AIESEC Conference (MENAXPROs).

After my term ends in June, I'm heading back to Turkey (I'm in love with Turkey) for my internship. The main thing that AIESEC does is organise these exchanges, and I couldn't spend 4 years in this organisation and not do one myself. So I'll go to Bursa, which is about the distance from Istanbul as Clare to Adelaide, and teach English there until the end of November, when I will finally head home to Australia!

I can't wait. 2010 is already shaping up to be an interesting and adventurous year - it's going to be amazing to see what happens.

It's nice to think that I'll be home in 9 months or so. It's really not that long, and the best part is that I'll be home for Christmas!!

Sorry for the delay, guys, things have been hectic.

I'm in the middle of creating the Iran National Conference. It'll be 2-5 February, held on Kish Island, down in the Persian Gulf. It's going to be excellent. I have to find facilitators, create the agenda, the sessions - everything to do with the content of the conference. All the logistics stuff is being taken care of by our wonderful Organising Committee.

We've also had the MCP elections. (MCP = my boss). The current MCP was the only guy running for the next term, but he was not elected. So now we have opened up a second round, but it's going to be difficult to find someone else who is ready and willing to take the job on.

In other news, I've been really lucky to extend my social circles here lately. I've met a lot of Aussies, Brits and Scandanavians (Norwegians, Danes and Fins). I really don't know how we all met, but it's lovely to chat with people who are, or are almost the same as you :P

Other than that, life is pretty constant. I'm working a lot more because of the load, I'm still quite happy in my little dorm, and nothing else new has really happened.

I think I'm due for a holiday. In fact, I'm going to take one. Some friends of mine (Jess and Pete) will be, by some miracle, in Turkey at the same time, in early March. So we've planned to get together somehow, hang out, and head to Gallipoli while we're there. It's going to be amazing.

After Turkey, Jess and I are going to head down to Jordan, where this epic conference is going to be held (MENAXLDS). Jess is a faci, I'm just going as a delegate this time. I really can't wait. I'm considering going by bus, because it's cheaper, and that means I get to go through Syria, which would be cool.

Still no real idea on what's going to happen when I finish my term in June. I am investigating exchange opportunities in Central Eastern Europe, especially the Czech Republic. I might teach English for a while then head home to Australia. We'll see :)

I'll write some more when something interesting happens. xoxo

Chistmas

So my first (last?) Christmas away from home is already over. There was so much anticipation, and now it's gone.

I spent Christmas Eve-day feeling fairly miserable for myself. I moped around the dorm, trying to keep myself occupied. I looked in vain for a live stream of Carols by Candlelight. One thought crossed my mind, "I really wish mum would call, just as the Hallelujah Chorus comes on".

As a background, our family always gathers around the TV on Christmas Eve to pig out on lollies and pretzels while singing along to the carols. We light candles, get crumbs and wax on the carpet, and have a lovely time.

So I was sitting there, watching the clock ticking toward Christmas Day on the website of "The Age" newspaper.

Suddendly my phone rang! It was mum! "Hello darling! Listen to this"... It was the Hallelujah Chorus! I couldn't believe it. I sat there and developed an allergy to the airconditioning.

I was just so amazed that mum had granted my one Christmas wish! It really was magical. So after a lot of nose wiping, we had a chat for 20 minutes, it was just wonderful.

The AIESECers took pity on me and so I ended up at an Armenian cafe, complete with Christmas tree.

Christmas Day was excellent - I couldn't have asked for a better expat Chrissy. I had breakfast in the backyard with Tabiri, my Ghanian teammate, then I headed up to an Aussie Christmas Day with some of the diplomatic community.

We sat around all day being as Aussie as we could, the talk revolving around familiar bars, beers, and anything else that we can't access here! After 8 solid hours of drinking grape juice, I was a little worse for wear, but managed to grab a taxi up to Karaj to see Floor, Sepehr and Bastian for the evening.

So that was it. All over in the blink of an eye. But it was a lot of fun, that's for sure.

Missing you all back home. I'm exactly half way through my term. I know that the next half will fly, but still. xoxoxo

Have a wonderful New Years Eve everyone! See you in 2010!

Safe!

Hi everyone. I know you would have seen the new images of riots happening here over the weekend. It's a sad state of affairs, that's for sure.

Everyone I know is safe and well.

I've never seen people so passionate, so angry before. These people, (my friends, people my age, older people - everyone) care so much about their country, about their rights and the future. I think they have every right to march against this system.

I spoke to a friend today, she told me that she is happy to be Muslim, that Islam is ok with her, but the way this government does things, controls people with religion, is not ok. That it gives Islam and Iran a terrible name.

And it's true.

Happy Holidays!

Sending lots of love to family and friends. It feels so weird to be sitting here in my room, in the middle of the day, when I know my family is settled in with candles and more pretzels than you can poke a stick at, watching the Carols by Candlelight.

Iran-Turkey-Iran

I'm home from an epic trans-continental journey to Turkey and back.

The trip to Istanbul was great - really easy. It took two days, and I passed through some great scenery, including a crazy amount of snow covered mountains etc. The border crossing was a little scary, it took 2 (3?) hours, and it was so freakin' cold, but it was pretty straightforward.

I finally arrived in Istanbul, Turkey about 9am. I wandered around for a bit, went to see the famous Blue Mosque, and I saw the Pudding Shop (the place where the hippies used to meet before heading overland to India). I asked directions to a department store so I could pick up a dress for the Gala Dinner that would be coming up at the conference.

I met Miha from Romania (who is doing the same job as me, but in Macedonia), we caught the same flight down to Antalya - the playground of the Russian rich and lazy, it seems (at least in summer).

The hotel we stayed in was amazing - the full 5 stars - blatant luxury :) We had two days of pre-meetings, where we got to meet our other facilitators, and prepare our sessions. I worked with some lovely girls;

Miha (Romania/Macedonia)

Dagmar (Czech Republic/Germany)

Iwona (Poland)

Hana (Czech Republic)

I also met up with Spence, an AIESECer from the UK. Even though everyone I work with speaks excellent English, it was so nice to go 'totally native' with this beautiful Brit.

Suddenly, on the first day of conference(our third day there), we started hearing a roar coming from the other side of the door. A big roar, like a freight train coming at you. Imagine 700 people screaming, singing, yelling and beating drums....

We opened the doors and they flooded in, each group singing their LC songs as loud as they could. The music was pumping, the people were dancing, it was manic - the perfect way to start ATEMCO 2009.

We started the conference by facilitating a session to 400+ people. It was insane. Try covering History, Current State and Indirect Impact in one hour, for 400 delegates who's english level is 'basic. I hope we got enough of the content through for it to be beneficial!

The second day was the hardest by far - we divided all these newies into homegroups, and then conducted a simulation all day with them, taking them through the AIESEC Experience. It was intense, and it lasted I can't remember how many hours, but it started just after breakfast and ended after dinner.

The third day of conference was recovery day for the international facis. All the sessions for the day were to be in Turkish, so we had the day off. We went down to the beach, took a look in the sauna, and generally buggerised around for the day. As the day drew to a close, we started preparing for the Gala Dinner.

The Gala was wonderful. Everyone was suited and booted, the boys in sharp suits and the girls in so many different dresses and gowns. It was wonderful. We ate, we danced, we had a wonderful time. I'll try and find a photo of me all done up ;)

All too soon it was over. We woke up or staggered home or stopped drinking and took a shower - either way, all 700 delegates crawled out of their various hungover holes and headed to morning plenary (not surprisingly, it was a few hours late in starting). Unfortuntately, we faci's had to jet, so we had just enough time to show our goodbye video, a few quick hugs to the folks that mattered, and we were gone.

We couldn't believe it. Over. Just like that..

We found ourselves again in Istanbul, this time with a very generous AIESECer allowing us to stay at her apartment, very close to the city centre. We spent the day sightseeing again with the help of yet another AIESECer :) I took my backpack, intending to catch the 2pm bus back to Tehran.... it was not to be.

I ended up heading to the bus station (Logic's on my side here, surely?). But alas, my bus company departs from the tour agency, on the main street, not at the bus station. In any case, after much frantic calling etc, I found myself miles from the city, with 4Lira in my pocket, no bus for 24 hours and no phone to call my friends... Holy Shit was an understatement.

I borrowed a phone from a stranger, and spent 3 of those 4 lira on public transport back to meet the girls. I became a charity case - you can't do much with 1 lira! So they fed me, watered me and helped me all around until the next day, when I ended up at the right place, at the right time, on the right bus!!

Trip home was reasonably uneventful. My passport was checked on the Turkish side, then at the border, then on the Iranian side. As I crossed the border I was fingerprinted, but that at least saved me from standing in the queue. As always, the trip home feels quicker. I got into Azadi station early this morning, shhowered and got into work.

I thought I was doing fine, but I soon realised I wasn't going to be good for much today, so I'm writing this from my bed! Getting some rest and I'll try life again tomorrow ;)

snow!

This was taken from the balconey in my dorm building. Those silly little white blobs are snow flakes. No, I didn't think to actually take a photo of me with said snow.

I'm sure there will be more snow after this lot. Just wanted to show you some proof :P

Adventure time!

It's a lovely Wednesday morning here in Tehran. After being obscured by cloud for the last few days, the mountains showed themselves this morning. The sunlight gleams off the snow, which creeps lower and lower down the peaks every day.

enough of that :)

Today is Wednesday. There will be a Thursday, a Friday, a Saturday and a Sunday in pretty quick succession. Then, after all of those days, Monday will come. And Monday is the day that I'm jumping on a bus for a 48 hour journey to Istanbul, Turkey.

I will have a wonderful 6 hours or so in Istanbul (any recommendations for a walking tour starting at the bus-station and ending at the airport?), then a quick one hour flight to Antalya, on the coast. Gosh gosh gosh. Here, let me show you the place I'll be staying:

www.prestigehotel.com.tr

Ok, so I'm really excited. And nervous. But mostly excited.

Things that I predict will be weird:

• Not wearing a headscarf in public after 6 months of doing so
• Being allowed to drink alcohol in public (it'll probably even have brandnames!)
• Being in a room with 700 other people
• Wandering around a foreign city, knowing no-one, not speaking the language. Who 'drops in' to Istanbul exactly?!
• Being able to dance roll calls and hug a man in public
• Seeing the sea after 6 months
• Walking into a room where I know, literally, no-one

Things that I predict will be awesome:

• see above.

Woo hoo! Bring on an in-time visa, snacks, and patience. Let's go!

Busy Bee

Buzz.

I'm on eight straight working days and counting!

On Thursday and Friday LC Tehran ran it's Induction Session for our 27 new members. It was a blast - we have some fantastic new members - really high quality. It was full on, lots of faci'ing, lots of organising etc - just the usual running around, but it felt great.

Yesterday was a public holiday for Eid al-Adha, or Eid e Gorban as they call it here. Iran really does Eids differently to other muslim countries. It's just not something that's really celebrated, as far as I can see. Persians call the New Year (March 21) Eid.

I think there's still a lot of bitterness about the Arab influence on Iran, everything from the alphabet, to some words, to Islam - all of it was brought (or imposed?) on the Persians, and they haven't forgotten.

/tangent.

Yes, so I spent yesterday at the boss' place, having a 'team day'. We did a good lot of work, mostly sharing our plans for the coming months, identifying our strengths and weaknesses, and reflecting on the past 5 months of our term. It was really good for us, we needed it.

So I'm back in the office today, then another weekend (which I also plan to work), then zoom off to Turkey for ATEMCO. Re-entry visa is in process, cheap bus tickets are being investigated, all in all we're looking good :)

ATEMCO

Ok - great news.

I applied to facilitate at a conference next month, and I was accepted!

I will be going to Turkey (Biggest Smile Ever) for ATEMCO - a conference with 700 delegates, running from 12-15 December.

I the re-entry visa is in the works, I will be able to get back :)

The conference is being held in Antalya, this massive tourist spot on the Mediterranean Sea.

I really can't wait - I'm so excited. I will be travelling by bus, because a. it's cheap, and b. I get to see parts of Iran and Turkey that I just wouldn't see by plane.

oh wow, oh yay! I really can't wait. I haven't been to a conference in sooo long, I can't wait to get my faci skills back in practice, and can you imagine being in a room with 700 passionate, excited, driven young people? What an adventure.

Wow, so life has been tearing along at an insane pace in the last few days. Ok, weeks.

I have been so busy at work, I'm losing my hair. (no, not really). We are currently mid-way through the "Recruitment - Selection - Allocation - Induction process. This means we are finding new members to join AIESEC, selecting the ones that are the best fit for the organisation, training them and putting them into teams.

It's been crazy. This week is selection interview week, so we have people coming and going all day, having hour-long interviews. I've done some as well, and the people are very promising.

I'm also still trying to keep fit. I'm certainly a lot healthier than when I left Australia. I'm feeling and looking good (if I do say so myself). Having two very fashionable friends is also helping my wardrobe!

The mountains are covered in snow - it's my mission every morning to check them out, to see how covered they are, if there are clouds obscuring them etc. Some days it's so cloudy, it's as if the mountains were never there in the first place.

The air is getting colder and we breathe out fog in the mornings. It won't be long until the snow starts falling in the city, I'm sure. The air at night is so cold, I know it's going to creep into my bones very soon. Time to start layering under those coats!

My team has been in Oman this week at a conference, so I have been the only MC member here. It's been fun though - nice not to have those stinky boys cluttering up the place :P

well, I think that's it for the minute. Nothing of consequence has really been happening (except adventures to different coffee shops). I'll write again when this madness of recruitment is over.

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)

Weekend of Adventure

Last weekend was amazing.

On Friday I jumped into a minibus with a big bunch of people I'd never met (and three I had met, to be fair), and drove off into the Iranian morning.

We drove for hours, climbing higher and higher mountain roads that seemed to get windier the higher we got. We stopped halfway for breakfast, overlooking a plain, complete with a lake and the most incredible snow-capped mountains in the background.



The drove some more and ended up in this little village. This village and it's inhabitants are the custodians of the most magnificent waterfall I have ever seen. Surrounded by apple orchards, giant cliffs rose up out of the earth, providing the melting snow an avenue to race down and fall from.

We drove some more, heading to another wee village on another mountain side. We unpacked the bus and headed for a little clearing, where we built a fire to cook our chicken on.

After a great hot meal, and some well-timed rain, we piled back into the bus, full fat and happy (and damp) to tackle the mountain roads home again.

We piled out of the bus in a mad rush, because by that time we were terribly late for our next adventure - an Iranian wedding.

We raced home, and I found myself squeezing into a red dress, my hair was primped, my face was painted, and suddenly we were racing to the other side of town. Finally, painfully, we arrived, 20 minutes away from the end of the proceedings.

It was a segregated wedding, so all the women-folk could dress in their finest clothes without the men ogling them. We walked in to see a hall filled with literally hundreds of women - a living, breathing rainbow of colours. There was more make up in that room than the storeroom of Myer, I swear.

They saved us some food, so we ate, and a bottle of the hardest liquor on offer: orange soft-drink, did the rounds of meeting family, and then all of a sudden it was over.

It was an incredibly intense day, but every minute was amazing.

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