I got to Tehran and I saw many interesting things on the way and in our own people’s behavior. My flight to Tehran was through Amsterdam with a stop in Detroit, which I later found out I only have forty five minutes to get to my Detroit- Amsterdam flight. With a fifteen minutes delay in my first flight and almost a heart attack I got to my second flight to Amsterdam on time.
In Amsterdam I had four hours till my third flight to Tehran. So I start walking around in search of some interesting stuff to see. Amsterdam has many tax free (aka duty free shops) that you can go visit and shop. I walked around and checked some stuff out. First I went to a cheese shop and start out with sampling a dry sharp cheese, I forgot its name though, and lack of wine samples made me almost choke. Next time I look for a medium size chunk of cheese not the biggest one! Then I went to a liquor and cigarette shop. Since smoking kills I only looked at liquors. Interesting thing was that if you fly through European Union you have to pay six or seven Euro extra for liquors compare to other places. I don’t exactly know why. Since I just found out that a liter of Absolute Vodka is only five dollars on the border of United States and then it markets for twenty-five to thirty dollars, I skipped the liquor shop as well. I smelled a few perfume and my nose stopped functioning properly so I left the perfumes too. I went to get some food from their little food court but for some reason when I see the Euro sign or anything other than dollar sign, I get a little cheap. I get money conversion attack and it makes me nervous that I have to use my Euros. So I persuaded my stomach to eat the banana I had in my backpack and not say anything else.
I got to the gate about two hours early and saw a few of people of my own sitting there waiting. I don’t know it’s only me or others too but for some reason I didn’t wanted to interact with them and I preferred to pretend that I’m not Iranian. So I chose a sit in a very last row in front of the window and sat there. I checked the plains and I got a little bored so I took my setar out and start playing the scales and going up and down till I got so sleepy. I took a short nap and then I woke up and saw they already started boarding. One thing that we, Iranian, didn’t like much was the fact that you were not allowed to have buggy in the waiting room, we didn’t want to leave that poor buggy alone till they warn us or say something that it is okay to leave them alone.
One unfortunate thing that I noticed was the lack of non-Iranian travelers and tourists to Iran. Iran is a great nation and I know for sure that if Iranian starts working on learning tourism culture and appreciation and make it easier for tourists to come to Iran, we would not need to sell a single drop of oil to support our oil-based economy.
My KLM flight was good and I had a few of my last Heinekens legally. We flew and flew and flew till we got on top of Tehran and I saw the lights. After some of the announcement by KLM crew, they would play the Persian version as well. When the plane got on the ground they announce in Dutch, English, AND Persian “Please remain seated and have your seatbelt on till the seatbelt sign goes off.” Even though, the moment that plane stopped for a second everybody jumped to get their carry-ons as fast as they could and run. The plane moved forward a little more and pushed everybody. I kind of liked how captain read my mind but the lesson wasn’t enough, no one felt on the floor, to teach us the lesson one more freaking time!!
Imam Khomeini Airport is the Iran’s new international airport that is the replacement for Mehrabad International Airport. IKA is on your way to the holy city of Qom. It was an hour and half drive from the airport to Tehran. On the way you will pass the Behesht Zahra Cemetery, Tehran’s biggest cemetery, and more importantly you pass Khomeini’s shrine. Unfortunately, my cousin and my sister were not that interested to wait for me to go and salute the leader. I have to go there again and show my respect to the man.
The sexiest man alive by People Magazine, George Clooney, was on one of Tehran’s billboard trying to persuade me to buy a watch. Not so successful though, I barely wear one.
One interesting thing that I noticed is driving in Tehran got much much better. It seems that people start noticing that there are some white things on the road that you have to drive between them not on them. Also a great applause to Tehran’s current mayor, Mr. Ghalibaaf, and the former mayor, Dr. Ahmadinejad, for making Tehran too beautiful with all the lighting that they installed under every and each bridge in Tehran that reminds me of some bars and strip clubs in the US. I start driving the sticks the day one and I was good at it, my problem is the street names and I barely remember which goes where.
I got a few 50,000 Rial bills (aka 5 toman) and these monsters are so big that I have to push it all the way down in my wallet with a quarter inch still left outside. I don’t know why they make these bills not to be cute and handy plus they could reduce the printing cost if they make them smaller.
One other thing that you notice if you travel from the US to Iran is the size of glass. Cups and glasses are almost twenty five percent smaller than in the US. Random!
I post pictures soon :-*
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