26. March 2008 by Todd.

We decided to go to the Vakil Bazaar, one of the famous bazaars in Iran. This place is huge and every inch is lined with small shops selling everything like spices, rugs, souvenirs, food and whatever. I bought a backgammon table for my boss, I think I got ripped off a little, but who cares. I also bought some mouse pads that look like carpets and a bunch of unique little items. All and all I probably spent about 80 bucks. After the bazaar we went to a traditional persian restaraunt. I tried the koobideh and it was better than any koobideh that I ever had in the states.

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26. March 2008 by Todd.

We pretty much took taxis everywhere we went, as the days went on I became a lot less tense about the way they drive. I saw a couple of traffic lights at super busy intersections, but mostly there are no stop lights, stop signs, yield signs, etc. People just go, whoever gets there first or has a bigger car gets to go, I guess those are the rules. No one seems to get angry like they do in the states. Drivers honk their horn a lot, but it is just to let the other car know that he is 2 inches away from him in his blind spot. When driving the taxi drivers pretty much make up their own lanes. So a 4 lane road in the states would be a 6 or 7 lane road in Iran. They kind of just drive wherever the car fits. It is also perfectly acceptable for motorcycles to drive the wrong way in traffic or even on the sidewalks. I almost got hit a couple of times on the sidewalk by motorcycles, it scared me a little, but no one else seemed to bat an eye. It is just normal life there. I kind of like it. Shiraz is a big city and the house we stayed at was at one end of town, so every taxi ride we went on took 20 to 30 minutes. On average the taxi ride costed between 2 and 3 U.S. dollars, pretty reasonable.

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26. March 2008 by Todd.

Today we went to visit another one of my wife’s sisters. We sat and talked and had a great time. Somehow the conversation changed to toilets. Most toilets here are in-floor toilets, so we had a good laugh at the differences. I guess it all depends on what you are used to. My little 3 year old had to go to the bathroom when we were there, she walked in the bathroom and said “this isn’t a bathroom” when she saw the toilet. That was pretty funny. We had a great lunch called zereshk polo. It is rice with some sort of red berries and chicken. The local rice here is excellent, it tastes totally different than the rice we get. After lunch we decided to go to some parks. One of the parks we went to was a famous park called Azadi Park. This park is huge and has several sections including a small amusement park for kids. It was a little bit of a walk to the park so we past a lot of local shops on the way. One of the pizza places we passed was a Godfather’s Pizza with the same logo and sign as the ones in the US, I snapped a picture of it.

When we got back to the house some more of the family had arrived and it was time for dinner. We had a dish called Bademjun, kind of an eggplant stew with some lentils, onions and a little yogurt on top. It was excellent. Every meal here is big and they go out of their way to make sure you have enough to eat. Luckily the food is all pretty healthy so hopefully I won’t gain too much weight.

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26. March 2008 by Todd.

Crossing the street here is nuts. We had to cross the street several times and it was quite an experience. There is no right of way for pedestrians, you just kind of walk between the cars as they fly by. There are no crosswalks or traffic lights that allow you to cross, you just cross wherever. It’s funny to see the locals walk across the street, they just stroll across like its nothing. Me and my wife are the only ones who ran when we had the opportunity. Here is how you cross: first you wait for the closest lane (not that drivers pay attention to lanes) to clear a little, then you step out in the middle of the street and wait for the next lane to clear a little (when I say a little I mean 50 ft or so). You just keep doing that until you get across all 4 or 5 lanes of traffic. If the driver doesn’t want to slow down they will flash their brights at you. Cars will pass you by inches in the middle of the road, it is absolutely scary. It is best to cross the street with a local. I made several videos of us crossing the street. I will update this post with the links when I get them uploaded.

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26. March 2008 by Todd.

Shiraz is a huge city so we generally go to one area at a time. Tonight we hung out in one of the shopping districts. I got a lot of stares, but no one really approached me. There was a boy about 10 years old handing out fliers, he insisted that I take one. I told him I didn’t speak or read farsi, but he kept on insisting. When he discovered I was American he said “Hello”, I said “Hello” back and snapped a picture of him.

Shopping around I discovered that you can get anything here that you can get in the states. I found that the brand name labels, which are probably imported from Dubai, have comparable prices to the U.S. however the local items are super inexpensive. Jewelry is a real bargain here as well. On the way home we decided to take the bus, local transportation is heavily used here. On the bus the women sit in the back and the men sit in the front, it was kind of strange at first but you get used to it. Everyone on the bus stared at me, but only one guy actually asked me any questions. He spoke a little english and wished me a good experience in Iran.

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26. March 2008 by Todd.

In Iran being together with the family, especially around the new year, is very common. Unlike most of us in the US they really have a great time when they get together. I got to go to a few of my wife’s sisters houses for lunch and dinner. Each person in my wife’s family goes out of their way to make sure I am taken care of. They always check with my wife to make sure I am having a great time, and of course I am. They are really warm, friendly people and I feel at home with them. The food they make is amazing, better than any restaurant you could go to. I’ve been to a lot of persian restaurants in the bay area and you can’t even compare it to Iranian home cooking. They are super hospitable and don’t let you have an empty glass of tea or an emtpy plate. I probably have put down a few gallons of tea in the 4 days I have been here so far. Hopefully I can kick my caffiene addiction when I get back to the states.

My farsi is not that good, but I know a lot of words so they generally understand what I am trying to say. My wonderful wife is always close by for a translation if we need it. I bought an english persian dictionary and a farsi phrasebook here, that is very helpful. The books were amazingly inexpensive, as are most local items.
They have KFC…they call it Kentucky Chicken.

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26. March 2008 by Todd.

The next morning we had breakfast at our hotel, it consisted of eggs, all beef sausages, cereal, OJ, milk, bread, cheese, butter, jam, tomatos, cucumber, coffee and tea. Next we call a cab. Note that we have 7 large suitcases and several carry on items. The cab shows up and it is a pretty tiny car, no chance of fitting all of our stuff. So the guy calls in for backup with a slightly bigger car. We put all of our luggage in one car and rode in the other. I thought the cab ride from the airport to the hotel was scary, but this one was a little worse since it was in the city during the day with lots of cars on the road. I don’t know how to describe the ride, it was nuts, there seems to be no traffic laws at all. I took some video of the ride, it gives you an idea of the chaos but not the whole story.The unwritten rules seem to work pretty well, however, we made it to the airport without a scratch, whew!

We waited for a little while in the terminal for our flight and I needed some caffiene so I went to grab a diet coke or its equivalent. They had diet coke indeed, it was called Coca Cola Light, it was the real stuff. The diet coke set me back 500 tomans, about a 50 cents US. I have a picture of my diet coke that I will post. My wife opted for a coffee at the coffee shop. Turns out we didn’t have enough tomans left to purchase my wife’s coffee nor did they accept dollars. However, since my wife is very charming, she charmed them into accepting US dollars for the coffee. I later discovered that I had more tomans in my bag and I went back and swapped out my dollar. Everyone at the airport was very nice to me. Every time I went to buy something the vendor knew I was foreign and helped me figure out my tomans and rials. They were all super friendly.

We are ready to board the plane. We take a bus out to the plane and climb aboard our Iran Air flight. The pre-flight saftey instructions are given in both farsi and english, I was a little surprised. The meal was quite american, it consisted of a bologna and cheese sandwich, choclate cake, yogurt and a juice box. I’m getting a few stares, but not as many as I expected.

We arrive in Shiraz and some of my wife’s family are at the airport to greet us. They were very nice and so happy to see us. To get home we took one taxi, my sister-in-laws car and my brother-in-laws. I rode with my brother-in-law. He understands and speaks a litte english and I understand and speak a litte farsi so we communicated quite well. He gave me the $5 tour of Shiraz so we drove by most of the main sites of Shiraz, including the famous gate to the city. I have lots of video of our ride, I may post some of it here. I arrived to my sister-in-laws house, whew! in addition to their in-floor toilet they have a sitdown one as well, that’s good news.

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26. March 2008 by Todd.

We landed at the new international airport in Tehran, the excitement is building. The first line you get to is the ‘Passport Verification line. There are two separate lines, one for Iranians and one for Foreigners. I took my place in line with my 3 year old daughter. It’s our turn…my daughter is very cute and said ’salaam’ to the passport inspector (a lady). The passport inpector was laughing it up and talking to her, then just stamped our passports without incident. There were a couple other americans in line behind me and they were finger printed (which, by the way, the US also does to Iranians who visit the states).

Next we are off to get our luggage. The luggage carosoul was pure chaos as 3 flights landed at about the same time, this all at around 3am Tehran time. There were thousands of people there along with all of their families welcoming them. We have to get three carts to hold all of our luggage. The next line is the luggage scanner. Here is where I had a slight issue. The security guy asked me if I had anything to ‘declare’. I said “no”. He retorted “you don’t have anything to declare!?”. I said “no” again and asked what things I need to declare. Luckily my brother-in-law was behind me and stepped in and cleared up the situation. All good, we’re through.

Now we need a taxi van. My brother-in-law finds the dispatcher and hooks us up with a van. His cart was lighter than mine so we sort of lost him in the crowd on the way out the door. I was ambushed with taxi drivers all pulling me in different directions telling me to take their cab, my farsi is limited so I couldn’t fight them off. Luckily, my lovely wife takes control of the situation and tells the taxi drivers in farsi that we are already taken care of. Thanks to my wife and her brother the arrival went very smooth.

The taxi ride. The cab driver had major B.O., I had a little trouble breathing, but survived. So the roads in Iran have lanes separated by lines, but who needs the lines cuz no one pays attention to lanes. We were flying down the highway, the cab driver flashing his brights at everyone so he could get by. We were going between 80-90 mph down the road passing cars by inches, it was insane. Apparently red lights don’t mean the same thing as they do in the states, at least not to this guy, but we made it to our hotel in one piece. The hotel was a decent hotel in South Tehran. The bathrooms have in-floor toilets…hmmm that is going to make things a little difficult.

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26. March 2008 by Todd.

Blue Shuttle picked us up on time and took us to SFO, coincidentally our van driver was an Iranian guy. He was headed to Iran the following week for the Persian New Year. I am travelling with my beautiful wife, my 3 year old daughter and my brother-in-law.

We flew Lufthansa and they were excellent. Somehow I got signed up for special meals, courtesy of our travel agent I guess, and I received the seafood meal. Everyone else got the pasta. The first 11 hour leg of our flight went very smoothly, we arrived in Frankfurt ahead of schedule. After a lengthy layover we jumped on another Lufthansa flight to Tehran, this flight was about 5 hours.

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11. March 2008 by Todd.

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