Weeks 28-32 – Autumn Impressions

Weeks 28 to 32 (25.10-30.10, 31.10-6.11, 7.11-13.11, 14.11-20.11)

On Oct 26th I met with M. for the last time, before she went to Germany. And from than on, not much happened, apart from going to school and learning. From time to time I met with friends, that I haven’t seen for a long time. On Friday, 13th Nov I prepared some nice pumpkin soup for friends. It was enough for two pots but unfortunately one bad orange made the taste of one pot quite bitter. But with some strong spices it’s possible to use it as pasta sauce.

One Friday when I went to church we were only five people and Friday November, 20th, was the last service that I’d go to. It was outside on the Tehran Protestant Cemetery, the weather really nice and I enjoyed it a lot. After we went on a little tour around Shahr-e Reyr.

Since there’s nothing else, some photos of autumn in Tehran. On Nov, 25th, my course will finish and I’ll for a little journey in Iran before, kind of sadly, returning back to Germany….

Week 11

Day 75, 2.5, Saturday

That day was a national holiday, so I needn’t go to school. But I was lazy. With Zhihui and her room-mate Feyza I went to a coffee shop.
In addition at the moment there is an huge amount of mosquitoes in Tehran. Although the air is very dry and there aren’t really any lentic waters, these spawns of hell reproduce very fast. In contrary to Iranian people – no offence – they are very agile, fast and seem to know seconds before that one is about to try to hit them; plus their thirst for blood cannot be allayed.
Either way I can’t even hide in my sleeping bag because they still find some gap in it. So on morning I woke up with one of my arms covered with bites. Fortunately they don’t itch.

Days 76-79, 3.5-5.5, Sunday-Tuesday

It was a normal school week again and the teacher told me several times how bad my Farsi skills for a German were. What she didn’t acknowledge, 90% of the other Germans come to Iran during their study so already had Farsi in Germany. Me instead, as well as Tobias, started from zero and are as bad as other nationals.
On Monday we went to the Iranian version of the French supermarket company Carrefour (Hyperstar). Yang told of it and we needed a couple of things. The supermarket was really like normal western ones – without the alcohol section of course and at a certain time I was asked to stop taking photos.

Days 80-82, 6.5-8.5, Wednesday-Friday

The weekend came near and initially I. wanted to come to Tehran for the book fair. But it didn’t happen. I had to flee out of Tehran and with the help of the satellite view of Google Maps I chose a valley in the north-east of Tehran. After class I went to Kalugan by metro, bus, on foot and 25km by hitchhiking. Having arrived in the village I hiked until dusk until I found a kind of appropriate place for my tent. But since I was in the mountains I couldn’t pitch it probably and was lucky that it didn’t rain that night. Apart from some different inconveniences I enjoyed being in a safety distance from the 14 million people hell.

On Thursday morning I packed everything again and went back to Tehran. A bit sad I spent the evening with Frisco, Yang and another student of Dehkhoda in a coffee shop. Later an Iranian girl and Zhihui joined.

On Friday on 10am I went to worship in the German Protestant Church of Tehran (). It was my first time and I liked it a lot. About 12 other people were there and after the worshop I stayed there for tea and talking until noon.
When I came back to Enghelab, Iranians just gathered at the entrance of the University of Tehran for Friday praying. The main street was closed and you could see some “Death to Israel/USA” again.