Good Bye Tripoli

Red Castle

We dedicated the entire morning to the history of Libya which was presented in a nutshell in "Red Castle" located in the center of Tripoli. Starting in date order with the 6000BC, artifacts, cave paintings and rock carvings, it progresses through Punic, Greek and Roman statues and articles collected from sites around Libya but mostly from Leptis and Sabratha.



One of those rock carvings reminded me of flower design in Perspolis's stone reliefs which had 12 petals; symbol of the number of months of one year, but at the one in this museum as I counted its petals, they were 16 and I didn't realize what they actually stood for:





There was another item that turned on my flash-back machine
and made me compare the statues on display in "Academia museum"
in Florence with the ones in here. That museum especially with its Michelangelo's David was indeed breathtaking!
But in the statues that I saw today and I put one as a sample in here, the delicacy of some of bodies was quite impressive with considering the fact that these went back to first century A.D and their sculptors, I believe, should be given credit for creating such works!



And then there was a section that brought up a part of my childhood memory; the time that our national TV in Iran used to show "Lion of the desert" (Omar Mokhtar) over and over. I was thinking that at the time of watching this movie, in my wildest dream I've never would imagined someday I would be looking at his real weapons and glasses in his own country!

This weekend

We finally managed to go to "Leptis Magna"; a city of the Roman Empire in eastern Tripoli. I enjoyed every part of the ruins and it was great to know an ancient history of this part of the world by our guide explanation, a young Libyan guy who was so interested in opening the story of every thing by raising a question and waiting to hear some answers from us. I had this feeling that me and Mr.Behi were in a history class having tested our intellectual intelligence every now and then which was really fun!
In Comparison with the Roman ruins in Italy, I found those in Leptis real treasures and quite impressive. The ruins were so preserved, untouched, complete and the place itself was so quiet. The low load of tourists in there has made it just enchanting. Our two and half hours tour reached to its ending by hearing a Libyan romance; it was interesting to see how excited and eager our guide was while he was talking about his girl friend and that how they had met each other :).

In Tripoli

The frequency is about 7 out of 10 wrong phone-calls in 3 months:

You pick the phone, you hear something, then you say: "Sorry, wrong number" and this is where the story begins because someone on the line finds it very amusing to call to hear the exact sorry-words from you for at least 3 times. The solutions are:
1-If you hear a guy and you yourself have a feminine voice which says that you're a lady you have to pass the phone to a person that has a masculine voice then the miracle happens; the person that has been calling non-stop, stops calling.
2-Only change positions of the genders in part 1 if the person who calls is a girl then again you won't hear the rings anymore.
3- None of the two above strategies works? In this case stop picking up the phone he/she will quit calling for sure

You are the resident of an apartment which is one year old.
The owner of the above floor starts to change every thing about his newly built apartment except for the house's roof and skeleton. You hear hitting, pocking, drilling and digging for nearly 2 months almost every day from morning till evening. You go to talk with the owner of the house to ask him to take the noises down. What you recieve as the response is: "You should consider your neighbor..."

If you are in a supermarket and you see a product- especially the food items- that you use a lot. Take more than one because there is no guaranty that you could find it next time at the same supermarket or any other supermarket in any corner of the city, remember that you're not supposed to see it again unless something happens that proves you were wrong then again take more than one at once since you might not see it again.

As an Iranian you might hear:

1- Oh! you're Iranian... Don't you speak Arabic?!
2-I like "Ahmadi nejad" very much!


And this might catch your eyes:

A picture of "Saddam" in a store across a street.


I brought these here for the record when I would feel difficulty to remember some details... But I don't think I would have difficulty to remember the warm gestures of people in here with their humble buildings and streets where I can feel and find peace and beauty.

Birthday Cake

I'm guessing if you were standing or passing by the door of our apartment the other day that I was baking the whole apartment you would probably knock the door to find out what was going on behind that door.
The story is that I cook fine. I can cook, in fact, many Persian cuisine close to THE Persian cuisine but when it comes to bake cakes, sweets or cookies I just adore whom can bake. Actually, I blame those pastry stores in Tehran that I liked some special kinds of their pastries and that stopped me to even think of being prepared for some day that I would not be able to have access. And this way of finding some thing to blame is practical for times you want to make a perfect way to cover up the fact that it is always good to know how to make home-made cakes, no matter if the first winner baking pastry contest in the world is having a store door to door to your own home! And it might hit you the most when you want to have a delicious cake; the one with kind of look that you see on the web when you search: "Chocolate Birthday cake". I prepared every thing according to the recipe that I had found , turned on the oven for the first time in my life after taking some serious thoughts, put the pan in it while I was holding the required time which was about 20 minuets, checked the recipe for the 20th something time, sat and after a while started to feel I could see the kitchen and living room perfectly through a foggy smoky transparent and that was when I jumped into the kitchen and that was only half of the actual time that I was supposed to walk gently to pick the fine cake out of the oven. I picked the pan that held a burnt and really dark chocolaty look-nothing like a cake, threw it away and tried the process all over again. Since that was my last chance to make things up- as I would be out of several key materials for the third time- I tried to stay calm and figure out the wrong steps that caused that result to prevent them to repeat themselves. I was impressively relaxed, the only thing was walls and doors of the kitchen and sofa that were not relaxed as they hit me back and forth on my way. This time my nose was much more alert than the first time. I caught the oven when it was going to make the black smoky layer through the entire cake all again to finish its job, took a knife , removed the smoky layer, covered it with a creamy layer that I had made while was begging it to be made properly. Meanwhile I heard my self throwing and hitting stuff as I was staring so badly at the cake to find out if it was any thing like the Birthday cake at all? And that was when I burst into a big laugh , suddenly the whole preparing stuff seemed so hilarious with that messy look of mine and I knew I only had a little time left to open the door to Mr.Behi. I was thinking , of course, it had to end up laughing like that and the whole matter had to turn to that much fun when it had something to do with Mr.Behi. It's just the way that has to be; no matter what, at the end you always smile...

PS: If I picked those prepared cake packages for Microwave oven, it would probably be easier but I wanted to do all the details step by step and as you can see it turned out to be just perfect! ;).

Autumn is knocking

The weather has changed dramatically since a week ago and now, there is a storm out there. I love it when the weather is rainy or cloudy. It makes me more focused and brings joy to my heart. These days as soon as seeing the change in color of the sky I jump into the balcony to feel what I see from the window but now, I prefer to stay where I had jumped earlier which is our warm bed . The strong wind is shouting at the windows right now and we can hear the sounds that it makes by crossing through the space of our windows' sand shields. It's going to be a restless sky tonight with the peace and quiet of this house... This is my friend what it's called contradiction...

Tehran & Tripoli- Part II

The rest of this topic is more about subjects that Tehran and Tripoli are somehow similar in... I should emphasis one more time that these are just MY personal observations. I mention to these two cities only because they both are symbols and the capitals of these two countries :

1- In Tehran and in general in Iran many Iranians have a friendly and warm attitude towards foreigners especially towards the western people who travel to Iran. In Tripoli, we've experienced the same and most of the people are quite warm.

2- In Tehran- and usually in the majority cities in Iran- driving is dangerous and people need to be so alert and careful while driving in roads or streets. In Tripoli, this is absolutely the same. But, apart from much lighter traffic jam in here -which is a bonus for us- driving seems more dangerous... Well, I think it's better to say: The type of danger may seem new or different to us and we need more time to get used to it.

3- In Tehran, nights are alive, people go to cinemas, restaurants and shopping even after 8 p.m. In Tripoli, this is the same except that the nights stay alive longer and these days which are the days of Ramadan, streets don't sleep till around sunrise.

4-Ramadan is apparently a good excuse for some people to focus less on work. People are more nervous and can be easily provoked in both countries.

5- In Tehran, younger generations have less interest to religion. In Tripoli- younger generations seem have even more interest than their parents to religion.

6- In Iran and Libya copyright is completely dead! Actually it was never alive in any of them.

7- In Tehran, people criticize things around them more frequently than people from Tripoli.

8-In Tripoli, In response of questions that start with interrogatives like "When" you mostly hear "inshallah" which means "if God wills". And it practically means, some time in the coming day, coming week,coming month or coming year-no certain answer or time you will receive for sure- In Tehran, it's also so common to hear this phrase- it's quite famous in Iran as well. But here in Tripoli, this expression is widely used, they ACTUALLY see it as a specific time and they really mean it.
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I will write more when I find out more...

An Ordinary Day

These days the weather is not as hot as a month ago, so I'm taking the advantage of going in the balcony, sitting by a table with these things on it: A couple of books, a headphone, a laptop,a huge pencil case full of different pens and pencils, two notebooks and of course with a busy noisy mind that sometimes like now I really need it to be just mute.

Tehran & Tripoli

These are my "personal" perceptions of the things that are different between Tehran and Tripoli. I should emphasize that I'm not generalizing these to all residents of these two cities.

1- In Tripoli, it's usual to see women wearing Burgah and men wearing shorts. You can even see men half naked running across the street! In Tehran however, It is almost impossible to see a woman covering her entire face and I haven't seen men wearing shorts and they never come out half naked!

2- In Tripoli, if you have a big car and a huge house you will be considered as a member of upper-class society. But in Tehran, the location of your home matters most.

3- In Tehran, although having satellite receivers is completely illegal, but you can see many roofs covered with them. However, you cannot be considered as a really religious person when you have a satellite receiver especially with all the dance programs on display. In Tripoli, whatever your belief is, you have the satellite dish on your roof and it's legal.

4- Wedding car in Tripoli normally means a decorated car with only the groom inside it and a bunch of excited happy guys in their cars escorting him. While in Tehran, wedding car means a car with bride and groom inside it and a bunch of excited happy families in their cars escorting them.

5- In Tehran, most people go to mosque only when it's someone's funeral or memorial. In Tripoli, people go to mosques for funerals, weddings and during the day for their daily prays.

To be continued...

Please help yourself

We've found the kind of yogurt so similar to the one that we used to have in Iran. It's a very exciting discovery for the one like me whose lots of traditional meals cannot be considered as meals unless they are served with this white creamy tasty yogurt on the side.

Handing a plate of whatever, as long as it could be eaten with some yogurt + standing on the balcony and tasting them while looking at the excellent view of the sea + finding out another new ship that just arrived and may stay for a couple of days to leave. Believe me it's the best refreshing meal ever ;).

Just Too Much!

I don't know exactly from where all these "too much" things started. The night before last night I took a shower before going to sleep,

the next morning I woke up with a hair looking like this except it was worse than Lisa's:

So, I washed my hair again before going to my hairdresser for having a haircut. Assistant of the hairdresser ,as soon as I arrived, started to wash my hair for I really don't know how many times. At the same time she was massaging my head for exactly 25 minuets. She really must have loved washing and massaging!

The next thing I just did and I still don't know why exactly I did that, was drinking too much coffee during 4 hours.

I had too much dinner then.

I started thinking too much about my concerns and plans.

I ended up feeling not so good. Then I just needed to get a rest but I had no idea the final part was getting to start: I had to listen to a huge fight between my poor body which was objecting all the weird things that had happened to her AND my mind which was trying to get everything back to normal and calm my exhausted body.

I do not remember when they solved all their disagreements maybe that was right in the moment I fell asleep...

Accents

One of the new experiences that I've had during the last one year, is meeting people with different accents of English. American and English were one of the kinds that I was familiar with since they are actually the source of this language so naturally I knew what was this language all about from them although I can recall that sometimes in England during our one month stay, I had several funny memories of times that I met people who were talking faster or with a completely different style of the way I used to hear but I could survive by the end with the famous expressions of "sorry?" or "pardon me" etc.

Last night we had our first guest here in our new place and after 3-4 hours of having conversation I think I can recognize Brazilian or Portuguese with the way they speak in English. That's kind of sweet especially when they intend to pronounce more "ch" in words that have "t".

Among all other accents such as South African, Australian and Arabic ( when they speak in English)... I've considered somehow difficult to understand Indian. Every time I go to my English class I have a little talk with a very nice Indian lady. The first time that I met her I decided to be relax to ask her to repeat her words one more time in case of not getting her, before when I was in such a situation, I intended to give a big smile and to move my head very slightly. While smiling I felt a certain measure of stupidity about myself.
The beginning of our talk went pretty well, I was listening to her very carefully and the topic was not complicated then she asked some thing and I couldn't understand what she just said so I asked her to say that again, she repeated her words for the second time and still I had no idea what she was talking about... I said: I'm really sorry but I didn't get you. She said again and this time I felt relieved as I finally found out and had something to say other than "sorry" to her. Then she said something else and again I had a feeling of listening to any language but English. This time I just felt too embarrassed to dare asking her, so I covered myself with one of my famous smiles while moving my head as a sign of approval and felt one hundred percent stupid at the time!

Contrast

When I was living in Iran, I had some difficulties dealing with some complexities in Iranian society. It's not an easy job to understand all its parts... For instant, I could see people who were civilized, broad-minded, creative and spiritual in some subjects and suddenly could turn to completely careless, superstitious, fanatic or traditional in some other subjects. Since all these last concepts could have been merged together in so many levels, it's not easy to distinguish them at times. These things could be legitimate for the governments to some extent too...Shocking!
It's like you walk into a very luxurious nice house with every thing brand new but when you walk into the kitchen you face a broken mucky old area! I should take the chance and thank the media stereotypes of every corner of the world and our government for their stunning policy for spotlighting the dark side of this country and then generalizing that!... But apart from that, I still cannot make my peace with all these paradoxical terms themselves.
Coming to this Muslim Arab country and finding out other perspective in here made me add some other things to this puzzle.

On top off my head I can see: here people are MUCH more Muslim. Religion doesn't propagandize here. Official rules for women seem more flexible and you see women themselves don't do some social activities- while it is so common for Iranian women to do them- and here they just don't do them because the society seems quite religious and traditional and they seem perfectly happy with that and then... I can see myself thinking of my home country while carrying a bunch of question marks with me...

New and Old

Well, today we went to old town in the city. Visiting old structures is one of my favorite things to do, you can see history's traces in every single item, you can feel real and be real...We took a walk through the old bazaar, we could see lots of traditional shops along a path like a maze presenting many handicrafts with this area's special design. In the meantime we went to a traditional restaurant for lunch, the food was made from scallop fish. A big fish was flying over our heads hanging from the roof, he seemed so real which made me kind of ashamed of eating one of his species right in front of him :.

Afterward, we ran into one of my husband's new friends with his wife in the area. We continued the rest of our walk together.He's British and his wife is Argentinian.They are almost our age without any children and so nice. Their similar conditions and also the "no child" part may hopefully help us to make plans together easier.
...It's always delightful to make new friends and see old buildings :).

Soaking in Libya

Tripoli is getting hot these days. The heat with high degree of humidity makes me feel like I'm standing in sauna when I'm outside. But still it's more tolerable in comparison with summer in UAE where I think the heat is more stifling.
There are only certain places in streets and shops where I get the chance to be in contact with Libyans. The class that I'm going these days also gives me a good opportunity to get a better perspective on people. The majority of students in the class are Libyans. They seem friendly like most of other Libyans. It is somehow close to Iranian culture although there are some differences. One thing that I've noticed is that they seldom criticize their society or culture in any sort which is a far cry from Iranian fellows who are interested in criticizing any thing around them.
This country is the fourth that I had the chance to see till this age. It is true that each society has its own differences within but it is still possible to obtain one overall image of each. I'm not here to judge that image I am perceiving but I'm letting my curiosity to wander and capture every interesting fact about here, It's just amusing :). I hope after leaving here I have a real image of where I used to live in and what it was like.

Not as Kind as his Grandma!

Last night we decided to try Chinese food. Actually it was our first time. We had heard a lot of odd stories about the unusual taste of Chinese food, but we decided to put all those stories aside and be adventurous. I'm a very conservative person to choose new cuisines as it can keep me hungry if it would be something unbearable to eat. So I decided to read the ingredients of all choices very carefully as my husband was doing the same.
Anyway, after gazing at the menu for a while, finally I asked for more information from the waitress about my selected choices. When she was describing one of them as a sweet and sour one, I thought of it as the one. I am a fan of sour tastes very much. I looked at my husband while he was telling me to go on with a big smile on his face :). He actually ordered the one with the lower risk factor: "Grandma beef" ( I didn't see it as a very Chinesy one though, between you and me ;) ). They brought the Grandma first and it looked good and I found it delicious as well. My meal came with a good looking face too but it was not as kind as my husband's Grandma in taste, actually it was very unkind. I dropped the first slice of it as soon as it touched my teeth. It had the exact taste of one of my detested Iranian pastries ("Zoulbia", imagine that with the steamed rice!). My husband couldn't even stand his lips touching them.
We ended up with two things 1- Eating from his plate ( it was fortunately big enough to fill me but I wasn't sure about my husband, although he kept saying it was all enough for him the entire time:) ) 2- The wondering and kind of funny look of the waitress in front of my untouched plate.

I am now here... let's see, yes with the confused impression. I don't think I'm gonna try any other item from their menu any time soon :D.

Picture source

A weekend away

This weekend we went to "Dar Tellile"; a nice hotel beside the sea near Sabratha with some facilities such as: chalets, Tennis court, bowling, etc... We had a great time the whole day with our friends who were from Egypt, Pakistan, England, Albania, Malaysia, Belgium..We enjoyed playing bowling the most. As we could play in groups so it made the game more exciting but I should say that it was not my lucky day. I'm not a pro at this game but I've been fine often with throwing the balls in the right or at least the reasonable approach. You should have seen me having problems with gripping the holes then not seeing the throwing ball but in the rotating state on the ground then seeing it deviated. If I actually had a plan for rolling the balls like this, I could not be closer to it more than I was, but it was all fun :D.
Anyway, I enjoyed talking with these ladies who all had kids. They have had different experiences international life styles so far. They seemed so open to change, changing the atmosphere of their lives every now and then ( because the company my husband works for, transfers it's employers to different countries). They seemed very welcoming to every new member of this community as well. No mater how you look, what your language is, which religion you practice... I like this attitude. It makes me feel that world is a dreamy place... which is not, I know. But being a little bit dreamy doesn't hurt anybody, especially when I am just sitting on my own little world with my dreamy cute Mr.Behi :).

Picture source

Sunset and the Sea

There is some thing that we enjoy the best about the area around our place in Tripoli. In the morning we enjoy the fresh breeze coming from the sea and also the view of the Mediterranean sea itself. In the evening, we get amazed by the most beautiful sunset. I feel like I can hug and take the blushing sun. As if the sun is going to rest behind the waving waters. She says goodbye by making a spectrum of all kind of colors as she goes down.

After the sunset, I like bright streets around "Green square" that are so alive and the beautiful reflection of city lights in the sea. We drive around and we love listening to our favorite musics while enjoying the scenes. I think it is very nice to be able to enjoy simple things and I also think life is just about these precious moments. I know after leaving Libya, I will be missing all these beauties but I will always keep all these nice feelings with me anywhere else. Any place that will become our next destination.