The Behies!

Moving in Tehran, Iran

It was different when we bought our first and last car in Iran, it felt like a grown up family, a husband and a wife with a car. We couldn't hold our hands passing through the streets of Tehran because he was driving at the time. We were not like a couple holding hands waiting for a taxi or walking the streets of Tehran, it was different.
We were the regulars there, at those places; to eat ice cream, very typical Persian cuisine and to wander a book store called "Shahre ketab" or "City of books" and as we got into the store we would get parted without realizing and we would find each other, sometimes with a book in hand or a funny card or a cool mug like the famous Mr.Behi's mug or nothing but news on what seemed interesting and we would get back to that thing again to show that to another one.
With the car then we had one extra step before getting into all those places: "Looking for a parking space" And if we could find one, it would be like an official permission to actually get into the favorite spots.
We couldn't hold our hands but I would put my left hand on his right shoulder on our way and we would listen to the music that we always made fun of their singers and the lyrics, nothing sophisticated about those music but great fun. Then this not holding hands part got compensated for a new interest; traveling by this car and with our own way for hours and hours inside Iran from the capital to the north of Iran or to the west to Shiraz. Smell of "Bahar narenj", since then, means Shiraz to my senses. Every where you go you will feel it if it's Spring in Shiraz. Last time the trip to Esfahan reminded me again and again the joy of moving and traveling inside Iran. And there are yet to travel, to see...
There is something unique about traveling in Iran, something different.

Spinning around

"There are times when friendship feels like running down a hill together as fast as you can, jumping over things, spinning around, and you don't care where you're going, and you don't care where you've come from, because all that matters is speed, and the hands holding your hands"*.


It's almost 10 years that there are times when friendship feels like running down a hill together as fast as you can, jumping over things, spinning around... There are times and times.

*Matthew Tobin Anderson

And dance

We went to one of the performances of Holland dance festival last night. It was a three part program. The first one was interesting, I enjoyed the second part and I tried so hard controlling myself from laughing out loud at some points of the last part. Fell free to think that I don't understand art at some level ;). We have one more program to go.

Puzzle!

68 cm by 48.5 cm- 1000 pieces of one winter landscape; a souvenir from our 2 hours tour to Rijksmuseum to ourselves and when they will be made to one piece (?) I'll tell you as soon as we finish ;-).

Voting fingers...

Nature

There is this huge jungle like area so close to our place that we discovered not so long ago, in fact as the weather started to show its soft side this heaven like area got revealed, it's a perfect place for jugging in mornings and wandering at weekends. Today when me and Mr.Behi were walking in there through the constant taking off and landing of singing birds and swimming ducks and swans I was thinking how much I need to walk along this green beautiful colorful nature.
It gives me this incredible feeling of peace and I can think and breath like a kid, like a very happy free child getting extremely happy and excited with very little things happening around her.
When I was a kid in summers we used to go to my father's garden and walk up not very high hills as we got close to the sunset, we would sit there looking down at farms and gardens and every time I would scream out with a joyful excited voice: "This view is just like a beautiful painting" and nights were the times I would notice several scratches on my feet from a day running and playing in the middle of bushes and climbing up the trees. This need of being where you hear nothing more than the sound of nature has stayed with me since then, I shall never forget this.

PS: This last Friday night we went to Shajarian the son's concert in Amsterdam. It was his first independent performance from his father. I'm not really a fan of traditional Iranian music as I said before but I must say that I enjoyed many of the live performances and the songs themselves. I found his music more lively than his father. The place was also nice. I felt home, it was great.

Out of the Crowd

Notebook

It's good to talk, I can look at my feelings once they have sounds and motions. It was the same when I used to write but not exactly the same since now it can be difficult to return to those sounds and see their motions while looking at the written words was always possible you know, and my handwriting was there with its constant changing.
Since that cold freezing day I started to talk even more and started to write much less and I don't mind if I won't be able to see those words again and I'm not wondering if my handwriting has been changing since then. And you started to be written in like a notebook from that day and it was freezing cold...

Painting Museum

We opened our holidays' tour by going to "Panorama Mesdag" today. The museum's masterpiece was this panorama painting of seaside of scheveningen which said to be the biggest painting in Holland and the oldest panorama in the world.

Vincent van Gogh's comment on Mesdag's work was interesting to me as the panorama itself was: "Mesdag Panorama is the most beautiful sensation of my life. It has just one tiny flaw and that is its flawlesness".

To Feel Good

Weekend is here and I'm sitting enjoying the fact that I'm sitting. I had a hectic week and a final exam yesterday. It's extremely good that I have to be in a place during the week where I can experience what I always wanted to and it doesn't feel good not being able to contact as much as before during each day... Weekend is the time to appreciate the weekend, to share songs and smell of "ghorme sabzi" and feeling satisfied of not seeing those tiny butterflies that secretly were eating our nuts, to be glad of another cloudy/sunny day, to talk, to contact and get ready for another good hectic week.

Turning point

I'm writing with the biggest smile on my face and the tears ready to well in my eyes.
I will always remember yesterday, August 29 as one of the sweetest days of my life. I waited for so long to be where I am right now. I got my admission after 3 weeks of hard work, hope and fear. This new chapter is "really" going to start.
I'm thinking of the man standing close and always with his big bright heart...

Up-date

We've been quite busy with moving to our own place and sorting things out in a last couple of days. Yesterday we had some extra time and we used it to buy our bicycles and then we rode straight all way back home which was a totally new experience and fun!
I think beside all the streets' signs, stores and landmarks what could be also considered as a typical scene of this city and others around is a huge bunch of bicycles parked near stations and by telling "huge" I mean HUGE! No wonder here most young and elder people seem in such good shapes.
Anyway,I can see and feel a dramatic change that is happening in the life style of our tiny little family.
And one more thing, through the next three weeks I have a very important program to participate which makes me stressed out and thrilled at the same time.

Hello Netherlands!

After 3 weeks stay in Iran now we're in the Netherlands.

From the hot hot sunny Tehran we've found ourselves in the chilly, rainy, cloudy and windy weather of The hague! Things seem alright and I like what I've seen so far. Will write more and soon...

Good Bye Tripoli

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! ;).

Many Happy Returns!

February 14 is one of the greatest days of my life.

Thank you for coming into this world,
HaPpY BiRtHdAy my Love :).

Book-connection-Barcelona

Three things that have made me quite happy in less than 24 hours since yesterday:

1- I bought the book of "The kite Runner" on our way to Spain in Milan airport. I wanted to read the story first before watching its movie. I usually enjoy books better than their movies, now I have no idea what is the story all about so I can enjoy the story before the movie probably ruins my neutral mind!

2- Last night we realized internet connection prices in this hotel that we're staying right now are extremely expensive. But this morning we figured out there is a free access of high speed internet 24 hours within our entire stay which means the company is covering all the costs which is just P-E-R-F-E-C-T :).

3-Today I had the best time, we toured around Barcelona. I must say that this city is incredibly charming.

The picture above is made by Javier Mariscal called Gambrinus done for the Olympics. It's located at the end of Passeig de Colom.

Photo by Mr.Behi

Tuscany Road Trip-part II

And the rest of the story... The first thing that my husband did after finding the car completely hopeless was putting the warning triangle in a distance from the car and the second thing that he started to do was waving his hands for the cars which were getting close in the road as a sign of asking for help. After almost 20 minutes of waiting one of the cars stopped, a man and a woman got off the car. At first, all I could get in the darkness from them was a middle aged man with Italian accent and a lady who was younger. The man who we later figured out his name was Micheal started to call the numbers that my husband gave him in search of help. Finally after 2 hours, a towing car came and picked our car like a faint body off the road to take it somewhere for awaking.

Despite of our insisting on not changing their plans, our helpers canceled their plans literally, stayed with us the entire time and at the end they changed their way back to company us to Siena where we were supposed to find a hotel to stay for the night.
We found the hotel and the next day we received a new car from the car rental company. Then we had lunch as a thank you with our new friends. We found out that Micheal was in fact a professor of philosophy in university of Siena and while walking in the area of Siena he showed us his book in one of the book stores and talked about its main subject. The lady who her name was Emmanuelle was a French film director and as soon as she found out our nationality, she described her admiration for Iranian cinema and some Iranian directors whose works she was familiar with.

By facing that problem at that night we had this amazing opportunity of meeting these really kind people and we didn't miss the chance of visiting Siena which Micheal strongly recommended us for not missing it. It could be a shame to skip the visit of such a phenomenon place indeed.

I think life in some levels could be like this. You never know...there could be some thing bright beyond every dark path.

Tuscany Road Trip-part I

Since my previous post we went through different places and now we're back in Tripoli. I think this travel was so different from others that we've had and I'm loaded with plenty of nice memories and new feelings and experiences that I felt and had during that short period of time. It was quite a travel and very interesting after all.
After leaving Florence we were on the road of Tuscany region and all I can remember is beauty, beauty and again beauty. I could not take my eyes off through our way from those magnificent views. In the middle of our way we went to Pisa and had a very quick visit of its famous tower. Then we went up to a road which was ended up in a very amazing hilltown called Volterra. It was near the sunset that we headed toward Rome and after a while of riding, our car seemed not very well. We felt lucky as we were near a gas station when we had problem with the car. The person who checked the car told us that he could not see any specific problem in the system but for making sure we could go to Siena which was so close to the place that we were and we could check with an expert in there. We went there and checked again with an expert and he could not figure out what was wrong with it so we decided to call the company that we hired the car from to know what was best to do. We called this company which is well-known and international by the way. They asked some technical questions from my husband about the car, then they told him to go on the travel because it seemed the car had some electrical problems which happens so often and that was why some gages had been broken and it was not big a deal. So, we started the rest of our travel and we were relieved that we were not going to have canceled our hotel reservation in Rome at that night.
It was almost 8 p.m and we were in the middle of the road when the car suddenly and apparently very simply JUST stopped. It happened so quickly. Again, we were lucky to be in a spot that had a roadside and that the road was not crowded and that we were not in a high speed. Otherwise it could turn to something more unfortunate.
The place was so dark and seemed far from any help. We didn't have the cellphone that could work in Europe and I was already preparing myself for a really new experience of spending a whole night inside the car in a road and I was checking to make sure we had water and was happy that we had at least some cookies and also popcorns :).

To be continued...