A Sunday post

It's a cloudy Sunday here in The Hague, after spending most of the times out yesterday and the week before you just like to sit and feel absolutely lazy. At the same time of making a warm homemade Persian meal, sorting and cleaning up a little bit, reviewing and scanning the up coming works and plans I also review the last week. If the things that happened were nice I enjoy thinking about them more than once and describing to Mr. Behi 2 or 3 times but with different formats just to make it more interesting to hear.

PS: I strongly feel that to be happy you need to believe in yourself and make peace with yourself.

Photo for fun

Now that I look it gets more clear that we could be good friends! ;D

With Natives

We're at a party, it's a small place filled with people. When you want to talk you need to speak out load otherwise the person whom you're talking to wouldn't hear you but this does not make you feel you're loud because "there" you are not. You talk and you know the lady that you're talking to is British, a charming warm lady. You're enjoying the talk. Then she asks if you've studied or lived in an English speaking country before, you say no and then she starts giving compliments on your accent and English. Now, you feel aware of the fact that the place is getting quiet. Now, you feel a new awareness; you're focused on not making any grammatical mistakes. You wish she did not mention that.

We're at a party. A boyfriend of a new friend just got introduced to you. You know he's a Greek and recently arrived from USA. The place is not crowded or loud. You start to have a conversation with his girlfriend, the talk reaches to some interesting points. The Greek boyfriend is mostly listening, they decide to take the rest of the talk to her place next time. Next time arrives and you meet them in a small dinner of 4. You realize the boyfriend is in fact a Greek-American born in the US. Now you're too aware of the fact that he is a native speaker. You secretly wish he was only a Greek.

Saturday fun!

Newton Faulkner; it was a treat watching his performance live tonight!

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.

...

I have a very important exam next week and should study really hard this coming week. Mr.B is not with me these days and his absence has started since yesterday. This is not the first time that he's away but I feel so fragile and lonely from the moment he left...I can actually start to cry any time and any where about any thing that I hear, read or see that involves a little bit emotion.
I was so in rush yesterday that I did not notice I closed the door while his key was in the lock and the moment that I tried to lock the door I realized that. I had to leave and the time that I would be back home was around 10 p.m. I left any way but it went fine at the end and I wasn't homeless last night.
One of my friends' homepage in Facebook suddenly disappeared, she was very active during the election and I got this very bad feeling what if something bad has happened to her. I sent her an email, she replied she was fine but numbers of her friends got arrested and were asked to open their FB pages and give information about their FB's friends and how they know each other...Thank God she was fine, she might get arrested, she was thinking about her friends' safety, I cried.
Next week I'll be happier I think. Next week I'll have a very dear friend coming over for 2 days from England. Last time that we met was the time that we were about to leave Iran to Libya and she was on her short visit to Iran and last time that we had one of our long talks was almost 9 years ago. Next week Mr.B will come back.

Nostalgia!

I've been almost forgetting what it feels like when you see one of those highly spiritual brothers "baradrane moteahed" and you start wondering am I this invisible to this man or is he this much alert/rude that cannot look at me while he's talking and cannot even talk to me while he's talking. Having to go to Iranian embassy could make you updated sometimes that yeah, you're still disgusted with some of these " baradarane mokhles"!

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

Norouz

And when you repeat "Norouz" twice when you're talking about your new year, that's a reminder telling you're out of Norouz's birthplace for the second time but you still can smell it, you know it's not because of the spring like weather in here which helps you to feel so, it was in Libya last year and the weather was not helping and still you could feel Norouz... It's you and it'll always be.

Happy Spring, Happy new year every body! :)

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.