"God Must Be Crazy"

Thursday morning we went to Tochal again. This time we walked the first portion, and realized what journey it really is, how out of shape we are. Our appreciation for the men and women who walk the entire thing every week runs much deeper. We took the gondola the rest of the way up, but this time there was no snow...just a lot of wind."

"Ghati Kardi Khoda" ("You mixed-up God?" ie. God must be crazy), one man said when the wind nearly knocked us over...

On the way down we got stuck behind a big group of 15 year old boys on a a school trip. For some reason they thought my friend and I were foreign- either from the clothes, or our gestures, or something else...because we didn't speak. They were extremely curious about us- being from the south of Tehran, where not even the few random foreigners sometimes seen in the north can be found. We decided to play along and told them we were from England (He is fully Tehrani, and me well not really but almost :)

At one point we nearly got caught when I blurted out something very casually to an attendant in Persian. But the kids were too dazzled by our story and our accessories (most of them from right here in Tehran), they didn't even notice. They asked which football team we supported in England: Arsenal of course, I said, and of course they knew Arsenal. They liked Barcelona. They loved all our stuff, especially Amir's blue bandanna and cheap sunglasses. They spoke pretty good English, especially a few of them. They even told Amir he was "very very nice, a gentleman."

In then end we never told them the truth. We thought we should and perhaps we should have, but then when they attacked us pleading to take pictures with Amir, we just couldn't break their hearts... There is a strange obsession here with people and things foreign, as if the West is some wonderland, where people are extremely different. Perhaps we should have showed them that it's not really the case. But they were so pleased and had this great story to tell all their friends, which is also nice...too bad I didn't have my camera :)

Waiting in line at Tochal
+a billboard of Iran's non-alchoholic beer: "Delester"