Carpet Museum



Last night after class I was talking to Aaron and he made me feel very guilty for up and neglecting the blog. Ok, he didn't really say much (it's Aaron after all.) I just felt guilty.

Did I really stop posting barely into the 2nd day? Dang. So after breakfast we walked to our next adventure. Not far, just to the other end of the longish block (no harrowing street crossings this time). I saw a store signed "Community Cooperative" across the street, but I didn't get a chance to ask about it (with 12 people to one guide it's hard to always get all your annoying questions answered.)

So after almost no time we got to the national Carpet Museum. Check out the exterior -- made to look like a loom! (caption links to museum site) I didn't take any pictures inside because flash is not allowed (as in most museums and mosques --I later found out the uv exposure gradually leaches out the ancient colors), the light was low and I couldn't get an un-blurry shot. But I saw tons of beautiful carpets, silk and wool, nomadic style, curlicue/flowery/medallion style, scenes of people and events. I learned that the "rajt" is one of the measures of fancy-ness -- how many knots there are per square cm. Over 70 is very fancy. Around 30 is more everyday.

Since carpets are fabric and susceptible to rot, there didn't used to be much archeological evidence of the origins of Iranian carpet weaving. But in a 1949 Siberian excavation, Russian archeologists found a 2500 yr old Persian carpet. From how evolved the patterning was, historians dated the art to at least 1000 years before that. Dang.

After the carpet museum, we boarded the bus -- in order to get dropped off at the subway station. The subway is only a couple years old and still developing. It works much like BART. (It wasn't part of the itinerary, but we requested to check it out.) We were such a spectacle that people stared, pointed, took our picture...I guess tourists don't usually take the subway.

riding on the metro-o-ohow bazaar

We got out by Teheran's largest bazaar, which was incredibly crowded, both at the subway exit and the bazaar entrance. But a little ways into the bazaar you start having options to turn off to the left or right, and it thinned out pretty fast. You can find anything for sale in bazaars. Shoes, fabric, scarves, jewelry, hardware store stuff, appliances, dishes, clothes of course, carpets, naturally. Perfume. Dried beans, spices, dried fruit, fresh fruit and I think meats too. I was so overwhelmed that I didn't buy anything besides a carrot juice (fresh carrot and melon juices are as ubiquitous as soft serve over there). I checked out some lovely carpets though.

Then it was back on our bus and to the domestic airport for our flight to Tabriz, which is in the northwestern part of Iran. It's in the Azerbayjan province, unsurprisingly, as it's right next to Azerbaijan (and Armenia).

When you enter an Iranian airport, you go through 2 security checks: one as you enter, luggage and all, and then the regular one by the gates. Both have separate entrances for men and women.

As soon as everyone was seated on the plane, the attendant went around with a basket of fine candies -- Iranian hospitality just doesn't get old. Our row was all people in our group, and I was sitting next to a poli-sci professor who had investigated some CIA activity back in his dissertation days. Really interesting seat-mate to have.

Our whole group, for that matter, was pretty informed and interesting. There were 3 other students, all mid-20's; the guide, who's about my age; and everyone else was in or around their 50s. The majority of the around-50s were professors in varied fields. One woman is a judge, which led to some interesting conversations with Iranian girls and women -- you can be a lawyer but not a judge in Iran, if you're female.

Our hotel in Tabriz is the poshest hotel I have ever stayed in. Very spacious room, beautiful cherry paneling, elevated bathtub -- and stunning views. It is set on a hillside above the city. The view in the less populated direction looked like nothing so much as Tatooine: sandy hillsides, big trucks and things running along a distant stretch of road, landspeeders zooming about. Somehow the photos did not capture this, so you'll just have to believe me.

our fancy hotel in breezy Tabriz


Tabriz-tooine

my room with this view

DAY 2

Oh jet lag. The next morning I woke up at 2 am, eyes that wouldn't close, ready to start the day. 2am here corresponds to 3:30 in the afternoon at home, which makes no sense at all for a waking time.

What's that? 3:THIRTY?? Why yes, I am 10 AND A HALF HOURS ahead of CA time. What is this with the un-whole-y numbers, the platform for the Hogwarts Express? Maybe tomorrow morning we have flying carpet lessons.

(Actually I believe the time zone boundary more or less bisects the country, so they probably decided to straddle the time change rather than the time zone. Pure evil, obviously.)

For a while I tried to sleep. Then I read interesting things I had brought with me. Around 5:30 I opened the window to try and hear the call to prayer, which I think I did but at some distance. I was grateful to have the room to myself (my roomie wouldn't be arriving for a couple more days) so I could be restless. I snapped the picture of the Alborz mountains out my window. (The space-needle lookin thing you see towards the left is a telecommunications tower that is still being built, and will be one of the largest such things in the world.)

I eventually got dressed and packed just in time for breakfast, the same abundant spread. Except now that it wasn't so novel (after just one day I become a critic), I noticed the coffee was terrible (Nescafe), so I stuck to the tea. I figured they must know what they're doing with teas in this part of the world. Little did I realize.

More soon!

I have been thinking more about the concentratedness of both the traffic and all the people in the bazaars, and I conclude that there is just less personal space for each person -- this is a city of 14 million, and it's pretty incredible that things move so fast.


So the dress-shopping. In addition to the headscarf, women must keep their arms covered, and your shirt garment must cover all of your butt. Then you wear pants (or rarely, a long skirt) underneath. Many of us needed the shirt thingies (for example, I had been wearing a fabric-y raincoat over a tank top all day). They are called manteaus (manteaux, to be French proper) and I got super bummed when we first went in the store because they all looked the same. Now that I have been here for weeks, I notice tons of variety. Esprit even makes some. They look like a coat but are actually very thin material. (See pics. I can't make them post where I want them to go, and I can't rotate them.)


After the shopping the bus took us to the part of the city in the foot of the mountains again. This was a different area from before, and the uphill street was lined with vendors of fruit, dried fruit, candy etc. Then we turned a corner and it was all these restaurants built into the cliffs, each with 4-5 stories of patio dining and all beautifully lit. Some had waterfalls in their middle and some were closer to a stream -- they all had some kind of rushing water you could hear while you ate. It was lovelier than anything I could have imagined. I felt like I was inside a scene from Crouching Tiger or something. I deeply regret not having charged the camera battery.



We sat down at a long table (well, I did after running to the bathroom and changing into one of my new manteaux.) which had little cookies and tea waiting for us. Iranians LOVE sweets (I was quickly finding) and part of hospitality is offering little cookies or candies to nibble on when you arrive (at someone's home, to a restaurant, after you've boarded a domestic flight, even boarding our tour bus sometimes). Oddly, there were also several boxes of kleenex along our table. All I could think was: my mom would be in kleenex heaven here. Later I found out that that's what people use as napkins, though at this posh place there were also fan-folded cloth napkins.



I joined the folks who were ordering beers, very curious what 0.0% would taste like in this place where alcohol is outlawed. The answer: Terrible. Weird maltiness, ugh. disgusting. (A few days later I found an apple "beer" that is ok, carbonated apple juice more or less. and the lemon is not so bad either). So I stuck to water and soda after that.


I ordered a trout dish, as the other options were meat kebabs. The food was fine but much less impressive than the surroundings.


As we left the beautiful place, I saw my first Iranian cats! Which weren't Persian cats at all. They looked pretty much like regular domestic short hairs at home, perhaps a little smaller. These two were orangey. Not a lot of people here have cats as pets, but I think the strays get treated well (I bet they keep rodents away). They didn't avoid people as quickly as feral kitties at home do, though they aren't into being patted much. They look healthier than strays, and when you make kissy sounds, they meow back in greeting. (Every single cat I met, in cities across Iran, did this. How can that be explained? My best guess is that they have learned Iranian hospitality and friendliness from the humans).


The last novel thing of this long day was the fortune-telling parakeets. On the walk back down to the bus, an old man had two pretty birds and a long box stuffed with folded colorful papers. If you give him a 2000 rial note (about 20 cents), he has a bird pick out a fortune for you, very cute. Of course, we had to ask our guide to translate them. (Most fortunes conclude with suggestions to pray and remember God.)

Pictures! finally. these two are the US Embassy

And this is the dead dude

Sadly, that day my camera battery ran out and I got no more pics until the next day. Which is too bad, because the palace and the place we ate dinner were pretty spectacular.

I think I left off at the visit to Khomenei's humble abode. Man, that guy is popular here, which isn't a giant surprise. After his house, we went down a narrow winding road for a short way, to a cluster of some stores. Our guide got us all ice creams that come in a plastic cup with syrup, like we used to get at the mom n pop store as kids. Then we went around the corner to this amazing bread-making place. There are 4-5 basic kinds of Iranian breads, so far as I can figure, and this is my favorite one. They make it by mashing the dough flat, into a mostly oval shape nearly a meter long. Then they have a giant metal spatula (w/ handle at least 3m long) that they use to hoist it into the oven. The oven door doesn't close so you can see the stones covering the bottom and the shadows from the flames flickering. The stones pock mark the bread so when it's done they hang it on a nail, thru the pock mark, to cool. It's a little chewy and when it's fresh out of the oven, the most delicious thing ever.

To the north of Tehran are the Alborz mountains, and this was in the foothills. But next we piled back into the tour bus, and rolled down to the fashionable North Teheran district to check out a bazaar and do some shopping. Most of the women wanted to get something more suitable, as it's hard to find clothes that keep you covered, yet are bearable in the summer, at home.

The bazaar was not terribly different from Chinatown or even parts of the Mission, just way more stuff for sale, and closer together stalls. There was a huge produce/nuts/dried fruit market at the center. One person got raw pistachios and just threw one into her mouth -- without realizing it needed to be peeled and then shelled. oopsie. And after all that work, they don't even taste that good raw.

One thing I learned fast about bazaars is that if you don't push your way through, you don't get anywhere. If you let someone pass in front of you, it makes the people behind you impatient and they try to get in front. So it's not rude to be pushy, it's expected. Maybe people use the same rationale in traffic and that's why it's so crazy. Who knows.

I'm about to be timed out! More as I can. xo

I made it so you don't have to log on to post comments.


I can't get to a USB port on this machine, so keep anticipating pictures.

Back to the traffic. It's not just a nightmare, it's a circle of hell. Manifested as multi-lane traffic circles at most intersections. But there are also traffic lights here and there, which are treated as optional. Interestingly, both red and green last a long time (30-60 sec) and there's usually a countdown display for both. Did I mention pedestrians cross literally everywhere?

The National Museum is a smallish archeological museum, with dug-up dishes, jewelry, etc. Most things were thousands of years old and would be great fodder for episodes of Buffy (if only they were still writing them). The museum had parts of a limestone relief from the Persepolis site (so it was about 2500 yrs old), showing a king (either Darius or Xerxes, they're not sure) and various visitors, successors, etc, to the king. By far the coolest thing was they had a head! of a dude! yes a real live dead dude! Someone over 200 years old, found in a salt mine in a recent decade. Definitely look forward to pictures of that.

Before getting back in the tour bus, it was time for a visit to the museum's facilities. The sign to the women's room was adorable, not the skirt we're used to but a headscarf and button-down manteau! I want one for my home. Anyway, the real suprise was the introduction to squat toilets. They aren't that different from regular toilets, except that they're set into the ground (and they don't have a lid and you definitely shouldn't sit right on it.) There is also no toilet paper, but instead a faucet with a small hose attached. I suppose the idea is a makeshift bidet, but I have no idea how you avoid making a mess of everything if you do that. Otherwise not too hard to adjust, kinda like backpacking (easier even).

Once back on the bus, we swung past the front of the American Embassy, which has of course been closed since the hostages in 1979. There are official-looking virulently anti-American comments on the wall surrounding the embassy, which I didn't take personally. It's hard to when every street sign is transliterated, every store has signs in English, tons of people speak English, and even the highway signs are in English. I hadn't expected nearly so much stuff would be translated. Plus the people are incredibly friendly and hospitable, which I'll detail more later.

Then we navigated over to the palaces where the shah used to live and work. We only toured the building of former offices, which was incredibly lavish. Furniture from France, soundproofed walls in the meeting rooms, of course Persian carpets, glittery chandeliers and even glittery bits of mirror set into some of the walls. More rooms than I could keep count of, and all set up differently. All I could think was if the place was filled with zombies, you could play Axis of Resident Evil.

Then we rolled over to where Khomenei had lived, which was quite spare in comparison. Just a 2 bedroom home (couldn't enter but viewed thru glass, only 1 Persian carpet was visible) with a mosque attached. The mosque was very non-ornate as mosques here go.

I can't believe I still haven't gotten through the first day but I am tired and going to sleep now. The later days aren't so detailed so they'll go faster. We are in Yazd now, which is in the desert so they don't have as many internets, but tomorrow we travel to Esfahan, a big city with, I believe, many more internets.

This is the only blog site I've been able to find that's not blocked in Iran! Welcome. Pictures to be added later (when I remember to bring the USB cable to the "coffeenet.")

We got here a week ago, but I haven't been at a computer much. Our guide keeps us busy! and we've been in some more remote areas that didn't have any internets. The rest of the trip is going to be in more metropolitan areas, so there will be more updates.

I want to start with a few mythbusters that you probably already know, but anyway:

-Iran is not an Arab country. The language and culture are Persian, and as the Arabs invaded the country about 3000 years ago, it is considered insulting to call it part of the Arab world. The language (now called Persian more than Farsi) does use the Arabic script and some vocabulary, but the grammar is completely different, Indo-European.

-The landscape is much more mountains than desert (maybe 20-30% desert). It snows in the winter and there are ski resorts! (I had known this from 2 Iranian-American women I skied with on the Cal ski team.)

-It is not a "third world" country. Tehran, especially North Tehran, is a fashion center, believe it or not. Despite the restrictions, Iranian women dress great and generally have excellent makeup. Something like 90% of people are educated. You can drink the tap water. The economy isn't doing fabulous, but there are tons of professionals here, lawyers professors doctors etc. Apparently plastic surgery is high quality and very accessible, as you frequently see people with bandages across their nose. Anyway, I had kind of expected it to be scrappy and barren, like much of Managua or something, and it's totally not.

Anyway, back to the start of the trip! We were delayed coming thru passport control for over an hour -- they're fingerprinting all Americans entering the country. This is in direct response to the US fingerprinting (and interrogating and searching etc) Iranians visiting the US. They used the messy old kind with ink, not the Livescan like you have to get if you teach in CA.

While we were waiting, I introduced myself to the one person in the group I hadn't met yet, Glen. I automatically went to shake his hand -- but he refused. Apparently, you don't shake the hand of the opposite sex when you're standing in front of passport control officers.

But the wait wasn't terrible, and we got our luggage and exchanged money while they got it all figured out. The exchange rate at the bank there was great, though I got a big ol stack of money -- like $200 all in $2 bills. The cashier thought Glen looked like Tom Selleck, which I guess is a little bit true.

I am a little bit ambivalent about the guided tour thing (but that's pretty much the only option for coming here and even so, most tour groups from the US are being denied visas right now, so I feel pretty durn lucky), but I instantly appreciated it as we literally strolled through customs to our bus waiting outside.

Our hotel was called the International before the revolution, but now it's called the Tulip (Laleh) Hotel, the tulip being the symbol of the martyrs. It was cool to know that because I started noticing that tons of things are either named tulip or marked with the symbol.

Anyway, we got like five hours of sleep and then it was time for breakfast, which was an awesome spread! I drank 2 glasses of mango juice, just cuz it's the tastiest thing ever, and also: tea, coffee, flat bread, cucumbers, tomatoes, Iranian feta (so smooth and mild, I love it!) some soft, foil-wrapped cheese (which I also love), yogurt (if you thought European yogurt was tasty, this is a whole new level), watermelon and eggs. They have the little egg cups and hard boiled eggs so I learned to eat them that way, fancy!

After fortifying ourselves, we piled into the tour bus and headed to the National Museum. Traffic in Tehran is INSANE. Everyone goes in all directions, lane markings are merely suggestions and apparently traffic laws are more like guidelines. If that's not bad enough, pedestrians cross everywhere, literally, waiting between the (approximate) lanes.

Agh, it's time to go meet up with the group again. Please check back soon! xo