Turkish Delight: December 2020

(Sam here) Einstein described relativity like so: "When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That's relativity." I would like to make the parallel of "While living in Turkey the U.S. seems like a heaven and while living in Iran, Turkey seems like a heaven."

1) The smog HERE IN TEHRAN is heinous. We thought we had it bad when coal burning season came in Izmir but you haven't experienced bad until you come and live in a city where they actually have to tell citizens not to leave their houses because the smog may harm them.

2) We had so very much in Izmir, WHILE the amount of freedom in Iran is about zero. NEW SENTENCE we thought we had it bad IN TURKEY when we got ripped off by store venders BUT you haven't experienced bad until you come to a country WHERE someone (my dad) cannot go for fear the government will make up an excuse to throw him in jail.

3) The irony with number three is that Iran (COMMA) which refers to itself as an "Islamic Republic" (COMMA) has what seems like thousands of minarets AND yet absolutely no call to worship. In Turkey a "secular state" (although the current government has found ways around that), it is like a symphony of "azaans"/ calls to worship.

4) This being the political line could be turned into its own blog in itself, but in short, the government did nothing to oppress the people in Turkey (that is if you weren't a Kurd or against the government), in Iran you are forbidden to show your hair for women, and your ankles for men. For those of you who don't remember the riots about a year and a half ago I'll leave it at this, the government was not very friendly, not to mention the recent news about the Dutch girl who was executed, yes executed, for having 4 kilos of cocaine on her (the absurdity is that in a humongous drug bust last year they caught a Colombian drug cartel who had only 3 kilos of cocaine). I would understand it better if she was sent to prison for life even, but executed. She wasn't even an Iranian citizen, and Iran did not allow the Dutch government to give her any representation (Holland WAS one of two of their last western "allies, and her country of origin). Not only that but what every Iranian will tell you is that, she did not have 4 kilos of cocaine, but instead was simply a pawn that Iran used to show that they are pros in the business of crazy. (Not that short really)

5) In Turkey there were supermarkets. End of story. There is no such thing as a supermarket as far as I can see, but instead there are just small little stores with shelves that are miraculously still standing with all the merchandise the store owner puts on them.

6) Our Turkish 4-wheel-moped a.k.a. the Doblo looks like a dream car here. I swear Iran became Kia's scrapland, there are so many tiny little Kias which don't even look like they should be able to move here it is appalling. Not only that but our Doblo ($15,000 for the "nice" Doblo) would cost somewhere near the price of a nice Mercedes SUV R class (45,000ish) due to the 200% tax.

7) The Iranians have taken the Middle East Deoderant Crisis to whole new level. Some people don't seem to have taken a shower ever, while others smell like they tore the spray lid off the cologne and showered themselves in the fragrance.

8) Bad driving has been redefined. Do you remember sometime way back we joked about how the Turks made 5 lanes out of 4? The Iranians make that look elementary in comparison to their 8 lanes out of 4. Our grandparents have a car that beeps when other cars get to close, that beeping noise is like background music by now.

9) Iranian food beats Turkish food, at least in my opinion so there's nothing to complain about there

This is all awfully pessimistic but to be thoroughly honest if it wasn't for my grandparents and my heritage I would have been in and out of Iran as fast as possible. The people here are nice and the food is clearly the work of thousands of years of perfection, but honestly there isn't that much to look forward to in Iran. Maybe things will change as we go to visit other areas but as for now I'm only enjoying the company and food.