Before classes start again I decided to go back to Iran for 3 weeks (after not having visited for 3 years) to see some relatives and friends and also to pay respect to my recently deceased grandpa, who always treated me like his own son and whom we all miss a lot.

Before going I had to organize a lot of things including the contract for my new apartment in Cologne, but in the end all went pretty well and I could fly without regrets.

Iran hasn’t changed as much as I expected – at least on the outside – but if you look at it more deeply you notice quite some things, most of them not very positive. One of the most disturbing beeing the new law agaisnt shops (and with coffee shops, ice bars,..) having to close at midnight, so that streets get really empty and lonesome at nights (quite contrary to the Teheran I knew 3 years ago). Additionally the recently very popular TV series keep a lot of people in their homes from 6 pm till about midnight.

But I also had lots of fun back home. Going out with my Cousines and Cousins. eating lots of great food and enjoying the warm sunny end-summer-weather of Teheran. I would like to especially thank Ali, my younger Cousines husband, for sacrificing so much of his time showing me around and having quite interesting discussions.

We also visited the Island of Kish in the South of Iran, which was really hot and humid, but also fun. But see the pictures and get your own impression

Pictures of Iran 07

I just payed the $24,95 for my flickr pro account, so now I can upload all the new and old pictures I have here. First will be pictures of my stay in China. I have a lot so this will take some time, but I will start uploading gallery for gallery over time so be sure to check back here often For now at least the [http://www.tanglang.info/index.php/flickrgallery/album/72157594544340855/Hiking_the_Great_Wall.html|Gallery with pictures of the Great Wall] is up again. Have fun

So last weekend I went to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm|Stockholm] to visit some friends/family. The day before Babak had called and warned me, that he was gonna kidnap me to his place, where they would start partying even before I’ll arrive and maybe afterwards go clubbing. Sounded good to me, as I never had been out clubbing in Stockholm. So getting of the flight at the baggage claim I saw someone picking a bag which looked exactly like mine (a pretty common advertisement bag in germany). I thought he must have got a sign on it as he can’t be as lazy as me, not marking such a common bag. But when the second bag came out I realized he took mine and I was left with his. Luckily the girl working at the baggage claim issued my report pretty quick, so I could at least leave the airport with the promise to be called as soon as my baggage was found.

So then I was taken to my friends place, where a small party crowd of eight was already through some 2 liters of spirit. After catching up a little and watching several nonsense clips on [http://www.youtube.com|youtube] we decided to go to some fancy club in the city. The club was named “White Room” and is said to be one of the most high class clubs in Stockholm, but relying on a friend who got us on the guestlist, we go tin pretty easily Inside it was not as fancy as I expected, but the guests seemed mostly pretty rich. As it wasn’t too crowded (yet) we started dancing a little and after some time an asian (maybe chinese) girl who was dancing next to me turned around and offered me a small round package, I couldn’t identify at first sight. My first guess was those tobacco things they use in Sweden instead of smoking (like chewing tobacco but in a small “teabag” you suck on – really disgusting stuff ) and then some kind of drugs. But when she opened it and said something like “..wax..” moving her hand to her head, I realized i was hairwax, which I gratefully accepted. But after applauding my new hairstyle she lost interest and the rest of my night went pretty boring

The next day, after getting my luggage back, we got invited by some distant family to some mexican food in Kista, the technology center of Stockholm. there I got to meet Neda, who just moved to Stockholm to get her Masters there and whom I hadn’t seen for at least 2 Years. Also her Mum, who was visiting her and Yalda, a Classmate of Neda, who looked just like an old friend of mine. This made me kind of talk to her more than with Neda herself.

The rest of my trip went pretty uneventful, not counting the great Kale-Pache (persian breakfast with mutton head) we had on Sunday