Day 4 (4/28) - Just how many miles did we walk today?!

We started today at the Vatican museums since the weather was still overcast and light rain. We arrived early and got to the Sistine chapel before it got too crowded. There are no words to truly describe this great work of art. To see it in person was a treasure I’ll never forget. We then spent several hours wandering through much of the rest of the museum. The sheer number of status and busts was amazing. But what was even more interesting was how many of them were labeled as copies of Grecian originals. I always knew the Romans learned a great deal from, and even borrowed from the Greeks, but I didn't realize the extent to which they simply imitated works of art.


Unfortunately, we did not get to the Raphael rooms until later; by that time it was absolutely packed! This, combined with the fact that once you decide to start to go in the direction towards the rooms, you are squeezed through small passages with no way out amde it very claustrophobic for about 50 minutes. Once we reached the rooms there was a large crowd, so we were really not able to enjoy the room as we had hoped.

From the museums, we had hoped to tour St Peters, but when we arrived there at about 1:30, the line stretched all the way around the square. We decided to try again the next day and headed into Rome instead. We took the metro to Piazza Spagna and came out an entrance we were not familiar with, next to the Villa Borghese park. From there, we walked down the hill by the Trevi fountain again. Naturally, we stopped off at our favorite pizzeria/gelateria and continued on to find the Pantheon. Our map was very poor, and so we spent a fair amount of time lost and wandering in different directions – but what better way to truly experience Rome! We finally came upon the Piazza Navona and found the Pantheon from there. I think the Pantheon is truly one of my favorite places in Rome. Because so much of it is still intact, I felt closer to the history of the ancient Romans than I did among ruins. Plus, we loved the shape – that you can fit a perfect sphere inside of it – what incredible engineering! We headed back through the Piazza Navona and toured the church of Sant’Agnese in Agone. We then went to the church of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, which my sister said was a “must see” for a status by Michelangelo housed there, but which does not (unlike the Pieta in St. Peter’s) have hordes of tourists visiting it.


From there, we continued to wander through the streets to the Campo Fiori coming out along the river. Along the way, we came upon a Jewish festival celebrating the state of Israel. There were lots of police around, although everything seemed very peaceful. We continued on, and came upon the Portico of Octavia, once of the grandest monuments in Rome. Only the entrance porch now remains. What amazes us most about Rome, as I’m sure it does for every tourist, is that every time one turns a corner there are more ruins, and more history to be discovered. When we turned to our right, we realized we were at the Teatro di Marcello, built around 11 BC and once the second largest theater in Rome. Centuries after it was abandoned and then resurrected as a fortress, a noble family turned it into a palace on the 16th century and built additional living quarters atop the two tiers that remained of the theater. As it was early evening, there were few tourists around. It is a singular sensation to walk by a ruin or building that has been standing for hundreds of years, and realize you are not only small in comparison to the sheer size of the monument, but also only one miniscule person among millions who, throughout so many centuries, have also gazed upon these ruins with awe. The hurry and break-neck speed with which we normally live our daily lives suddenly seems to stop and carry far less importance.
Subdued, we wandered through quiet roads and alleyways to the top of the Capitolino hill for a beautiful view of Rome and the Forum, and then a golden-blue sunset over Vittoriano Emmanuel.
But this beautiful day had one last gift for us – as we strolled back towards the Colosseum, we captured – in our hearts, though not terribly well on film, a brilliant rainbow stretching from the Forum, over the Colosseum and disappearing into the busy nightlife of Rome.

Day 3 (4/27) - Our first full day in Rome

On our first full day in Rome we wanted to hit some of the ancient sites right away. The most obvious choice to start was the Colosseum. It’s truly amazing how much is still standing despite years of neglect and rampant vandalism. We were also impressed by how much the design, with all of its entrances and exits, has influenced stadium design throughout the rest of history.

From there, we headed up to the Palatine to walk around and view Augustus’ palace, looked down on the Circo Massimo and explored the various ruins. Unfortunately, a massive wind storm started while on the Palatine hill. The problem with being amongst ancient ruins in a wind storm is that there is a lot of,… DUST! Since we literally had dust and dirt blowing in our faces, we headed back down the hill into the Roman Forum. I especially liked the Temple of Antoninus and Faustina, which was once a temple – the front portico of which is still standing. However, within the enclosure of the old temple ruins, the church of San Lorenzo in Miranda church was built centuries later.

What we didn’t realize is that as the storm picked up, the Forum acted as a virtual wind tunnel. We took refuge in the Curia and hung out with Trajan and the other emperors whose statues are housed there for a while. But there’s only so long one can examine the details of roman costume, hair styles and weaponry as carved into marble, and we ventured out again. After snapping a few pictures, our friendly storm brought us something we are very used to – rain. However, this was not the steady drizzle of the Pacific NW; rather, it was a heavy downpour. We took refuge in the Vittorio Emmanuel, and wandered through an exhibit on the history of Rome (all in Italian), before they finally kicked us out at closing time. Thankfully, vendors had appeared at every doorway selling umbrellas. As we headed back toward the Coliseum, the rain started to abate, and we walked along the Imperial Forum, taking in the sights and considering where we might score some tasty gelato. But the storm wasn’t done with us yet, for as we neared the Colosseum, the rain began again in full force, drenching us just as we reached the Metro station. However, it was not cold, and since we still had an appetite for gelato (who doesn’t?!), we bought some from the gellateria in the station and waited for the rain to subside so we could take some pictures around the Colosseum at night. The storm had other ideas, however, since the rain continued and did not look like it would stop anytime soon. In the end, drenched and shivering slightly after our gelato, we headed back to our hotel.

Day 1 – 2 (4/25 - 4/26)

We are finally on our way! After months of planning, shopping, as well as delaying our trip last year, we are once more headed to Iran to visit Nick’s family and homeland. It’s a long trip to Iran – generally about 25-35 hours in just travel time, so we decided to break up the trip and get some rest and relaxation before arriving in Tehran by taking a slight detour to Rome. We left Seattle around noon on Saturday and arrived in Rome via Amsterdam mid-afternoon on Sunday. The only challenge with stopping on the way is that it limits how much baggage we could take to one bag of maximum 50 pounds each, plus a carry-on. While this seems like a lot, when you consider that gift-giving is in Iran, as in many other countries, a very important part of social etiquette, 50 pounds when buying gifts for a large family is actually not really adequate. But Nick and I severely trimmed back our own personal clothing to the bare essentials – I was actually quite impressed with how little we took along personally, as we both have a tendency to over pack!

Since we only had one large bag each, we decided to take all of our baggage to our hotel in Rome with us. What we didn’t count on was that there are not escalators or elevators running at all metro stops. So after our long flight, we did end up lugging the bags up and down a couple of flights of stairs where the escalator was broken. But we eventually managed to get to our hotel just south of the Vatican. Nice place – it caters to a lot of tourist groups from Europe. We were even pleasantly surprised that we not only had our own bathroom, but that it had a deep bathtub – just what we needed after the long flight! After a quick wash-up, we decided to head out for our first evening in Rome. We hopped back on the metro to the Piazza del Popolo and walked along the Via del Corso, a shopping passage that seemed to be closed off to traffic that evening until we turned left and arrived at the Piazza Spagna and the Spanish Steps. What a great place to just relax amongst other tourists, locals, and pots upon pots of azaleas up and down the steps.


Tired, but still excited about being in Rome, we decided we just had to visit the Trevi Fountain as well, as so off we went. We not only found the fountain, which is a spectacular site lit up at night, but also discovered a great little pizzeria and gellateria near the fountain, where we naturally delighted in our first pizza and gelato in Italy!

Our latest trip to Iran

As much as I love Iran, it's been nice being back in Seattle again. There is so much here that I often take for granted - beginning with how beautiful it is! Since we returned two weeks ago, the weather has been fabulous - a very early summer for us. Since we spend so much time doing outdoor activities when the weather's good, that has made it much more difficult to sit down and post to our blog about our trip. Since we got back, we've also gotten into square foot gardening - and put in four gardening boxes. If the good weather is here to stay, we might as well get a jump on growing our own vegetables!

But back to our trip - I'm finally taking a few minutes each day to post our daily experiences on our trip to Iran. We were gone a total of three weeks, spending the first few days in Rome to break up the very long flight from Seattle to Iran, and the remainder of the trip in Iran.

Our first adventure in Iran

It's a great feeling to hear so much about Iran these days in a more positive light than over the past few years. Naturally, it remains to be seen what will come from these warmer words between our new president and the government in Iran, but at least we do not have to sit here every week wondering if our family overseas would be safe from our own country. No longer do we have to hear about the Iran being part of the axis of evil. What a change!

I haven't figured out how to post our original newsletter from our first trip to Iran in its pdf form with all the nice graphics, but at least I can post the words and some accompanying pictures. We had so many friends tell us how much they enjoyed this newsletter. Our hope in writing it back in 2003 was to give people a different glimpse of Iran - one they were not likely to see on CNN or FOX news.

We were in Iran the first time together late in 2002 for nearly four weeks, but we began our trip with a visit to Amsterdam for a few days and then Paris. Both were wonderful cities which we enjoyed tremendously. I have to say, however, our most interesting experience there was one evening in Paris. While wandering on the Champs Elysees we stopped to talk to a Persian gentleman who was there with his family to inquire as to whether he knew where Iran Air’s offices were. After speaking with him for a while, he gave Nick his name and work telephone number, stating that he worked at the Iranian consulate and telling us that if there was anything we needed to give him a call. Before parting, Nick happened to inquire what he did at the consulate. It turns out the gentleman was actually Iran’s ambassador to France! What a small world!

From France we flew with Iran Air to Tehran. We arrived late at night, but two of Nick’s brothers, Massoud and Behrooz, as well as Behrooz’s wife, Akram, and Massoud’s daughter Mariam were there to greet us. We went straight to Nick’s parents house in Tehran Pars (in the east part of Tehran). It was wonderful for Marisa to finally be able to meet the family! We spent a few days just relaxing with family and getting caught up on sleep, partly because we were tired from the weeks before arriving in Tehran and partly because Iranians stay up much later in general than do Americans. Supper is usually served quite late by our standards – around 9:00 at night, if not later. So with tea and conversation afterwards, we usually did not go to bed before midnight at the earliest.

Massoud came to pick us up a few days after we arrived to take us to some of the palaces of the late Shah as well as to a couple of Tehran’s parks. One nice feature of visiting the palaces was that there was a guide at the entrance of each one to guide visitors through with commentary of the various sites. We saw the “Hall of Mirrors” in Niavaran Palace. It is entirely decorated with mirror mosaics and is quite spectacular! The downstairs “hoz” room (a “hoz” is a small pool in the center of the room) had a great deal of beautiful plaster decorative work which made it look like a very fancy wedding cake! The same day, we went to a trailhead that leads into the mountains. For about one mile along the trail, there are dozens of tiny shops selling dried fruit; cooked beets (which are sliced and served to customers with a little fork); spiced, cooked fava
beans; and tea houses along the stream where one could sit on Persian carpeted platforms to have
tea.
The next day, we left for Isfahan and Shiraz. We spent two nights in Isfahan and saw the Chehele-Sotoun, or the palace of forty columns. There are actually only twenty columns, but they are reflected in a pool just in front of the palace to look like forty. We also visited See-o-Sepol – the bridge that has thirty-three arches over the river, as well as an Armenian cathedral, the Friday Mosque, Medan-e Nagsh-Jahan, and the "shaking" minarets. The Medan-e NagshJahan is a huge square where polo games used to be held for the king’s viewing pleasure. There is a palace on one side with a large platform where he could sit and watch. There are also two mosques on the square, and a bazaar which links most of the buildings together the entire way around the square. We stayed in the Abassi hotel, which is fabulous. It was built in the style of Shah Abbas (1571--1629) at the site of one of his former caravan stops. The décor inside was beautiful, with a great deal of intricate painting, mosaics, and mirror work. It had an immense inner courtyard, and a nice teahouse at the opposite side yard from our room. There was an indoor pool with separate hours for men and for women to go to the pool. Marisa went one day and made several acquaintances through a mixture of Farsi and English.

From Isfahan, we traveled south to Shiraz. We stayed in what used to be the Sheraton, which overlooks a large park. We had a tour guide to ourselves for two days who was wonderful. On our first day, we spent the morning exploring the city by ourselves. We visited the citadel of Karim Khan. It has recently been opened up to visitors. Once a palace, it was badly abused over many years as government offices and even a prison. They are slowly bringing it back to life. One of the pavilions and former guesthouse of Karim Khan near the citadel has been turned into a museum. The decorative painting on the ceiling is quite beautiful. We also visited the Shrine of Shah Cheragh, which is a mausoleum for the brother of a great Shi’ite Imam who died in Shiraz in 835 a.d. Men and women must enter separately and are separated by a wall down the middle. After we had both seen our respective sides, Nick inquired as to whether there was anybody who could show Marisa around. After learning that Marisa was American, they allowed her into the men’s side with Nick and the guide so that he could give us a tour of the shrine. The entire inside is covered in mirror work and the light from the chandeliers reflects off the walls and ceilings.

We also visited a teahouse which is located in a very old public bath located half a stairway down from street level. It was very cozy with carpeted platforms surrounding the central “hoz” (pool) and the ice cream we had there was delicious! We met up with our guide in the
afternoon to tour Bagh-e-Eram palace from the outside and the surrounding gardens which are huge. They were so beautiful in winter – they must be amazing in the spring! We also went to the tomb of Saadi – a great poet who was born in Shiraz in 1189, as well as to the mausoleum of Hafez, another great poet who was born in Shiraz in the early 1300’s. Hafez’s poetry is very popular to this day, and we were surprised to see many teenagers at the mausoleum reading Hafez aloud with their friends. One of his books is even said to be able to predict the future when opened randomly. At the entrance, there was a street vendor with a parakeet. When holding it, the parakeet is trained to reach over and pick up one of many verses of Hafez. The parakeet did not seem to like being held by Marisa, but it did provide her with a good fortune!

We had tea with our tour guide at the mausoleum and talked politics. We were very surprised at how openly people discussed the government in power today.

The next day was one of the highlights of our trip: Takht-e Jamshid (Persopolis) and Naqsh-e Rostam. Takht-e Jamshid is a huge palace complex that was started by Darius around 518 b.c. and served as the base for the Archaemenian rulers through Artaxerxerxes II (359 - 338 b.c.) Alexander the Great conquered Takht-e-Jamshid in 330 b.c. There is much discussion as to whether or not it was an accident. In any event, what remains are the huge columns that supported the palace ceilings, the immense stone gates, hundreds of intricate and beautifully detailed carvings and the tombs of Artaxerxes II and Artaxerxes III carved into the hills above. Since many of the carvings and walls were not excavated the late 1800's or early 1900's, many of the carvings remain as fresh as though they were completed last year! Several of them show people of the nations that used to belong to Persia – from Babylonians to Egyptians to Ethiopians. The sheer size of Takht-e Jamshid, as well as the knowledge that all the masonry work was done by hand with only simple tools is overwhelming. The stones, to this day, fit together precisely.

From Takht-e Jamshid, we went a few miles down the road to Naqsh-e Rostam, the sites of the tombs of Darius I (521-485 bc), Darius II (425-405 bc), Artaxerxes I (465-424 bc), and Xerxes I (485-465 bc). Like Takht-e Jamshid, the tombs are intricately carved into the mountain face.

Once we went back to Tehran, we began planning for the wedding. Since Nick’s family could not join us in the U.S. when we were married, we decided to have a whole wedding ceremony while we were there. Within a week, and with a great deal of help from our family, we had arranged for the caterer, the photographer, the hair and make-up, had the wedding dress altered, and all the other preparations. We had the wedding at Massoud and Mahshid’s house, and everything was perfect!

The night before the wedding is the “Henna-Bandon” with the close family. The bride and the groom’s hands are marked with henna paste, as well as anybody else in the family who wants to join in. The hands are then wrapped up for about a half hour and, once unwrapped, the henna is washed off. The designs were semi-permanently on our hands for the next couple of weeks.

During the wedding ceremony, the bride and groom sit facing the guests. Before them is the Sofre-Aghd, which has symbolic items such as nuts, a mirror, candles, gold coins etc. Women of the family stand behind the bride and groom holding a scarf over the happy couple’s heads. Over the scarf, they grind together two pillars of sugar. The sugar sprinkles down on the scarf to bring sweetness to the marriage. To the side of the bride and groom, respectively, sits somebody to represent each. Nick’s father represented Marisa and his uncle represented Nick. His father read the ceremony and then asked Marisa, the bride, whether she wished to marry the groom. The tradition is that the bride remains silent when this is asked, and one of the women behind her gives an excuse for her, such as “the bride has gone to pick flowers”. The ceremony is repeated, and the bride remains silent a second time. Only on the third time does the bride say “Yes”. After the ceremony, there is a reception with dancing and food. The caterers made the food look absolutely gorgeous, with many carved fruits and vegetables. After eating and dancing, we then had a wedding cake. The tradition is a young girl dances forth with the knife to cut the cake. The groom must give her money in order to obtain the knife, but as soon as she has the money, she then gives the knife to a friend, who does the same thing. After a long while, we were finally able to cut out cake!

Most of the guests at the wedding were family – cousins, uncles and aunts, many of whom had not seen Nick for several years. It was a wonderful celebration!

Two days after the wedding we tried to go skiing at Dizine, a couple of hours’ drive from Tehran. Along the way, we ended up in a traffic jam. It seems they had closed the road due to a boulder that had fallen on it north of the Dizine exit. They had traffic stopped about ten miles south of that point. After much pleading with the officer in charge, he finally let some of us go who were trying to get to the ski resort. We had lost about 2 hours, and were only able to get a few runs in, but it was still worth it. The snow was very dry, the runs were quite long, there was virtually nobody on the slopes, and the scenery was spectacular!

The next day, we flew to Mashad, a very holy city in Iran. The main attraction in Mashad is the Shrine of Imam Reza, the eighth Imam in Shi’ite tradition who died in 809 a.d. The Shrine is a huge complex with the mausoleum, mosques, libraries, schools, various courtyards, museums, hospitals and administrative offices. One cannot take any pictures inside the complex, which is unfortunate, as there are many beautiful areas. The dome of the shrine is entirely covered with gold and is quite magnificent. Our hotel overlooked the shrine. We went to the shrine for a couple of hours our first day and again during our second day in Mashad. We were there during the afternoon prayers on our second day, and were amazed by the numbers of people there praying. There were more people than could fit in the mosque, so the staff had to wheel out wagons full of Persian carpets which are spread on the stone floor of the courtyard for people to pray on.

While in Mashad, we also hired a driver to take us to Tus, about 19 kilometers away to visit Ferdowsi’s tomb. Ferdowsi was the author of the Iranian national epic, the Shahnameh, and is very important to the survival of the Persian language and history.

Saffron is grown near Mashad, and there are numerous places to buy saffron. There are even
entire shops dedicated only to saffron. They have enormous containers of it in the windows. It was a surprise to Marisa to learn that there are all different grades of saffron, just like there is for teas, coffees, or even fine wines!

Once we returned again to Tehran, we tried to spend as much time with family as possible. We spent a couple of days sightseeing with Massoud and his wife Mahshid or daughter Mariam. On one day, we visited a place where movies are made. There were sets there showing what streets in Tehran looked like 100 years ago, as well as ancient Jerusalem and Medina. We also visited the Azadi tower, and went to see the Iranian crown jewels. The crown jewels included the famed peacock throne, a globe made entirely of 51,000 precious stones, and cases upon cases of tiaras, brooches and other adornments.

We also tried to go skiing at Tochal on a Friday (which is like a Saturday here). But because it was a beautiful day, there were literally thousands of people at the mountain, which lies at the north edge of Tehran. Most were there for hiking, so we started the 5-mile long gondola ride up the mountain. We got to the second gondola stop, which is where one rents skis, only to find that they had rented every pair already. But the view was still fantastic. The top of Tochal sits around 10,000 feet above Tehran, and the gondola is about five miles long. We went back to Tochal on Sunday. Since that is a weekday in Iran, there were fewer people and we were able to rent skis and continue to the top. At the top (over 13,000 feet), it was incredibly cold and windy. At this time of the year, the ski runs were short and unchallenging, but just the feeling of skiing that high was completely worth it. When we stopped for lunch in the ski lodge (there is also a hotel there, on top of the mountain), we were amazed to find that the crowd of young men and women were dressed pretty much like at any ski hill in the US. Women wore typical ski outfits, and either a ski hat or nothing at all on their heads. Even more surprising was the loud, western-style techno dance music blaring from the speakers.

The last couple of days of our trip were difficult. It was hard to think about leaving. We had become so accustomed to enjoying time with our family in Tehran, that to think of not seeing them for several months or years was almost unbearable. Some of the best times we had in Iran were when the whole family was gathered around. There was so much love and warmth, and everybody was so relaxed, that we felt very much at home and at peace. Our last night in Tehran, the whole family gathered again at Nick’s parents’ house. We celebrated our niece, Parisa’s 12th birthday, and our nephew Mobin’s 13th birthday. In addition, we got a cake for Nick’s parents’ 50th anniversary, which was later in the year. We had made up a small scrapbook for them as well as one for Massoud and his wife, Mahshid for their 22nd anniversary. Along with a few tears, we shared laughter, and danced hand in hand throughout the evening. Pretty much everybody stayed up with us until we had to leave at about 3:00 in the morning.

After a long flight, we arrived at home and and our lives were pretty much the same as when we left (if not busier!). We were very sad to leave, but we truly came back with a new sense of appreciation for everything we have here. Leaving and returning home was a bit like one of the traditions that we performed at our weddinin Iran. The bride and groom are brought a glass filled with heavy sugar water on the bottom and lighter tea on the top. The sugar water represents the sweetness and happy times in life. The tea represents the difficult or bitter times. The bride and groom stir the two together and drink it. It is naturally very sweet. This represents that, although there are tears and difficult times, the sweetness and the good times alway outweigh the others until all one is left with are sweet memories. We were sad to leave our family and have experienced great homesickness for Iran, yet we have so much to be thankful for here in our life together and in the knowledge that we have two families – one in Iran and one in the US – who love us very much. The wonderful memories from the time we spent with our family and traveling in Iran will stay in our hearts forever.

Introduction to the East

One of the reasons we started this blog was to share some of our experiences traveling in and around Iran, as we often are asked questions about what Iran is like, whether its safe there, what people think of Americans, and so on. There are so many misunderstandings between Iran and America, that we want to do what we can to build bridges, and hopefully demystify Iran just a little bit for those reading our blog. We’ve made two trips to Iran together so far – in 2002 and 2005. Both were fantastic, not only because we had a wonderful time with Nickrooz’s family, but also because Iran truly is a beautiful country with terrific people. We’ve still trying to figure out how to post the newsletter from our first trip (2002) to Europe and Iran here, and hope to also have highlights from our second trip in 2005 posted soon. In the meantime, here's a few pctures from our last trip to Iran.

When people learn we’ve traveled to Iran, I (Marisa) am often asked if I feel safe there. The answer is yes – I have never had anybody treat me with anything less than the utmost kindness and respect while I have been traveling in Iran. In fact, when we are in Iran, and people find out where I’m from, they go above and beyond to make me feel welcome. The fact is, Iranians know how they are portrayed in the major western media outlets, and people there are anxious to show me who they really are – a people with a proud history and culture, kind hearts overall and a desire to be understood.

White Christmas in Seattle

Wow! What a month! We went from a beautiful fall where we were cycling every weekend to sudden blizzard-like weather in Seattle. About a week before Christmas, we got over a foot of snow at our home and the temperature got down to 15 - 20 degrees some days. Very unusual for our area! But it was actually a nice change. We had a wonderful moonlit walk one evening - the absence of cars and the quiet around our neighborhood made for a magical stroll.
We spent Christmas with Marisa's mom at our home. We almost didn't think she would make it due to the weather, as she was taking the train from Eugene, but Amtrack was up and running again after weather-related issues. We spent a lovely, quiet Christmas here at home, but also took in Bellevue Botenaical Garden's light display and Pike Place Market while mom was here over the weekend.
We wish all our friends and family a wonderful holiday season and best wishes for the New Year!