Introduction
This blog is really a report of my recent solo trip to Iran. The trip spanned two weeks, from May 22 to June 5. I visited the cities of Tehran, Kashan, Isfahan, Yazd and Shiraz. I spent eleven out of the fourteen nights of my visit at the homes of Iranian friends and the remaining three nights in the dormitories of hotels. I really wanted to get to know Iran through its people, and had heard and read a great deal about their legendary hospitality. Well, I am glad to report that it is true, Iranians are perhaps the most hospitable people in the world because they treat foreign visitors with such distinction that I had not experienced anywhere else. The history of the country is rich and fascinating, the food tasty and varied, the infrastructure pretty good, and the driving plain reckless.
But, more than anything else, what for me characterizes Iran is the incongruence between the way of life that the Islamic government wants Iranians to live, and the life that Iranians want to live. This incongruence is a source of recurrent surprises that make you feel amused at times, angry and powerless other times. Through this travel report, I hope to convey a nuanced view of Iran that sketches this incongruence and that makes explicit the startling contrasts of the country: between present and past, government and society, rhetoric and reality, modernity and tradition, etc.
In any case, what you will read here are my personal impressions of the country and not more than that. I am no Iran expert and had never been to the country before. I am aware of the fact that the people I met in Iran may not be a random, representative cross-section of Iranian society, so I won't pretend that their opinions, values and beliefs can be extrapolated to 75 million Iranians. In other words, I won't pretend that I can generalize based on what I saw. But I will report what I saw, what i heard and especially what the Iranians that I met told me while I was there -including what they think of their fellow citizens.
I hope you enjoy it!
