Hi all,

Sorry I haven't updated in a while. The past few days haven't really been particularly fascinating. I went out rug shopping with my cousin, which was entertaining if nothing else for the loud discussion/haggling that went on after we selected which one to purchase. I was discussing with my cousin on the way back and she flat out laughed at me when she asked me if they haggle in America and I told her that for day to day things we don't.

That got me thinking about America so I had a poptart to feel better.

Besides that, we mostly stay at home and people come for didani, or visiting. Last night, when my dad's cousin came to see us, his son mentioned an ice cream place by the name of Coldstone. Naturally, Sara and I (Misha was sleeping) freaked out and decided the next day we HAD to go. Today, after dinner, which by the way was served at 10pm, we went out to find Coldstones. We found it, and from the outside, it looked like a Coldstone, it smelled like a Coldstone, the cups were the same as a Coldstone, but much to our dismay, it was not a real Coldstones. The ice cream was weird (more like a gelato) and they didn't have cookie dough, which was a total downer.

Iranians, I have decided, are really good at copying things. I shouldn't say good. They try really hard, but then they have things like disco balls outside a kabob stand, or a t-shirt says "Valea Girl", which I think should say "Valley Girl" which I don't even think they would wear if they understood what it said or what it meant. Everyone here takes English in high school, but it doesn't really seem to have done much good. Nobody understands us when we speak English.

A lot of people here are also preoccupied with appearance. A lot of women wear makeup and have very poofy bangs under their loosely tied scarves and a lot of guys wax their chests and put a lot of gel in their hair. Very euro and metro looking. Men and women only see each other on the street or outside somewhere else. I mean, base on this, I guess they only have appearance to judge others on. A faulty system if you ask me, but given the way things work here where people of opposite genders can't even touch each other, go figure.

Phil and anyone else who is politic-y, you'd be excited to know that even here they have Gallup polls that are published. As the election is coming up in about 15-6 days, they've started releasing them every couple days or so. It's so similar to America the way things are going with the election. The villages and less educated people want four more years of the same crap, while those who are educated want the other candidate. The only difference here is the opponent to Ahmadinejad is a socialist. All the young people and college age people LOVE MirHossein Moussavi, who is the socialist. He, much like Obama, has really mobilized the young people base. He's got people wearing his color (green) on armbands and people have stickers and placards and pictures on their cars . It made me reminisce. I was telling some people about how I worked for Obama and they said, "Why aren't you out on the street right now campaigning?" I said, "Because I tried really hard to get into college and I'm not about to throw that away and possibly get thrown in prison."

I also got some books for my project that I want to do. Unfortunately, they aren't books written by Iranians. They are all books that were translated from other languages into Farsi, which throws my plan through a loop. No problems, though. I talked to one of my cousins and she's going to help me track down the books that I actually want. We shall see what happens. I'm here for another 54 days or so. I have high hopes.

&hugs,
Mona