Isfahan - the hostel and the city

We had to sleep in first. After a cozy midday nap, the plan was to stroll around the town a bit. I had spotted a very pretty coat shop the day before that I wanted to show Siiri. My memory told me that we would find it if we just kept walking straight ahead, but the plan didn't work out, so we only conquered a few fruit shakes in the city.

The hostel mom had invited us to a BBQ together beforehand. We asked if we could also grill some vegetables, as we like to eat vegetarian. The answer we got was just 'No Meat, Chicken!'. A familiar answer that every vegetarian knows too well. Chicken is often not seen as meat. There was a bit of back and forth. 'No, no chicken, but vegetables' 'Vegetables? Haha, noooo, chicken!' 'Can we buy vegetables?' 'Nooo, chicken!'....We bought vegetables.

Back at the hostel, we cautiously asked if we could now put our corn on Father's grill. He looked as bewildered as his wife. After all, he had Iran's best chicken on his grill. Somehow, we managed to fit in the corn and prepare a potato pan in Muttis kitchen for Siiri, another vegetarian, and a little bit for me (I surrendered to the delicious chicken and took (another) veggie break).

All the hostel guests sat together at the table and ate. Nice evening, but it ended quite early for us because our bed looked very attractive.

But on the next day, we finally wanted to get to know Isfahan. Together with another German, we put an Armenian church on our day's list, which was recommended to us by Vati as a must-see, since there was a sentence carved into a girl's hair in it, written in Armenian. Also, a mosque and the bazaar were added to the list. In short: everything was interesting, everything was nice, a bit disturbing were the pictures of Iranian soldiers during the Iraq war, as well as banners that said 'Down with USA. Down with Israel. Down with Ale Saud'. Hm. Well.

Dinner, home, good night.

Next and last day in Isfahan. Palace. Nice and interesting, done.

The sun here doesn't help you to absorb the experiences and information in some places. All historical facts and connections are difficult for us to process in our minds. I have to make an effort to listen to (audio) guides and read information boards. Unfortunately, because of that, I can only remember a tiny fraction of what we saw, after just a few days since Isfahan. What remains in memory are all the experiences that are associated with emotions. Like coming home after the palace:

The hostel we stayed in Isfahan was run by a sibling pair. Since the sister was in China at the time, the parents came to help run the hostel with their son. And the parents clearly had fun with it. Whenever they saw us, they made jokes with us. So one afternoon, the father sat at his reception and suddenly said, 'My mother is from Germany'. 'Really?', he looked at his phone and turned it towards us. On the display was a picture of Angela Merkel. His wife laughed and chimed in, 'My father is Obama. My uncle Trump'. The son: 'My girlfriend is Shakira'. It may sound like a cliché joke now, but it really was hilarious.

Back to the afternoon after the palace. We cooled our tired feet in the small fountain in the garden. The mom brought us tea and sat down next to us at the pool edge. Suddenly, she looked at us with a mischievous look and turned a wheel. She turned on the fountain, which started between our legs and gave us a little shower. Okay, it was funny, everyone laughed. But her mischievous look didn't go away. Suddenly, she sprayed us with more water, we sprayed back, she sprayed more, we sprayed more, water fight. Siiri, the boy, I and mom chased each other through the courtyard with watering cans, vases, hoses, and anything else we could pour water from the pool over ourselves. I never expected to have a water fight with an Iranian mom.

At least we were now refreshed and awake.

Our night bus was booked for 11 pm. So, for the sunset, we planned to climb the nearby mountain and watch the sunset over Isfahan.

Fortunately, there was a cable car with quality gondolas from Switzerland that took us up - so once again, we didn't have to exert ourselves. We were a bit late for the sunset, but still, we could admire how Isfahan slowly became dark and the mountains blurred in the night. It was really beautiful and peaceful. We were completely alone in our own hill corner. Only two men who took advantage of the darkness to get to know each other were nearby, but we kept enough distance so as not to disturb them.

We took the night bus at 11 pm towards Shiraz.