We could tell you so much more about our last days in Iran. Starting with our bicycle tour through Esfahan to the fire temple, how we found homestay.com site by coincidence and thus in Tehran a really great host, namely Hadi, an Iranian film producer, how Matthias practiced with the Floorball team from Tehran and after the session had to shower with pants, how we were skiing on 3500 m altitude with old equipment and were stuck for one hour in an Austrian (probably decommissioned) chairlift and how we were finally taken to the airport by a female taxi driver.
But we don’t want to steal your precious time and have decided to write in this article about the similarities and differences between Iran and Germany.
Let’s start with the differences, unordered and unweighted 🙂
Here Western foreigners are always treated with “Welcome to Iran, Tehran, Shiraz, Esfahan” etc., here you get free tea or bread on the way, as a tourist you are always stopped and asked for a photo together (if you’re interested, we got almost all pictures later from the Iranians and published them on Instagram #vonostnachost), CO2 emission doesn’t matter here, everybody has or wants a car, public transport and bicycles are not interesting for most of the people, there is lots and lots of plastic (bags, bottles, single use tablecloths), here there is no alcohol neither in restaurants nor in shops, only home-made liquor, here it rains much less and a large area of the country is desert, fresh cut flowers are rare and not cheap, often plastic flowers are sold. In Iran you can’t buy (almost) no US American products, Coca Cola and Pepsi have been in the country for a long time, but for example iPhones only get in via the United Arab Emirates, but there are a lot of Chinese products with spelling mistakes in their names, there are many old Chinese and French cars with dents, Iranians love to play music and take photos, Instagram and Telegram are the most popular social networks, Quarter-tones are often used in Persian music, here there are many stray cats instead of dogs, shop dealers like to keep singing birds as a pet, here there is a cheap taxi app like Uber called Snapp, you can also order a female taxi driver or a motorbike, many websites like GMX, Threema, Youtube, BBC, AirBnB, Couchsurfing and Facebook are blocked, the government switches some of them on or off depending on the political situation. In Iran there is almost always a washbasin with soap in every kebab shop, trains are super cheap, people don’t always stop at red traffic lights, pedestrians have to watch out as they make it across the street (sometimes barely), there is a “women only” wagon in the metro, here they wash the duvets, but they don’t cover the blankets with a duvet cover, they have different characters (Arabic), other numbers (indo-Arabic) and a different calendar, here more often than in most other countries U-turns are used, Iranians accept very reluctantly or don’t accept a tip.
But of course many things are similar or the same:
Iranians and Germans like to complain about the government, people have reservations towards immigrants, especially Afghans and fear that they take jobs or bring violence into the country, you can drink tap water, buses and trains go according to plan, many people like shopping and spending their free time in shopping malls, young people like to smoke shisha, you can eat ice cream even if it’s below 20 degrees Celsius outside, there is a health insurance and a nationwide, quite good health care system, Iran and Germany have the same number of inhabitants. Everybody loves driving, there is fast food at every corner. Parents love their children (although I think they love the girls and princesses a little bit more). There are fruits, white pita bread, olives, tomatoes and falafel, doner kebab. Waste separation exists in both countries (yes yes, no one can keep up with the Germans in that regard). In both countries you can practice Floorball or go up to the top with Austrian ski lifts in ski resorts and have fun.
We say goodbye with a tear in one eye and an Iranian song, which accompanied us on our journey.
