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Flashbacks  Diversions along Oxford Road
A tea for Monday and viceversa

My visit to Iran | Mi visita a Irán

The Islamic Republic of Iran is very different to what some claim it to be La República Islámica de Irán es muy distinta a lo que algunos cuentan After seeing Iran for myself, I am forever in debt with those beautiful peoples of civilized, hospitable and wise ways who welcomed me so warmly, and hopeful that I can share what they (real fundamentalists, unlike Al Qaeda, Talibans or Saudi Arabia) have to offer to the world Después de ver Irán por mí mismo, estaré siempre en deuda con esa hermosa gente de civilización, hospitalidad y sabiduría que me recibió con tanta calidez, y espero pueda compartir lo que los verdaderos fundamentalistas (a diferencia de Al Qaeda, Talibanes, o Arabia Saudita) tienen para ofrecerle al mundo.

My conclusions' video

   

Mis conclusiones en video

خِرمن
兄
弟
Germán

Small step for man, a giant leap for a soul

Ian and two other German students I met on my last stay in Tehran, made it by train, crossing Turkey, starting their tour in northwesternly Tabriz; a couple from Oman, spending their honeymoon in the Shirazi oasis, had come through the Persian Gulf; and a guy from Karachi who loved Isfahan (who can blame him!), took a bus running along the Eastern highway crossing at Zanjan from Pakestan, to meet with the piece of land he liked so much.

As if it happening wasn't enough

I arrived to Persia exactly 600 years before having arrived to the West. When leaving it, I came to notice the only ineludible mistake made during my trip: 

Not having planned to stay there for good.

The best sunsets in London .·.

He headed towards the riverside, along with his already dismounted bicycle. The way the Sun's agony had tainted the skies was certainly worth the bit of attention, even in a city where everything -and mostly time- costs as if it would have been covered by gold. Offering full countenance to the exaggerated afternoon tides of colours, he let his veins absorb every single ray the picture had generously spreaded throughout the atmosphere, and stood there for a considerable amount of seconds according to London's time-cost scale. As expected, he couldn't help to give away a smile that betrayed his intention of hiding the fact that he was actually enjoying the most memorable moment of the day, while he still held his bicycle against the promenade's railing. To him, and no doubts about it, that was the-most-beautiful-display-of-daily-coincidences.

Generally I would have fully disagreed with him, except for this one time.

The first time London was offered to my feet, I got the impression that it was an endless city. Not because of its geographical boundaries, but rather because of the infinity of corners where to stop to take a good photo that it sheltered. It seemed like no conceivable number of visits would have ever been enough to capture all the forms of lights and shadows coexisting in different shades in each wonderfully set victorian street, in each majestic building and square, and in each paraphernalic monument erected either for courage's or for cowardice's sake.

However it only took a couple more of such visits for me to have gone through all of the above mentioned, as responsibly as the kind of traveler I am. As simple as that, to my curiosity, the very well fed stronghold nurtured with the most different kinds of gold slices, from pretty much every latitude of the planet, was over. Not as fatalistically as it sounds of course, but quite as drastically.

Of course I was to be wrong. Not because of great engineering feats undiscovered in between the mazelike urban network, or because of crazier and more intoxicating night events previously ignored. No. I realised I had been wrong right after starting the last walk around the city before leaving it for good. That last time, in which no camera was compromised, and familiarity was the accomplice of every step undertaken. What was then different? The day was clear, and what I could perceive was not anymore the buzzing and random slashes of light that the city decided to reflect towards my eyes, but the complete set of intimately related dances engaged by the beams when rather softly grazing the metropolitan skin, right before becoming corrupted by the human arrogance inevitably impregnated in every square inch where Man had intended to overcome the higher wisdom.

The smile drawn up in my face made it all the way with me to the bench I decided to conquer by the riverside. Although no sunset had started yet, nothing seemed to be out of place anymore, even in a city where everything -and mostly time- costs as if it would have been covered by gold.

A dull pink tone commenced invading the skies, to which more enthusiastic and genial brushes followed continuously in what I figured out to be an uprising celestial painters' challenge, competing for londoners' glances and several-karats-gold-bathed time. It would have been impossible to declare a fair winner among such a fair display of compositions, however it was definetely long after the best ones had been completed when he arrived by the riverside with his dismounted bicycle. I had been there all along, and having admired the complete display-of-daily-coincidences I could'ave firmly stated that that definetely hadn't been the-most-beautiful from them all. However how sure was I? Generally I would have fully disagreed with him, but now who was I to declare a fair winner among the daily moments when, after all, me, the full set of tainted skies, my bench in the promenade by the riverside, him, and his dismounted bicycle all belonged to the same uncorrupted dance of light?

خِرمان