The sheep head

I'm woken up abruptly at 7.30am. It's eid, religious holiday, the anniversary of the prophet or something like that. Some of the guys have been up almost all night and prepared something special -- sheep head and coca cola! This is a real feast, only eaten twice a year. The meal consists of two parts, first is the sheep head water which is the fluids that came out of the head as it was cooked. It's mixed with bread and eaten as soup. Second is the sheep head itself, with the brain being most delicious of all. I eat sheep brain, sheep jaw and sheep forehead. Then we drink tea and smoke qalyan (water pipe).

After breakfast we all go out for some sightseeing and visit the national museum. Then we head back home where we just spend the afternoon chatting, drinking tea and playing cards. I learn a lot about Iran today. We have late lunch and I realize it's been 5 days now where I've only paid for food once (in Iraq, cost less than 1 usd), so it might not be a problem after all that I don't have a lot of money.

Not much happens in the evening, we go around the city a bit, buy my bus ticket to Esfahan for tonight and meet with one of Ali's (girl) friends. At one point, Ali and I pass a huge army building. It's lit up and looks very impressive. I can't resist the urge, so as Ali continues walking, I pull up my camera and point it through the fence. Ali turns around and sees what I'm doing; "Max, don't do that!!" he yells. Seconds later, a soldier comes running towards me with a machine gun, shouting in Farsi. He quickly relieves me of my camera. The next 20 minutes are spent arguing whether I'm a spy or not. Then all of a sudden I get the camera back and we're allowed to go. Ali whispers "Go go go, don't look back!" He says we were very lucky; another foreign friend of his was deported after a similar incident.

I leave to Esfahan at midnight and the trip takes 6 hours.

Eating sheep head.

Smoking qalyan.

Imam Khomeini square. They used to hang people from the statue.

Me, Ali (right of me in the photo), and two of his flatmates.

Fruit store.

Tehran, Iran