Isfahan picnic with Iranian family
This may be a bit longer post as it spans two days. This was Esfahan Week in the city and we were told that it’s basically a celebration of the city, its history and famous people. Each night there was live music performed by a popular pop singer from Tehran.
Sunday, after the performance was over and our bodies were exhausted from the long day and night of walking the square, we started heading back to the hotel when we were invited by Mirian, a young local girl and English language school teacher, to join her family who was still in the middle of their late night picnic. We joined them for about 20 minutes, sitting on their large blanket laid out in the grass, and introduced ourselves, nationalities, where we were staying in Esfahan and a bit more chit chat. We then left for our long walk back to our hotel.
It took Derek and I close to 40 minutes to get back to the hotel and when we arrived at the front door we were greeted by Mirian and the other family members we met in the park. They wanted to invite us back to the square for more food and conversation the next day. We were initially confused concerning how they managed to find us but then remembered that we told them the name of the hotel we were staying at. Still the situation seemed a bit peculiar but certainly not out of line with the warmth and inquisitiveness we experienced from Iranians throughout the previous days of our trip.
The next day was the busiest day of the trip with morning and late afternoon site seeing followed by 5 hours of power shopping. We had dinner at 8 and we were all exhausted. We walked to the middle of the Imam Khomenei square and sure enough Mirian and her family were there with containers of food. We sat on a blanket for close to two hours while Marian asked us many questions about ourselves: what age we were, if we were married, why some of us were still single, our impressions of Iran, etc. She was the only member of her group that could understand and speak English so she translated all of our answers for the rest of her family. All the while they were passing out the different food that they had prepared.
It was a really fun and occasionally awkward two hours that ended with all of us exchanging contact info. Again it illustrated how friendly Iranians are and how interested they are in learning about the lives of folks that visit their country. Ultimately, to me, it showed how much they really do want to be closer to the rest of the world.
