The Daily Iran

Up until now this blog has been titled: "On The Road to Iran: An American-raised Muslim Asks: Am I Really Moving to Iran?" But today I've changed it to "Iran At Last: An American-raised Muslim Moves to Iran" because I'm here! I'm finally here! 

Anyway, here are some snapshots of daily life in Iran so far. 

Here we are arriving at our local grocery store, "shopping center."

It's not shiny or familiar like SuperTarget or Mega-Walmart, but it had a wide variety of little shops inside from perfume to tea cups to clothing.

My beautiful daughter checking out the pretty items

This is the Iranian version of Sprite and Cola--tastes the same!

They call this Toast cheese! Melts nicely for grilled cheese sandwiches!

My kids were surprised that there are so many English words on the packaging here!

Flour for making pancakes!

The pancakes I made. Didn't have sugar on hand so put in some of the M&M's we'd brought from Texas. They don't seem to sell pancake syrup here, but we found this tart cherry syrup-- us adults enjoyed the taste. 

Ah, yes. Veggies and fruit. Those are radish leaves which have a sharp spicy taste. The sizes of some of the produce are smaller than average U.S. sizes, and the taste is really sharp and fresh.

Of course I chopped them up for a salad.

Then I mixed some up with rice and added a couple of fried eggs. Obviously, one of them eggs didn't hold up too well. 

Now I was skeptical about this "Sliced Burger Cheese" because it was frozen. 

Hmm. Not looking good.

But, hey, melted fine and kids enjoyed their sandwiches. 

My husband says breakfasts cereals are not common here, but he found a larger grocery store that carries some we like.

And I mentioned in my previous post, we laughed at this Spongebob ketchup (it has a spicy taste). There's a lot of Spongebob merchandise here in Iran, which I really love to see. It reminds me of America! 

My daughter says she doesn't like the texture of this ice cream, but the rest of us enjoyed the taste. I guess it does have more of the texture of Pakistani kulfi. 

Here are some TV programs we see here. There are many female news anchors!

The weather guy.

And I was so happily surprised to see Charlie and Lola here, even if was in Farsi. There's something about seeing familiar characters that help ease the adjustment to a new culture. 

And then there was this Christmas Carol with Scrooge! 

Kung Fu Panda

Sense and Sensibility

Oh, and PressTV here is actually covering the United States Presidential Election, which is one thing that I was hoping to escape when moving to Iran! 

Do I enjoy seeing Trump and Clinton here? Me:

And here's a glimpse of our neighborhood from my balcony and the garden underneath it.

I realize that some people might wonder why I'm so excited to see English and American programs. They may think I came to Iran to be in Iran, so why hold on to my American ways? They may think it weak of me to not have had an interest in learning any Farsi before I arrived as I described in an older post. But they may not know that living in Iran was not my first choice (as I explained in a past post), so I'm having a harder time letting go of my American side.

I remember when I first moved to Florida after living in Texas my entire life, Texas seemed like a beautiful treasure that I had taken for granted. I'd go around singing the Texas song from Spongebob and my heart would ache at wishing to return to its familiar streets and places. But then, after a few years away and often visiting, Texas became special only because my family and friends were there. Then when we were leaving Florida, I started missing its familiar routine. And then after we moved from California, I missed my home there, the gorgeous mountains, the Muslim community there. 

So I'm sure that my longing for America will eventually fade the longer I stay here in Iran. But for now, I'm still very attached to it. Cue America The Beautiful!  In time, I'll be singing the praises of Iran and its many blessings for sure!