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Diary

Part 5

November 5, 2003
The Iranian

Right when we had gotten used to living in southern Tehran, we found out that unbeknownst to us, my great uncle had an apartment in the Jordan neighborhood which was becoming vacant. This location was a complete 180 degrees from where we were living as it was in the nicest part of Tehran.

My grandparents notified us of the vacancy and it took my dad approximately 3 seconds to accept to rent it -- without even seeing it. My dad has made many decisions in his life, and this clearly ranked in the top 5 best ones.

So we packed up and got the heck out of southern Tehran and moved into this high rise in the northern part of Tehran. It was very chic place and the neighborhood was somewhat trendy. The only issue was that once you entered the building on the first floor you had to go down a flight of stairs to get to our house, sort of like a basement.

The first time we went to see the place we were a little put off but once we saw the interior we were happy and ready to set up shop. Plus, part of the patio for the whole complex was partitioned for our own private use, which amounted to a HUGE concrete soccer field where we could hone our Pele soccer moves. We grew to love our new house.

Our street was one of the safest in town as posed to where we were living before. It was called Hyde Park Street (now renamed Golshahr) and five ambassadors had residences there, with a few guards watching outside.

The house to our right was the Saudi Ambassador's residence and he had a ridiculously monstrous back yard with a pool and Jacuzzi. His huge backyard soon became an issue since the wall separating us was quite low; and we would constantly kick our soccer ball over the wall and into his back yard.

Of course being the older brother had its advantages; so I would make my younger brother go and get the ball. We had heard that the ambassador had quite a temper and did not like to be disturbed. Luckily, though, the housekeeper was a very nice man and the ambassador had to work during the day so my brother would always come back with all his limbs.

Unfortunately, the days of summer came to an end and it was time for us to go to school. Being in a new area, my dad thought it would make sense to walk me to school a few times before my first day. That way I could learn the route and go to school on my own without looking like a sissy because my parents had to walk me to school.

The first day after our walk back from Hadaf elementary school, we came across a restaurant my dad recognized. Always being a bit of a shekamoo, he took me inside and we each inhaled a milk shake in record time. When we recovered from the brain freeze, my dad made me promise not to tell mom where we had been. Considering that she was waiting for us to get home and serve dinner, we had to come up with an elaborate story about why we were late. My dad decided to blame the traffic since we all knew how bad it was.

We got back and mom had cooked a great Khoreshteh Baademjoon, which was my favorite. She quickly became suspicious when my dad and I could not eat a bite. She interrogated us for about ten minutes and my dad and I, like reading from a script, pleaded that the traffic was hideous. We never stopped to think that traffic congestion only affects cars, not pedestrians.

Our pathetic blunder made future collaboration between me and dad out of the question >>> Go to index for next part

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