Visiting 19th largest city in the world

We finally arrived in Tehran. Alive! As soon as we parked the car we exhaled all stress from the journey.

We hurried to the meeting point - Laleh Park - where we were supposed to meet Teheran couchsurfers. 

 The very first person we met was a Polish guy, Dawid. He was there with some German guys and lovely Persian girl (who lived in Vienna) for summer internship as members of IAESTE organization. 

After that we were joined by Tehranians. At the time we had no idea that we'd find a great friend among them. I mean Mohsen aka our Brother aka Master Mike (but we'll get there) and his sister. He was very quiet that time.After the meeting we split up. Tony and Martin were smuggled into dormitory by the IAESTE people and I went to visit Elmira, my CS host.

 If moving from Rzeszów to Kraków changed my perception of distance, visiting Tehran was like revolution. This city is HUGE. 730 sq km makes quite an impression. Luckily I got a ride from one of the couchsurfers.

Elmira's flat was really beautiful, she herself was very nice. I also met her mother who was in Poland sometime ago. We talked a bit about traveling, plans for future, ect. and went to sleep. Listening to Elmira and her mother I really liked the sound of Persian language.

The next day we were supposed to go to the Contemporary Art Museum. I got up, had breakfast, asked Elmira for direction and set out. It was quite complicated for me since I was used to travel by two means of transport within the city. There I had to take a taxi to get to the metro station. Then I went by two metro trains to the center, then I had to take another taxi (and, for the first time in my life, I shared it with total strangers). The journey to the Museum took me two hours.

After visiting the Museum, we met Mohsen for the city tour. We were supposed to meet his sister as well but she couldn't come. He told us he was a tourism student and suggested a trip to Qeshm Island in Persian Gulf. We agreed to go there after visiting Persepolis.

During the walk around the city we saw almost all important places. Then we ate in the park, hiding from police because of Ramadan.

We also visited the bazaar Martin bought a new shirt :)

Then we met Mohsen's friend, Minoo and saw Iranian wrestling training.

When the sun went down, we went to meet our European friends for dinner with water pipe. We were a bit late because of some metro malfunction. We got stuck on a metro station and, after long waiting, decided to take a taxi. Unfortunately, Minoo had to leave us.

Terribly hungry we finally found our friends. The dinner was very nice but it was getting late and we had to go back. Since there was no bus, we had to take taxi. The guys tried to bargain with drivers. In the end, I went to Elmira's with Mohsen, who had to make sure I entered the building safely.

TIP: Monday is a day when all museums in Iran are closed. But on Monday Sept 6th 2010 we decided to visit National Museum of Iran before we left for Esfahan. Tony suggested that we try everything to get inside. We even talked to the manager, very nice lady in chadora (actually, all ladies there were wearing chadoras). We asked for her permission, told her it was our last day in Tehran and how important it was for our cultural studies and she allowed us to enter for 20 minutes. We had whole museum for ourselves. There were many beautiful things there, jewelry, statues, weapons, parts of Persepolis buildings, even the Salt Man - well preserved human body found in salt mine in 1993.

After that we spent some more time with Mohsen who was with us all day long. We bought train tickets, ate dinner and planned to meet in Shiraz.