Yes, when you're travelling, you have a birthday. Whilst we simply spent Gerd's birthday at our Daughter at the Christmas market we're celebrating mine all by ourselves this time. So just the two of us.
Our French travelling friends from Khoy gave us a restaurant recommendation in passing. And I thought to myself that this could be just the right place for a small, cosy feast.
It's a good thing we have Google Maps. Otherwise we would have driven past this really good restaurant. After all, the Persian characters are so foreign to us. Whether the sign says laundry, restaurant or oil change: I have no idea, the signs are beautiful, but full of riddles for us.
We quickly find ourselves sitting in one of the dining corners lined with thick Persian carpets in a jungle-like atmosphere. On the floor, of course. As always. (Incidentally, this is something that is not necessarily our cup of tea, our office and car driver bodies only know and love chair seats, not tailor-made seats). We are asked where we come from. Ah, Switzerland, well then: they put a Swiss flag on a small side table right next to the Iranian one. We feel a kind of connection that does us a world of good.
This time we're delighted with the photos on the menu. We usually sneer at restaurants with photo menus, but we vow to do better. We order a bit of everything. When the food arrives, it is placed in front of us and we are once again at a loss.
It's a good thing we really do look like tourists. A young waiter quickly rushes over and shows us that we first have to spread out a plastic tablecloth and only then place everything. We start eating (probably wrong, but never mind). In the neighbouring 'booth', I see how they always roll everything up in bread bags and eat it like kebabs or dürüm. I eat with a fork and spoon, it suits me better. And, once again, it tastes excellent. Incidentally, the cuisine is more individualised than in Turkey, less spicy, but much more interesting in terms of spices and herbs.
At some point, Gerd shows the waiter something on his smartphone, and a little later I find out what it says: "It's my wife's birthday today, is there a good dessert?". The waiter smiles, disappears and places a huge bouquet of plastic flowers on our table, which isn't one. I don't like birthdays that much myself, I don't think I've done anything special for them. So I'm all the more surprised when the whole restaurant is blasting a Persian maxi version of "Happy Birthday", the waiters all come over, clap their hands and serve us dessert and tea.
I would have loved to crawl under the carpet, my goodness, everyone was looking at me. That's not my thing at all.
But eventually the dessert, which was quite sugary, is finished, the last pot of tea is drunk and the journey continues. On to the next adventure: Tabriz, the city of carpets and the largest covered bazaar in the world.
By the way, in case you ask about the gift: I've already thought of that in Antakya I bought a small hammered saucepan with a long handle for Turkish coffee. And it's been in daily use ever since.
Merci for "travelling with us
We are thinking about taking another break from travelling in the summer and visiting our families in Germany and Switzerland. One of the ideas is to organise a Lecture about our long journey to the Persian Gulf to prepare. If you would like to, what would interest you the most? We will also tell stories here that don't find a place here on the blog. We're thinking of the Bern and Berlin area - simply because we have family there. But other places are also conceivable. Feel free to write to us.
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