Esfahan: A Beautiful City

I’m a bit behind on updating our previous few days in Tehran and we’ve been in Esfahan for 3 days now so I will jump ahead and update you on our time in Esfahan. We took a 4 hour bus ride from Tehran to Esafahan. Our hotel in Esfahan is beautiful! The Abassi Hotel, a 5 star hotel that used to be a Palace for the king over 400 years ago! Esfahan is a beautiful city with an abundance of history. The highlight is the Imam Square:







This square is over 600 years old (I think) and is surrounded by a Bazaar and several breathe taking mosques. Today we took a tour of the mosques here which used to be the personal mosques for the kings. Esfahan was the capital of Iran 400 years ago.



Here is an explanation of why I look Persian!:



My father met a Mullah (an Islamic holy man, the Islamic version of a priest). The Mullah went up to him and asked him how he likes Iran and asked where he was from. He replied “America” and the Mullah’s first question was “That’s wonderful! Do you know Abraham Lincoln?” LOL. Classic. Here is a video:



The people here are so kind. They rarely see Americans here so they are very kind to us and interested in us. Me, My bro and Dad met a handful of Iranians at the swimming pool at our hotel. They all were excited to talk to us. They said “Husein Obama! Doost doreed?” (Do you like Obama?!) They loved to call him “Husein” since they are so proud that America elected a man with the name “Husein” as their president. They told us that they love Americans here. Everyone understands that the people of America are different from their leaders (such as Bush) as well as the Iranian people. The guys we talked to didn’t like Ahmadinejad either. So we were able to relate people to people instead of through our governments which never really represents the true values of the people. One man we talked to lived in Houston 30 years ago. He spoke great English and bought us beers (non-alcoholic beers of course!) We sat and talked to him for 30 minutes.



Last night we went to the famous bridge with 33 arcs. Very beautiful at night. We met a religious Iranian family that was very intrigued with us. The daughter asked “Where are you from?” with a kind curiosity. “America” I replied. She smiled excitedly and asked “What is it like there?”. It was the first time they have EVER met Americans. Amazing. They were so nice, and asked to take pictures with us. They even invited us to come to their house for tea!



Meanwhile my Dad sat down on the bench and two men came over to sit next to him. Our typical response is that we expect them to want something from us or sell something, but they just wanted to chat and find out about us. One of the men was a professional wrestler in Iran. He said their team really wants to travel to America to wrestle but when they applied for Visas, they were rejected by the US. That ain’t right US, let these people see our country, just as they have allowed us to see theirs.



Here are a few more pics and videos from our time in Esfahan: