I had the opportunity to travel to Iran not too long ago, and despite the flurry of warnings I received from a few worried friends and family (ala "You'll get your head chopped off", I had one of the most wonderful trips I've ever had.
The depth of history and culture in the ancient Persian capitals is virtually unrivaled anywhere I've travelled thus far. The beauty of the architecture, the incredible cuisine, and most importantly it's incredibly warm people.
I was familiar with "torof" (basically an extreme form of hypergenerous humility), but had never experienced the lengths to which people will go to do nice things for you. Especially as a western traveller. Quite to the contrary of what so much media and fear-mongering might have one believe, modern Iranians love Americans (just not our government, but come on, I think we can all agree on that POV no matter what side of the world we are on).
If you have the opportunity to visit, I emplore you to consider it. It's so important methinks for us all to remind one another that we are all the People, and its just our governments who need to work out their dramas...(why cant they just resort to kanly as in Dune?!)
Anyway, without further ado or rambling exposition,
Congratulations @treemason! You have completed some achievement on Steemit and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :
Click on any badge to view your own Board of Honor on SteemitBoard.
For more information about SteemitBoard, click here
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOPCongratulations @treemason! You have received a personal award!
Click on the badge to view your Board of Honor.
Do not miss the last post from @steemitboard:
Congratulations @treemason! You received a personal award!
You can view your badges on your Steem Board and compare to others on the Steem Ranking
Vote for @Steemitboard as a witness to get one more award and increased upvotes!
Couldn't agree more. I feel that the more people travel, the more they realize how much we all have in common. It flabergasts me to see so many folks talk about Iran like its so scary...its one of the only stabilizing forces in the middle east at the moment whether we like it or not. One of the main forces fighting ISIS in the region. If we want to identify the bad guys over there, I would have to nod towards Saudi Arabia...they're guilty of many of the worst human rights violations in the past 50 years but are touted as allies by US administrations on both sides of the aisle. IMHO.