What a European Adventure!

We are two Iranian girls bag packing around Europe alone. This means, our families are super open minded for Iranian standards to allow us to travel so freely. You need your fathers permission to exit the country.

To put it this way, our everyday life is a cultural shock. We are really enjoying traveling and it’s like completely another planet here compared to Iran, even though Iran is not that far from Europe.

1. People talk about sex openly out public ally as if it’s like drinking water. You hear girls saying “I had sex with 5 guys last night” over lunchtime and nobody seems to care, if any girl says that in Iran. It will be all over the Internet and people will talking about it for months to come.
2. A lot of things are sexualised from advertising to billboards and everything. I have a feeling people are having sex with everyone, everyday every single minute
3. At school, we learn a lot how European countries are developed but what we see is nothing but poor infrastructure, it looks like everything is falling apart and people are very happy with the way things are being managed. So many things are disorganised, expensive and outdated. Don’t let me start about how awful transportation system can be? Maybe we are confusing Europe with Germany??? The only real developed country we have seen so far and Netherlands. The rest are all very disappointing and our Persian princesses hearts are broken.
4. Traveling around Europe as two women, it’s like freedom unimagine-able. You could do whatever you want, be who you ever you want and it’s like utopia. I don’t think, I deserve this much freedom and I would probably go insane if I ever had it back home
5. People actually take their time to understand your feelings. It’s shocking how much they go further to understand how you feel even though, they may seem to be very cold at first
6. We haven’t seen anybody laughing, smiling or crying. One big difference, of how people show their emotions back home. You see people laughing, crying, fighting, shouting all in one day. Everyone seem either sad or neutral in Europe. I thought European people are the happiest in the world?
7. Food is blend and everyone is okay not eating fine food everyday. Apart from Italy, most European countries in our experience tend to not care much about quality of food and taste of it or how it’s prepared
8. We don’t wear hijab or headscarves outside Iran traveling but we wear modest clothing. Tops, skirts and leggings. What shocks us the most, how freely people dress coming out of their homes. We may show a lot less skin but matching your lipstick to the color of your outfit is very important, we may take care about appearance a lot more than Europeans
9. I feel kind of unsafe and the presence of no policing around is making me anxious. To anyone who visited Iran, the country is super safe, especially for women. We were robbed in Paris and my designer handbag was stolen in Barcelona. This would rarely happen in Tehran which is as big as London / Newyork and the police would find it less than 24 hours
10. Accidentally shopping and seeing rainbows everywhere, you realise it’s Gay pride. We didn’t even know, what it was and we realised we are middle of a gay festival. I have never been called “beautiful” so many times in my life. Seriously I need more gay friends
11. Surprisingly they are a lot of Muslims in Europe which was very shocking to both of us. We saw mosques next to a whore house, nightclub and a drug store. This would never happen back home. The Muslims seem to be okay about this as well.
12. How both genders are mixed so freely and inter tangibly. I had a hard time telling which are couples, friends and so relatives. Relationships are so casual and easy going. It’s so comforting to be honest
13. Customer service - sometimes I feel like, they are the buyers while I’m begging to buy some stuff. There are no smiles, no emotions, no compassion, no extra discounts, or loyalty towards the customers. It’s what you see, buy it or leave kind of attitude. Shopping hasn’t been very pleasant
14. They are so many sites, castles, museums, and historical places everywhere and it’s all for FREE. Apart from generic tourist sites, most places are free and empty. There’s so much culture, art, and creative things everywhere. It’s amazing really, so much to appreciate
15. You see so many big brands, stores and clothing boutiques but people don’t seem to care about fashion as much as it’s advertised. We found out, most people wear similar stuff and it’s hard to tell who’s rich, poor, or middle class. Everyone is kinda neutral. Most older ladies or gentlemen are dressed neatly and elegantly

Overall, I love Europe so far, I wish it was safer but everything else is amazing and people are shy but very friendly to. It’s a pleasant experience.

Our favourite country so far has been Italy, France and Netherlands

We are hoping to visit London as well. Where else should we visit?

After two months traveling, we have returned back to our home countries.

They are few comments I would like to make about our experiences. People have no clue where they are also dark sides to freedom as well and the freedom we experienced was definitely more like trap keeping citizens in a certain condition in the name of pleasure and anarchy. For instance, the people we met had very little financial freedom making purchases, they had to think about it multiple times buying something even as small as vegetables or fruits. With the little people earned income, the state take it as well as income tax and looking at the infrastructure, we were asking, where is the tax money going? Yes, we don’t have social freedom in my country, but we control our own finances not the state.

We both loved how much there was culture arts in Europe everywhere. The classical concert hall was half empty. The swan lake in Amsterdam was not fully booked. The museums in London were not packed. It gave us the understanding, people had very little interest for culture which is so sad, because European culture is so rich in all aspects.

People feel very sad all the time or at best times neutral. It’s so sad and heart breaking because we truly found beautiful kind people everywhere in all countries. Everyone feel so lonely everywhere confused walking around without direction.

Unfortunately we didn’t get the chance to visit Nordic countries but hopefully next trip. Apart from mistreatments at airports since we are Iranian passport holders, people were wonderful kind everywhere willing to help you getting out of their way helping strangers. We met so many great people young and old.

We would like to wish Europeans peace, happiness and kindness and most importantly peace from within. We are forever grateful.

Love and peace from Iran