I’m off

TLDR: I have departed after busy weeks and preparing to get everything sorted. I go to the Iran embassy, reflect on my departure and hitch my first ride with Oma.

The last few days suddenly took an incredible turn in pace in terms of the amount of things to organise and do. After weeks of light preparation and easing into the idea of leaving I had to suddenly make some very hard packing decisions, then finding the respective items somewhere in the three different homes where they could be, and meanwhile moving a major part of everything that lives in my room in order for our subletter to move in. Additionally, where the past weeks were mainly a shared experience with Maddie, she left and I now had to do the last of these things alone after she flew off to Vietnam, two days before I left.

The oddest things about pre departure days is that I stop having time to reflect on what I'm actually going to do, instead it turns into something that is apparently happening with no turning back now, yet none of it has become real yet. I just find myself sitting in the car with my backpack and some stuff from home, driving back to Delft. Or running through all my clothes and trying to imagine what I will want to wear when I'm in the mountains or desert somewhere.

Meanwhile I have said goodbye to a lot of people and answered many questions.

"Where are you going? How long for?" and more importantly.. "Why?" "Are you sure you'll go now?"

In this state, however, the trip only ís what I answer when people ask me what I am going to do: hitchhike through Europe and Turkey into Iran. There are no deeper layers or further plans: all I have is that idea. Of course I have read up on many places, the culture and potential stops, but I fight a hard dilemma between wanting to be prepared, knowing exactly where to go or letting the trip form naturally, going with only a direction in mind. Time and busy-ness constraints forced me to take the latter approach. But, as David Bains, my former captain always puts it: all a plan needs to be is a reason to set off. And that it is.

Iran embassy

One piece of admin from those days, however, made the trip feel very real all of a sudden: I went to the Iranian embassy to pick up my visa.

This was on Tuesday afternoon, after I said goodbye to Maddie at the airport, with her five hour flight delay giving us a few extra hours spent together sitting on the floor, trying to call China Southern, but waving each other off onto our respective adventures for the following two months

Strangely enough, getting the physical visa was not what made the trip feel real. It was being in the embassy for over an hour.

I had gone to the embassy a week before, on Monday morning, before work. When I arrived I soon found out that, only written in Farsi, the embassy only issues visas for two hours on Tuesdays and Fridays. So now I was back here, 15 minutes after their opening for the day. In the long train and tram ride there I double-checked all the documents I needed: passport, photos, travel insurance, cash and the approved visa application form. Check. Until I read in the fine print that the application form needs to be printed out. I only had it digitally, in my e-mail on my phone. At this point I was almost there, with the embassy not being open until Friday again, by when I was hoping to be at least on the road to Frankfurt. So I continued slightly nervous, walking through the beautiful embassy roads in The Hague.

Additionally, my phone has gotten to the point where it can painfully only charge via wireless charger anymore. Didn't have that with me. And my battery had dropped to 12% helping Maddie with rebooking transfers due to her delayed flight. So, I turned off my phone and went into the embassy by ringing a doorbell next to a gate. I walked through a little hall and immediately was greeted by an overwhelming heat in a windowless waiting room, where at least 30 others were waiting before me.

Like last time, I asked the nearest man (just as friendly as last time, when I arrived and realised you can only pick up visas on set hours in the week) if he could read Farsi and help me figure out the queuing-machine. He clicked through and I got number 111, with the current counter being at 89. So after thanking him I took a seat in the back of the room, facing the counters in the front. There were four counters, but only one was working for issuing visas; ready for a long wait.

Around me, and this is what made the trip feel so real all of a sudden, were only (I assumed) Iranians. I was the only blonde person. An odd feeling, stepping in from the outside world where I was only surrounded by Dutch and talking with them about a far away country, to suddenly feel like I was in a room in that country. People gave me kind looks, but didn't interact with me.

Everybody was on their best behaviour because of the official reason they were there. I only had my journal and Lonely Planet Middle East with me, both not really suited to keep a low profile at the embassy. So for lack of other activity and to distract myself from the 30 degrees in the room (another taste of being in Iran) I took my time to study the people around me (alternated by watching the Visit Iran tourist promotion video playing on a tv screen with Windows Media Player in the far corner). Everybody was very well dressed and groomed. A polite reunion took place when a grandmother walked in and everybody in her family stood up to greet her and kiss her on the cheek. Ladies seemingly wore their headscarves mainly as a formality, dark hair flowing around their heads. A young guy next to me, maybe 15 years old was talking into his phone about hanging out on Ijburg in Dutch. Perfect son-in-law big brothers in new clothes had stacks of documents in hand.

I was paying close attention to whether others were going up to the desk with documents on their phone, to make sure I'd be ok. Then, around number 95 my neighbour started chatting with me and told she was getting a visa for her mum (who nodded politely to me). She was going to stay in Isfahan for three months, in a pension, my neighbour herself could only go for two weeks. They needed a visa because they were originally from Afghanistan, rather than Iran. After this, she asked me: "Ga je op vakantie naar Iran?" (are you going on holiday to Iran?). Sort of, I said. I tried to explain, without appearing to odd to them that I didn't really see it as a holiday, but as an exploration of the culture and country I want to know more about. But: ja, ik ga op vakantie, was the easy conclusion. We talked for a while about which cities they were going to and I told them my friend (Aydin) had recommended me some addresses of his family members still in Iran. They were very enthusiastic about that. Meanwhile, I had that feeling when all people around you are listening into your conversation, but without being rude, and everyone involved knows they are. They laugh at the jokes and you're not surprised.

That's how it was for a few minutes when seemingly everybody in the room suddenly everybody stopped talking and stared and shoo-d me forward, pointing to the desk: the man behind it was waving for me to come forward.

This was a problematic since the number was only 104 and I hadn't expected to be called forward yet, so my phone was still turned off in my pocket. I quickly pressed the button while I moved forward to the desk where a smiley man greeted me. We established whether to speak English or Dutch (English) and he said "Welcome! Please, your letter and your passport." and pointed to the little drawer that goes under the counter. I was feeling very awkward and felt people's eyes in my back as I explained my phone was still turning on and I only had my passport. I never know how fluent I should express myself in English, so I resort to basic pointing explanations. But he didn't seem to mind - even though I was very embarrassed. Istead, he immediately asked me where I was going and I answered something along the lines of "Entering from Trabzon and then going to Rast".. "Rast? Ahhhh RasHt!" he interrupted. This made him laugh, and me too, because Rasht is just a small provincial town in the North, probably adding to the surprise of the already unlikeliness of my request for a visa to travel to Iran, but Aydins family lives there so I planned to visit. Then the test of my Iranian geography continued as I listed some cities that I remember and could probably visit. The truth is that the amount of places throughout Europe and Turke between here and Shiraz (southern Iran) is so large that I don't really know yet when, how and where I will go exactly. I'll see what I get recommended! Nonetheless, he seemed very satisfied with my answer. Almost proud. He motioned me to put my passport through the drawer and said "No problem no letter. No problem! How long is good for you? One month?" I nodded "OOkkay! One month!", and things were sorted as we beamed at each other. Bu then just briefly after that my phone powered on, I found the letter and passed it through as well - but all was already okay.

Behing him stood a very senior looking man, he may well have been the ambassador (even though I doubt that). A big belly and a big mustache, he looked at me stern but with the hint of a smile around his mouth. He winked at me. The man at the counter pointed me towards his neighbour where I had to pay the fee. I had come prepared as the emails mentioned explicitly to bring enough cash. Proudly (I never carry cash) I got it out, but instead the man smiled and held his phone to the glass with a Tikkie QR code on it. Super interesting, as Iran is banned from the international banking system due to sanctions imposed by the US following continuing development of Irans nuclear programme. I smiled at the man and paid the 75€ fee with my (famously now turned on) phone. He then indicated for me to sit down again and wait for them to make everything in order, which I did. I was left thinking about the Tikkie situation, because I checked my bank account and I paid to "Tikkie for Business" - so I wonder how they found a workaround for the sanctions and how this money would end up in the Iranian system.

As I sat back down fresh happy astonishment at my mentioning at Rasht was expressed by my neighbours, the news apparently passed down to the back of the room. I felt that feeling I know so well from being abroad, that you're not just another person in the room, bus or restaurant, but that people pay extra attention to you, are wondering about where you're going. I felt like I was in Iran already, feeling happy by all the positive interest and enthusiasm from the people. The visit really excited me to go, much deeper than the vague outline of a plan that it had been until then.

After five minutes I was called forward again, where the senior ambassador man beamed at me as he gave me my visa (importantly not stamped in my passport but as a separate document) and asked me to check everything. "Welcome to Iran." he repeated to me with a wink, I packed my stuff and walked out, waving to my neighbours. A big smile on my face.

A reflection about being in that room in the embassy followed in the train. It brought two insights, which I perversely put to Mila as "Iranians are not Moroccans" later that day when she stopped by in my room after an ad hoc barbecue / all-nighter by our other housemates. I saw the light shock on her face, so I quickly explained myself.

When I went to primary school and high school I had many classmates and friends from many different non-western countries. Iraq, Iran, Morocco, Turkïye, Tunisia, Afghanistan, Egypt and later Syria, etc. For me it would not only be hard to remember the specifics of these countries, it was also hard to distinguish between the physical appearance of people from these countries. I admit that for me, I would often classify people from these different countries in the same group. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't a negative dismissal - but rather a subconscious, automated grouping of humans based on approximate appearance, culture and language or maybe even more simple: not from Europe or countries I know anything about.

Of course, long since then I have started distinguishing between origins from these different countries, learning more as abstract names became actual locations on the map with specific history and culture to me. Türkiye became a place of imagination for me through stories of Berkhan and Aydin, I sailed to North Africa and visited Morocco, when Afghani refugees after the US military retreat in 2021 were housed next to my local calisthenics park I had many (emotional for me) conversations with them. I read fiction from Afghanistan, Iran, listened to distinct Arab music. All to say: I know that Moroccans are not Iranians.

Nonetheless, my visit to the embassy added two new layers to that. Fìrst of all, The Netherlands' street image is a very diverse mix of people from many different nationalities - as a result of a very mixed population. And from most people you see you can't know where they are from purely based on appearance. In (machine) learning technical terms: just looking around you provides a very bad base-set for supervised learning. My visit to the embassy, however, provided an excellent labelled set. Suddenly I was able to say with 90% certainty of the people around me they were Iranian. This made looking around very interesting. because I recognised distinct facial and cultural features as Persian/Iranian features. I saw high cheekbones, prominent noses, a way of dressing and a level of grooming - and realised this was how these people looked.

With that realisation came the second one: where it had been "natural" for me to group different non-western immigrants in the same category (as it (unfortunately) is for many people), they, of course they see themselves as wildly different from others in this grouping. To them other immigrants have no connection to them, only that they too moved to the Netherlands, whereas for me and others that is the only characteristic needed to “scheer them over een kam” / consider them as the same.

Once, when living in Rio, Tadeu - my landlord, housemate and restaurant patron came up to me and pointed out a guy at a table near me in his vegan restaurant where I had lunch ever day. “He speaks Polish too!” - he signaled for the guy to come over, who started speaking to me in rapid Polish, a happy surprised expression on his face. I laughed and apologised that I didn’t understand him. “Tadeu, voce sabe que eu sou da Holanda ne?” / “Tadeu, you know I’m from the Netherlands right?“. I had lived with Tadeu for over 2.5 months by then.

To him, I was probably just classified as "European", the specifics were let go. I wasn't necessarily offended, I was mainly shocked at how he could ever confuse those two. Similarly, an Iraqi must be so confused when a Dutch may say "ahh, you're from Iran right?", or ask if you can speak to the new colleague, since he is also from from Afghanistan. This, however, must happen all the time!

As I looked around, I realised that these people, who to me had looked similar to other immigrants, must feel so distinct from them. They have they have their own culture, they have their language, their embassy, their homecountry, connections with others from their country. Just because others immigrants are living in this country, it doesn't mean they feel grouped with them.

With those realisations and the first results of my attempt at understanding a new part of the world, and its people I can't wait to get to go there, dissolve my own old categorisation even more, and say with even more certainty to Mila when I get back: Iranians are not Moroccans.

PS: In case that was not obvious yet: in my usage of Moroccans and Iranians I don't mean to suggest any different valuation of the two, merely a difference.

PPS: If you find me wildly inconsiderate because of all the above either way; please let me know, I'd love to hear your perspectives