Travels of a Persian Canadian

So how did I end up back here? A Persian immigrant to Canada at the age of 3, who had come back to Iran once for a year when I was 12 and then returned to Canada never looking back? It took 3 months, and a lone trip couch surfing around Western Europe with a EuroRail ticket in my pocket.

About a 4 years ago, at the beginning of my undergrad in Anthropology, I saw a poster for a joint Anthropology and Political Science Field-school to Ireland and the Isle of Man and instantly decided that I would save the money and the next time that field-school was offered I would participate. During the time I was waiting for the field-school to be offered my plans started evolving to involve more unrestricted travelling after the field-school. I started out with the vague idea that I would take a travelling break from university half way through my degree so I could experience other cultures and ways of living. I would help me understand other cultures and in my mind give me an advantage in my degree.

So flash forward to spring/summer of 2014 and I was off to Ireland with the rest of our class. During my time in Ireland I was juggling site seeing and interviews with politicians for the field-school and in the evenings planning my itinerary and making the final decision of if I would go around Europe and where I would end up. It took about a month until I finally decided I would get a 2 month ticket for EuroRail. The ticket was way over my budget. No questions about it. So the rest of the month I was frantically left trying to figure out a way to sleep safely when I knew I couldn't afford hostels. After some looking around I found couchsurfing.org and it was a lifesaver.

By the end of my field-school I had a rough outline of what I was doing. I would spend about 4 days and 3 nights in each country that the EuroRail ticket covered, staying with someone I met through the Couchsurfing website, all the while finishing the essay assignments for my fieldschool classes. Somewhere along the way, I don't remember where exactly, I decided I would make this trip a tour around the world, stopping in Iran to gather funds before heading back out to India and Asia on my way back to Canada.

So here I am in Iran. I arrived in July, it's been almost a year. The stop has become an extended stay but the plan is pretty much in tact. I'm just waiting to start out again.