Yesterday we celebrated Zahra’s birthday. Celebrations came a bit late, since her birthday falls on the Iranian new day, and so most of her friends (and herself) were quite busy celebrating their new year. However she decided to celebrate her birthday nevertheless. So she invited a couple of her friends to her house, where she prepared a banquet of Iranian food, washed down with some Iranian dancing.
All the people from our lab and Monika were to meet outside my apartment building (since I was the only one who knew where she lived, having been there before). I got dressed (bought a new dress in the morning, when I was shopping with Monika…was not planning on buying it, but saw it, liked it and decided to buy it on a whim…not so sure why cos I am not a dress girl, but we will see…I will probably see the photos now and say noooooooo what did I do, but anyways).
Surprisingly enough, everyone made it within 5minutes of the planned meeting time, and we made our way to Zahra’s house, which is a short 15 or so minute walk from where I live. Once we arrived, we were some of the first people there, but being a group of 5 people ourselves made for a merry group. The other people soon started trickling in, and the chatting increased. This time, we were the only non-Iranians there, but they always make an effort to speak English to us, so we still feel part of the group (or perhaps I just bother them too much asking what does this mean in Persian that they just don’t bother…but my Persian vocabulary is increasing 🙂 ).
After some initial nibbles, came (at least my) the favourite part of the night…Iranian food, which Zahra had lovingly prepared. Others in my lab have heard me rave about it, and Zahra certainly did succeed. She had told us to come on an empty stomach, and even though we ate and ate, there was still some leftover hihi. I had the lamb and rice, which I knew were delicious from last time, tried some new types of rice, and had the most mouthwatering sort of stuffed baguette thing with beef…MMMMMMMM. We HAD to go up for seconds hihi 🙂
After the food, came tea and then obviously the DANCING 🙂 I had had my first experience of Iranian dancing during Roya’s birthday, and knew what to expect. This time I was happy to see that Monika dived right in to the dancing, with Ross joining soon after, and then David. Basha had already left home, so he did not get to experience this :(. Well, what we did might not really be called Iranian dancing, cos in no way can I emulate what the Iranians manage to do so effortlessly. But we try (and provided comic relief to the Iranians there).
After round 1 of dancing, came more tea and the cake. And with the cake comes obviously (I am learning now) the Iranian knife dance. This time, I got to have my own dance (Marzieh and Sahar…grrrrrrrr…and Sahar did not even do it herself). However these people had seen me make a fool of myself all evening with my dancing, so whats a little more. Monika did the longest knife dance, and I think she was quite good. I just did the bare minimum and passed it on to the next person 🙂
Here is my favourite Iranian happy birthday song 🙂 It has good bits in English so you should be able to follow. I want it sung at my next birthday 🙂 Cos it is so nice and cute.
After the delicious cake, came more dancing and fun. However by now time had passed (it was after 1am by now, and Ross still had to drive all the way home…a 50minute or so drive). Other people were starting to say their goodbyes, so we decided to join the group, did our goodbye dance and made our way home. Monika and myself embarassed Ross all the way home with our dancing in the middle of the road and singing all the songs from the 90s (though Ross seems to be really handy with all the Spice girls lyrics haha).
Once I got home, I tried to sleep, but I was still on a high from the party, so I watched an episode of a new series I am watching and slept in the middle of it 🙂
Overall a REALLY ENJOYABLE evening…will post photos once they become available.
Thank you Zahra for inviting us to your beautiful home: TAVALODET MOBARAK AZIZAM 🙂
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