Old Hobbies

 Ati                                                         

                                                                     Old Hobbies

            The last month before I came to the United States, I spent most of my time with my family and close friends partying, visiting old places, visiting museums, going to cafés, and camping in nature. When I was in Iran, entertainment was a big part of my life. When I graduated from the university, I had more time to have fun, so I used to hang out with my family and friends. The people of my city, Shiraz, are famous for knowing how to enjoy themselves. However, since I came to the United States, I have not had entertainment as much as I had in Iran because I do not have any close friends or family here to accompany me camping in the nature, visiting old places, and family gatherings.

            One of the most interesting forms of entertainment that I had in Iran was family gatherings. It is customary in Iran that families gather with each other almost every weekend. I miss it a lot because my family that I used to spend my holidays or weekends with are not here. Although several times nice American families invited me to their family gathering for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and even Passover parties, and I had nice times there. Howover, none of them gave me happiness or feeling that I had in Iran because my English is not good enough to speak with them easily about different issues. For instance, they talk to each other about something and laugh at jokes that I do not understand, or yet, sometimes I think they are not funny at all and all of these are because our cultures are different. 

            My friends and I also used to spend our time visiting ancient places and museums. Iran and Shiraz have a lot of museums that gave my friends and me many choices. We used to hang out in our free time in these places. Here, in Chicago, I have gone to different museums such as the Oriental Institute Museum, the Art Museum, and the Museum of Science and Industry. I liked all of them, spicially the Oriental Institute Museum because it has beautiful and important archeoalogical objects from Iran. Although this museum is beautiful, compared to Egyptian and Mesopetamian galleris, the Persian gallery dose not have as many objects. It makes me a little sad because my country has a lot of ancient objects that could be displayed in the museum.

            The last and the best entertainment that I had in Iran was camping in nature. The nature that my family or friends and I chose to visit are usually close to our city. Sometimes other family friends joined us. Our mothers made food on the fire, and after that we accompanied our mothers to pick the local herbs that we knew. I really miss those days and I would love to try it again here, but I am not familiar with the nature of this region. Also, I do not feel safe because of the bad things that I hear from news that happen to some people on camping. Therefore, it seems that I cannot enjoy the same experiences I had in Iran.  

            Although Iranians do not have a lot of entertainment compend to the people in free countries have such as going to a bar, biking for females, shopping with boyfriend or girlfriend, dancing in conserts, and going to the dance club, the entertainment they have such as spending their time with family, visiting old sites, and enjoying nature are very important to them. Though I hope that dictatorial regime in Iran will change one day, so Iranians can experience freedom they deserve. I also hope that I can find more friends with common interests, so I can begin to explore the new hobbies with them, and have party such as I had in Iran with my family and friends.