Birthday 24.0

It's officially been a week since I've returned from london :( & :)
It was an incredible trip.

If you want the short version: it was truly a celebration of life.
for more details, continue: I cant even believe it happened really. it was like a dream.
I arrived thursday day, and met up with Soheil at his giant corporate office, and he came out wearing a suit, he looked so good, and serious, and...corporate, and like an adult!! He treated me to lunch at his favorite spot at Leadenhall Market. It was beautiful. I felt like I was playing dress up with Soheil, when I'm with him a part of me can't help but revert to being 7 or 8 years old. I was seeing it from 3rd person perspective: a traveling woman and a business man sit at a table enjoying lunch in Leadenhall market...IT'S SHAYAN AND SOHEIL WHAT ARE THEY DOING?! they should be killing soosk (cockroaches) in Pappari's (my grandma's) yard and then tying a sheet from the stair rails and swinging on it like monkeys, before watching an emotional episode of footbalista... absolutely surreal. I can't believe we've grown up...

then I went back to soheils house in clapham south and took a nap until he came home from work that evening. we went around victoria station and I had nachos for the first time in 5 months at a pub! Carolina arrived about an hour later and we picked her up from victoria station, hung out in some spots around there then headed home. this doesnt sound super exciting, but it was absolutely lovely. I've got my cousin sitting across from me, an incredible friend sitting next to me, my aunts and cousins calling on the phone...eating nachos... i just felt like i could float away i was so happy.

the next day I skyped with Sogol, Pappari, Pedarbozorg, Mahmoud, Khale Taraneh, even Khanoom Rezvani! Khale Taraneh had made cheese cake in my honor, and put a candle on it and i "blew it out" over skype. It was one of the happiest birthday moments of my life. I could just feel so much love shooting around between everyone.

Carolina spoke french with Pedarbozorg, he got really excited. it was very cute. and I also introduced her to Sogol because Carolina is interested in cinema/theatre/directing/iran and so is Sogol, my cousin. possible future collaboration? Hopefully!

that day we just walked around a lot, Elena arrived from Spain at midday, and we met up with her and went to borough market. it was VERY cool, it was sort of sprawling underneath highways...and it wasnt nasty, the way one would imagine the underneaths of highways to be it was really nice. we ate a million things. I was especially excited about the thai food (green curry). i hadn't eaten it for probably 6 months. As a person who ate it 2 times a week back in college, i never thought i would live to see a day where i hadn't even smelled it for 6 months. it was glorious.

Soheil kept on talking about tapas bars and spanish food...and I was so confused because, spanish food isn't really THAT good...but tapas are such a  novelty everywhere in the world. Well, when you make a gorgeous gourmet tapas dish, yes, i can see how that would be exotic and exciting...but the tapas you get at bars, free with a caña in Spain, not so much. but i mean youre drunk half the time youre eating them anyway so its still good. Anyway, the last thing i wanted was spanish food. london IS SO METROPOLITAN AND COSMOPOLITAN i had completey forgotten! it reminded me of san francisco. and made me re-realize how homogenous madrid is. I love Madrid, I chose it because it IS homogenous and I wanted a very Spanish experience, if i wanted cosmopolitan I would have gone to barcelona. but every now and then, i think its fine to run away to London for some really good Indian or Thai food...and to play with my cousins.

I feel strangely at home in London, maybe it's because I have been traveling there since I was a kid and have old old memories there, maybe its because I have so much family and so many friends there. I know I have a home in London, I know I could stay with soheil, or hannah, or Asal or in Ame afsaneh´s house or...or..or...etc etc. I have a spot(/spots) in London, and that as cliché as it is, knowing it gives me a warm fuzzy feeling in my stomach. I LOVE LONDON. i want to live there for a while...lets see where life will take me.

that night, I met up with Asal and Co. One of her friends was having a goodbye party so we joined forces and had a great party at Barrio Centro in Soho. Hannah and her boyfriend Simon also came, and it was just a great night...I have to admit at one point i was cheers-ing with 3 drinks in my hand. i only have 2 hands, for the record.

{side note: i have severely cut back on drinking. since the end of college/being in Spain, i noticed i was just consuming alcohol for NO reason sometimes. i mean, it didnt even taste good half the time. like the gross mahous beer they drink in madrid...i love beer, dont get me wrong, oregon taught me well, but MAHOUS?! no thank you. so, anyway, i feel much better having decreased the alcohol consumption in my life by like 80% and this was just a celebratory birthday weekend, so mommy dont worry.}

the next day we frolicked around london some more, We went to covent garden, I saw khale Katy and Sina who came up from Poole, I spoke on the phone with Ameh Afsaneh, Asal took me to Portobello market and bought me a gift on behalf of Ameh Afsaneh (her mom) it was very fun. oh ya hannah came to portobello with me too. THEN later that night we had a 20 person reservation at an italian restaurant called luna rossa it was SO DELICIOUS we had all you could eat pizza (but REALLY GOOD PIZZA) and it was just so fun, i got a bunch of presents which i wasnt expecting at ALL, i was just so delighted to be there and that people came out to dinner that i couldnt believe i got gifts as WELL!! it was like having 100 cherries on top! then we all went to westbourne studios where Ramy had put us on the guest list. It is an art community, where designers can rent out studios (gorillaz used to record music there) and there's this great shared/common space where during the day i'm sure is where people take breaks and have lunch, but at nights on weekends it gets transformed into a club and it was SO. MUCH. FUN. amazing music. favorite song was a better version of this GEM. i felt like i had actually gone to heaven when they played this song. it was one of those moments where you just want to dance forever and you are totally aware of how awesome you feel and you dont ever want that moment to end EVER. but alas it was fleeting. such is the physics of time.

the next day I hung out with sina some more who is such a kick ass guy...i adore him. he has such cool style, and is FUNNY and so fun to talk to. Baby cousin´s becoming a man! (no facial hair yet though, so hes still kind of a baby...to me.) visited hannah lawrence in her very grown-up and cool flat in clapham north she shares with her boyfriend, and then had a Syrian dinner with Asal and Simon (her boyf) back at their place in shepards bush. I left early, the next morning...

recap: great food, great people, great health, great location. couldnt ask for more.

I cant say it enough... the feeling i had, i just felt so full of so much love, with so many friends and family around...i'm so lucky to have so many wonderful people in my life, all over the world who are so kind and generous and FUN awesome people.

I guess the reason why it took me so long to finally make this post was because, I always get a little depressed when I'm thrown in the midst of so much love and fun and awesomeness and then suddenly jerked back to reality, where, unfortunately, i dont have relatives and family in my daily life. and it always just feels really empty when i have to leave family. Maybe I should be used to this by now, I HAVE been experiencing it since i was A SINGLE YEAR OLD with my first trip to iran...

oh this is the theme song of the london trip Alex Clare-up all night

so, i'm back in spain, and I finally accepted that reality when i went grocery shopping. a couple days ago. I couldnt kid myself anymore. it was a "Toto, we're back in kansas" moment as i was being body slammed going down the ham isle desperately trying to find tahine, which no one knew what it was. (They're not that far from morocco how do they not know? )

Honestly though, as much as i can get irritated with certain spain-isms I am very glad to be back, Madrid has become one of my homes. and really, as I walk down paseo de la florida and catch a glimpse of the palacio, or as i meet up with friends in malasaña and go dancing at tupperware, there are hearts shooting out of my eyes. I'm so lucky to be here, I'm excited every day that I am living my dream. I love my job, my babies, my friends, my proximity to so many cool places. and I am just having the time of my life!

i love you all
thank you thank you thank you for everything

XXXX