Leila & Nuri: July 2005
We hope that you are doing well, we… as most of you are aware of… have been on vacations/honey moon in Europe. We haven't had time until now to put together something to share with you how things went and what we saw… and although we wished we could have prepared something more detailed, well, here it is a summary of the events, in order of appearance!
First of all, we have to tell you that it was very special to serve at the Holy Land and leaving Israel was a mixed-feeling experience, we had lots to do getting ready to leave our positions and organizing our stuff, but mostly we had several wonderful days spent in the Holy Places, wishing that our souls will be able to always go back there.We left on June 8th, our ticket allowed us to stay one month in London before going to Detroit, US. Therefore we got all prepared to be able to visit some cities and countries, and see our family there… that was going to be our vacation before settling down for a few years, but also we thought of having some sort of honey moon, we decided to start the trip in Venice.
When we got to London we met Nahid and her friend, Helena, on the eve of the 8th. They had been traveling through England and for a few days they were in the capital, so we stayed in the same Hotel near the Victoria Station. It was our last night with Nahid, until when we are not sure, therefore we went out that night and enjoyed London in each others company, had some pasties and lots of chocolates.
The next morning Nahid and Helena continued their 10 days trip, while we went to the resting place of the Guardian. It was quite a ways from our Hotel but we thought that it was so easy to get there, that if you ever are in London for more than 5 hours, it is very easy to get to the resting place, the underground goes directly from the Airport there (if you arrive to terminal 4, as we did, there is a free shuttle that connects you to the underground) it is the blue line, and you should stop at Arnos Grove [since this stop is closer to the resting place]. If you are going there, you can find more information at http://www.bahai.org.uk/shoghi/index.htm at the official web site of the NSA of England.
When we arrived there we met a few friends from the World Centre,while we were walking we heard our names, it turned out to be Soheil Manshadi who was coming in our direction. He had been serving for three months in England and that very day was on his way to the airport to go back to Argentina. He looked the same and quite happy. He came with us to the resting place and introduced us to Mr. Alai. Later we met Ming, who was returning to Israel from Singapore, after the wedding of her sister… and we met Talia, Natalia Mann's sister!! They were both going to do some sightseeing and it was really nice to see those two radiant faces. We got a ride with them to the tubes (that is how they call the underground) and went to the city, we went to the National Centre and had a special visit of the building, which in 1963 was used by the Universal House of Justice for their first meetings.
So the day went by visiting the parks and streets of London, and at night our Honey Moon started when we took our plane to Italy… Venice! In Europe there are cheap airlines that fly to most countries in Europe for a very little amount of money (www.ryanair.com and www.easyjet.com are the most common) and of course if you are flexible with your dates and patient with checking for deals you can get a good price, we paid for our whole trip a little over 200 USD each, and we had 4 one way tickets(most of the price was actually to pay the airport taxes, but you have to pay it anyway!).
We spent two wonderful days in Venice, walking through the romantic tinny streets and bridges, going on the water streets and the Grand Canale, which crosses the island. It is definitely an amazing place, the Piazza, the Duomo (church) and its Tower, very very beautiful old city, with its old houses right on the water and the balconies full of flowers, the fish market, the handmade glass from one of its three islands, Murano, it all gave a mystic and romantic touch and made our two days there unforgettable. Actually there is a one day pass (24Hours) for about 10 Euros that covers your transportation on water with the motor boats and also on the buses, so we went all over, to all the islands and used it also in the city, since you can stay on the island, old city, or in Mestre which is inland, and where we decided to stay.
On the 11th we took a train towards the Tuscany region, we left in the afternoon and saw all these beautiful colors of the sun setting, the vinyards and farms, later in the evening we arrived in Pisa, where Tia Irma y Tio Roberto warmly took us in for a few days. Pisa is the home of the famous leaning tower, and it truly is leaning. We visited the Tuscany cities of Florence and Lucca, and smaller towns closer toPisa. It is really a tranquil place, full of colors and warmth
In Florence we visited the Duomo, with different stone colors and its tower. Actually we also learned that the tower of Pisa is the belltower of their Duomo, their Cathedral. Tio Roberto told us that the construction began in the early 1170 and continued, with two long interruptions, for about two hundred years. In the past it was believed that the inclination of the Tower was part of the project ever since its beginning, but now the experts know that it is not so.The Tower was designed to be "vertical" (and even if it did not lean it would still be one of the most remarkable bell towers in Europe), it started to lean during its construction. Now the tower has been strengthen, and some kind of sub-terrainian method has been used to reinforce the Tower and prevent it from leaning even more to the point where it could fall… Now for about 15 Euros you can go all the way to the top and enjoy the view of the city from the tower that Galileo Galilei used to conduct his experiments … as you all know, he was also from Pisa!! So this medieval city really is something special in history.
Going back to Florence, we also visited the main museum at the Palacio de los Oficios, we visited the oldest castle and we went to the Palacio de Piti… really beautiful and rich place, rich in architecture and art; with its old bridge the Ponte Vecchio, on the Arno River, it is like if you have jumped in a post card! Lucca was also very interesting, the only city with its walls still standing… all the other cities' walls were bombed and only some parts remain now… but inLucca the medieval atmosphere is still around.
We were supposed to leave on the 16th, but due to fog the airplane could not land and so our flight was delayed a couple days (this wef ound to be part of the price of flying with a cheap airlines).
So we got stuck in Pisa for two more days, which was kind of fortunate, that very night was the Luminaria of Pisa, a feast dedicated to San Ranieri. Every year the houses along the side of the river, the Arno, get illumined, they put some kind of frame around the windows and doors where candles are placed and lit in the early eve until the following day… it was a magical night with more than 50,000 candles!!! The day after the Luminaria there was held a Regatta on the Arno river, the four neighborhoods of the old Pisa play as in the Medieval times, they have some kind of canoes and they paddle from one end of town to the other where there is a high post, on top a little flag, as soon as the canoe arrives, one member of the team climbs up a rope and gets the flag. In the old times the prizes were in "animal" kind, and we were told that the last team would get a couple of ducks, while the first team would get the best and biggest, maybe a cow! We really had lots of fun, and we saw the games from the best place in town… Tia Irma & Tio Roberto have very good friends living right on the Arno, where the Regatta was ending and the post was raised, Roberto & Ines. Actually with them we went to a little town were the Vespa motorcycles are made, and although we wanted to see the motorcycles museum (it was closed) we saw a Caravaggio Exposition… it was quite interesting!
So after all these wonderful days in Italy, we took our plane on the 18th to Spain, our next stop was Barcelona… originally we really wanted to spend 4 days there, to see everything, but we had to settle for two because of the delay in Pisa. It was quite tight but we saw almost everything… the first day, although a bit sleepy, we went walking / with the metro to most of the places inside town, to the Gothic City [we thought we might find Batman there, hehe] and to some of the places that Antonio Gaudi worked on, we went to La Sagrada Familia, Casa Batllo, Casa Mila… and we learned that the Church of La Sagrada Familia has been under construction since 1882, and might be finished in 2040. He is an amazing architect, who in his time revived the Gothic style and he actually started a new trend in architecture not using formal and straight lines and decorating the buildings in a very unique way. We also got to visit some other places, such as the Plazas and monuments.
The following day we went early towards the Olympic City, we had a look at the Forum and the Monjuic Palace and Gardens… and around midday we met an old friend of Leila, a high school classmate, Betty De los Rios, who is studying in Barcelona. Betty's sister ,Eliane is also there, she married a very nice young fellow from Madrid, Jose. They all took good care of us from then on, took us in a car through all the places we were not able to visit the previous day, we went to the beach, and to further parts of the city, we went to a park were Gaudi lived and worked for 20 years, they took us to the Mountain Montserrat, we had a wonderful meal together and really, it was very special to meet them, they are still as pretty and funny as they always were.
From Barcelona we took another plane to Stockholm on the 20th, where we met Neda and Sama, we stayed with them for four days, Sama prepares a wonderful coffee, any kind, and that was just an amazing treat! We also saw Zarrin and two of her sons and their wives, Babak and Munirih [who will be parents any time soon] and Nader & Anne who came all the way from Oslo to be with us, and brought along their brother, Jokom (please forgive us Javier for the spelling). We also met Borna & Sana and their mom Nahid, Peyman and Lili, and over the phone we spoke with Roya & Adrian, they were all well and send regards!
We had a wonderfultime there, we kayaked on the archipielago with Neda, Sama, Nader
Anne, plus we went out shopping and enjoyed the long days, the sun would set at about 11 and rise at about 3, but never get dark… andt hat was very special... but a bit hard to sleep without thick curtains on the windows.
From Stockholm we went to Vaxjo, were Siamak and his family live, Peggy, Jasmin and Shirin. We rented a car and Ramin came with us. We arrived just in time for the Mid-summer festivities, where traditionally a post is placed in the ground and people dance around it, also kids play games and all the single girls wear a crown of flowers… even the little ones! We had some fish and great food, while in Vaxjo we relaxed and checked our emails. We continued our journey a few days later traveling by train to Malmo, where we found Leila's dad waiting for us at the train station!! He had come to be with Agha Joon (Leila's grandfather), and we were very happy to see him and be with him. It was very nice; we met Mrs. Irene Udvik and Mrs. Naimi there, as well as visited all of the city of Malmo and its beaches.
Siamak and his family and also Neda came for the last weekend we were there, we had a great time then too doing shopping and swimming. Actually Neda stayed one more day and we went together to Copenhagen for a day, enjoyed the city of Hans Christian Andersen, all around the city they have placed footsteps of where you can follow and see what he has done or has been. We did that, and Nuri and Neda got bikes (they are kind of free, you place a 20 Kr coin and you get it back when you give back the bike) and since the city is not that big, they went all around while Leila enjoyed some sun at the harbor where there was some jazz playing and all the people enjoying the summer weather.
Well, after two weeks in Sweden we had to continue on, traveling toLondon on the 5th of July to take our plane back to the States a couple of days later. We went and stayed for a night with Mr. and Mrs. Yusif-Pour in Colchester. It was so nice to see them, they are very well, they have a beautiful home and garden, and Mr. Yusif-Pour has also a little parcel of land at the community garden. They took very good care of us, and as you can imagine we ate delicious food. We also met their daughter, Mitra and her family… we visited the city and discovered that Colchester is the oldest town in England!!
On the 6th of July we went into central London where everyone was celebrating being choosen as the Olympic city for 2012… so we had a great time going around the city and visiting places, the Tower Bridge, the Big Ben, the London Eye, the Parlament House, etc. The following day all the happy faces changed, the underground had been bombed and also a bus. When we realized what was happening, we called our families to make sure they knew we were fine. We decided to take it easy for a couple of hours and once we saw things were ok to walk around, we walked through the city, we went to the Buckingham Palace, to the parks near by, and visited Shoa & Gita and their children who were in London visiting Gita's mom. We had a wonderful day despite all the commotion and we managed to leave the next morning.
As you can imagine we had a wonderful time, and we are now in the States. We are getting ready for school and we will tell you more about that later. Also we hope that this email inspires some of you to visit these places :) If you have any question about and logistics please let us know. We love you all and wish you a wonderful August! If you have a chance, please visit our photo gallery at www.eady-naraghi.com
Nuri & Leila
First of all, we have to tell you that it was very special to serve at the Holy Land and leaving Israel was a mixed-feeling experience, we had lots to do getting ready to leave our positions and organizing our stuff, but mostly we had several wonderful days spent in the Holy Places, wishing that our souls will be able to always go back there.We left on June 8th, our ticket allowed us to stay one month in London before going to Detroit, US. Therefore we got all prepared to be able to visit some cities and countries, and see our family there… that was going to be our vacation before settling down for a few years, but also we thought of having some sort of honey moon, we decided to start the trip in Venice.
When we got to London we met Nahid and her friend, Helena, on the eve of the 8th. They had been traveling through England and for a few days they were in the capital, so we stayed in the same Hotel near the Victoria Station. It was our last night with Nahid, until when we are not sure, therefore we went out that night and enjoyed London in each others company, had some pasties and lots of chocolates.
The next morning Nahid and Helena continued their 10 days trip, while we went to the resting place of the Guardian. It was quite a ways from our Hotel but we thought that it was so easy to get there, that if you ever are in London for more than 5 hours, it is very easy to get to the resting place, the underground goes directly from the Airport there (if you arrive to terminal 4, as we did, there is a free shuttle that connects you to the underground) it is the blue line, and you should stop at Arnos Grove [since this stop is closer to the resting place]. If you are going there, you can find more information at http://www.bahai.org.uk/shoghi/index.htm at the official web site of the NSA of England.
When we arrived there we met a few friends from the World Centre,while we were walking we heard our names, it turned out to be Soheil Manshadi who was coming in our direction. He had been serving for three months in England and that very day was on his way to the airport to go back to Argentina. He looked the same and quite happy. He came with us to the resting place and introduced us to Mr. Alai. Later we met Ming, who was returning to Israel from Singapore, after the wedding of her sister… and we met Talia, Natalia Mann's sister!! They were both going to do some sightseeing and it was really nice to see those two radiant faces. We got a ride with them to the tubes (that is how they call the underground) and went to the city, we went to the National Centre and had a special visit of the building, which in 1963 was used by the Universal House of Justice for their first meetings.
So the day went by visiting the parks and streets of London, and at night our Honey Moon started when we took our plane to Italy… Venice! In Europe there are cheap airlines that fly to most countries in Europe for a very little amount of money (www.ryanair.com and www.easyjet.com are the most common) and of course if you are flexible with your dates and patient with checking for deals you can get a good price, we paid for our whole trip a little over 200 USD each, and we had 4 one way tickets(most of the price was actually to pay the airport taxes, but you have to pay it anyway!).
We spent two wonderful days in Venice, walking through the romantic tinny streets and bridges, going on the water streets and the Grand Canale, which crosses the island. It is definitely an amazing place, the Piazza, the Duomo (church) and its Tower, very very beautiful old city, with its old houses right on the water and the balconies full of flowers, the fish market, the handmade glass from one of its three islands, Murano, it all gave a mystic and romantic touch and made our two days there unforgettable. Actually there is a one day pass (24Hours) for about 10 Euros that covers your transportation on water with the motor boats and also on the buses, so we went all over, to all the islands and used it also in the city, since you can stay on the island, old city, or in Mestre which is inland, and where we decided to stay.
On the 11th we took a train towards the Tuscany region, we left in the afternoon and saw all these beautiful colors of the sun setting, the vinyards and farms, later in the evening we arrived in Pisa, where Tia Irma y Tio Roberto warmly took us in for a few days. Pisa is the home of the famous leaning tower, and it truly is leaning. We visited the Tuscany cities of Florence and Lucca, and smaller towns closer toPisa. It is really a tranquil place, full of colors and warmth
In Florence we visited the Duomo, with different stone colors and its tower. Actually we also learned that the tower of Pisa is the belltower of their Duomo, their Cathedral. Tio Roberto told us that the construction began in the early 1170 and continued, with two long interruptions, for about two hundred years. In the past it was believed that the inclination of the Tower was part of the project ever since its beginning, but now the experts know that it is not so.The Tower was designed to be "vertical" (and even if it did not lean it would still be one of the most remarkable bell towers in Europe), it started to lean during its construction. Now the tower has been strengthen, and some kind of sub-terrainian method has been used to reinforce the Tower and prevent it from leaning even more to the point where it could fall… Now for about 15 Euros you can go all the way to the top and enjoy the view of the city from the tower that Galileo Galilei used to conduct his experiments … as you all know, he was also from Pisa!! So this medieval city really is something special in history.
Going back to Florence, we also visited the main museum at the Palacio de los Oficios, we visited the oldest castle and we went to the Palacio de Piti… really beautiful and rich place, rich in architecture and art; with its old bridge the Ponte Vecchio, on the Arno River, it is like if you have jumped in a post card! Lucca was also very interesting, the only city with its walls still standing… all the other cities' walls were bombed and only some parts remain now… but inLucca the medieval atmosphere is still around.
We were supposed to leave on the 16th, but due to fog the airplane could not land and so our flight was delayed a couple days (this wef ound to be part of the price of flying with a cheap airlines).
So we got stuck in Pisa for two more days, which was kind of fortunate, that very night was the Luminaria of Pisa, a feast dedicated to San Ranieri. Every year the houses along the side of the river, the Arno, get illumined, they put some kind of frame around the windows and doors where candles are placed and lit in the early eve until the following day… it was a magical night with more than 50,000 candles!!! The day after the Luminaria there was held a Regatta on the Arno river, the four neighborhoods of the old Pisa play as in the Medieval times, they have some kind of canoes and they paddle from one end of town to the other where there is a high post, on top a little flag, as soon as the canoe arrives, one member of the team climbs up a rope and gets the flag. In the old times the prizes were in "animal" kind, and we were told that the last team would get a couple of ducks, while the first team would get the best and biggest, maybe a cow! We really had lots of fun, and we saw the games from the best place in town… Tia Irma & Tio Roberto have very good friends living right on the Arno, where the Regatta was ending and the post was raised, Roberto & Ines. Actually with them we went to a little town were the Vespa motorcycles are made, and although we wanted to see the motorcycles museum (it was closed) we saw a Caravaggio Exposition… it was quite interesting!
So after all these wonderful days in Italy, we took our plane on the 18th to Spain, our next stop was Barcelona… originally we really wanted to spend 4 days there, to see everything, but we had to settle for two because of the delay in Pisa. It was quite tight but we saw almost everything… the first day, although a bit sleepy, we went walking / with the metro to most of the places inside town, to the Gothic City [we thought we might find Batman there, hehe] and to some of the places that Antonio Gaudi worked on, we went to La Sagrada Familia, Casa Batllo, Casa Mila… and we learned that the Church of La Sagrada Familia has been under construction since 1882, and might be finished in 2040. He is an amazing architect, who in his time revived the Gothic style and he actually started a new trend in architecture not using formal and straight lines and decorating the buildings in a very unique way. We also got to visit some other places, such as the Plazas and monuments.
The following day we went early towards the Olympic City, we had a look at the Forum and the Monjuic Palace and Gardens… and around midday we met an old friend of Leila, a high school classmate, Betty De los Rios, who is studying in Barcelona. Betty's sister ,Eliane is also there, she married a very nice young fellow from Madrid, Jose. They all took good care of us from then on, took us in a car through all the places we were not able to visit the previous day, we went to the beach, and to further parts of the city, we went to a park were Gaudi lived and worked for 20 years, they took us to the Mountain Montserrat, we had a wonderful meal together and really, it was very special to meet them, they are still as pretty and funny as they always were.
From Barcelona we took another plane to Stockholm on the 20th, where we met Neda and Sama, we stayed with them for four days, Sama prepares a wonderful coffee, any kind, and that was just an amazing treat! We also saw Zarrin and two of her sons and their wives, Babak and Munirih [who will be parents any time soon] and Nader & Anne who came all the way from Oslo to be with us, and brought along their brother, Jokom (please forgive us Javier for the spelling). We also met Borna & Sana and their mom Nahid, Peyman and Lili, and over the phone we spoke with Roya & Adrian, they were all well and send regards!
We had a wonderfultime there, we kayaked on the archipielago with Neda, Sama, Nader
Anne, plus we went out shopping and enjoyed the long days, the sun would set at about 11 and rise at about 3, but never get dark… andt hat was very special... but a bit hard to sleep without thick curtains on the windows.
From Stockholm we went to Vaxjo, were Siamak and his family live, Peggy, Jasmin and Shirin. We rented a car and Ramin came with us. We arrived just in time for the Mid-summer festivities, where traditionally a post is placed in the ground and people dance around it, also kids play games and all the single girls wear a crown of flowers… even the little ones! We had some fish and great food, while in Vaxjo we relaxed and checked our emails. We continued our journey a few days later traveling by train to Malmo, where we found Leila's dad waiting for us at the train station!! He had come to be with Agha Joon (Leila's grandfather), and we were very happy to see him and be with him. It was very nice; we met Mrs. Irene Udvik and Mrs. Naimi there, as well as visited all of the city of Malmo and its beaches.
Siamak and his family and also Neda came for the last weekend we were there, we had a great time then too doing shopping and swimming. Actually Neda stayed one more day and we went together to Copenhagen for a day, enjoyed the city of Hans Christian Andersen, all around the city they have placed footsteps of where you can follow and see what he has done or has been. We did that, and Nuri and Neda got bikes (they are kind of free, you place a 20 Kr coin and you get it back when you give back the bike) and since the city is not that big, they went all around while Leila enjoyed some sun at the harbor where there was some jazz playing and all the people enjoying the summer weather.
Well, after two weeks in Sweden we had to continue on, traveling toLondon on the 5th of July to take our plane back to the States a couple of days later. We went and stayed for a night with Mr. and Mrs. Yusif-Pour in Colchester. It was so nice to see them, they are very well, they have a beautiful home and garden, and Mr. Yusif-Pour has also a little parcel of land at the community garden. They took very good care of us, and as you can imagine we ate delicious food. We also met their daughter, Mitra and her family… we visited the city and discovered that Colchester is the oldest town in England!!
On the 6th of July we went into central London where everyone was celebrating being choosen as the Olympic city for 2012… so we had a great time going around the city and visiting places, the Tower Bridge, the Big Ben, the London Eye, the Parlament House, etc. The following day all the happy faces changed, the underground had been bombed and also a bus. When we realized what was happening, we called our families to make sure they knew we were fine. We decided to take it easy for a couple of hours and once we saw things were ok to walk around, we walked through the city, we went to the Buckingham Palace, to the parks near by, and visited Shoa & Gita and their children who were in London visiting Gita's mom. We had a wonderful day despite all the commotion and we managed to leave the next morning.
As you can imagine we had a wonderful time, and we are now in the States. We are getting ready for school and we will tell you more about that later. Also we hope that this email inspires some of you to visit these places :) If you have any question about and logistics please let us know. We love you all and wish you a wonderful August! If you have a chance, please visit our photo gallery at www.eady-naraghi.com
Nuri & Leila
posted by The Eady-Naraghi Family at 8:44 AM
1 Comments:
hi... :)
i love it how everyone has blogs... love it love it love it!
hope the tow of you are so very happy...
muah! sjo
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