Had a wonderful day today, spent with my friend Parinaz's family and her best friend. This had been planned from before our leaving Australia and we had been looking forward to this with great anticipation - a real Iranian picnic at a garden owned jointly by Parinaz's parents and her aunt and uncle. We were collected at 11 am by her best friend Masoum and also one of her brothers, Ali. On the way to the garden we stopped firstly at the shaking towers or minarets and were fortunate enough to be there right on 12 noon when a man climbed one of the towers to begin shaking it. There is something weird about the construction whereby shaking one of the two minarets causes the other to shake albeit only slightly. From there we headed off and drove past the Zoroastrian fire temple on top of a small mount at Atashgah - I had wanted to see this so I was pleased to have had the opportunity. Shortly afterward we arrived at the garden and got introduced to Parinaz's relatives - too many to list but suffice too say they all were warm and welcoming and immediately made us feel right at home. From then on we spent a very pleasant day exploring the garden, engaging in conversation, drinking tea, partaking of delicious meals including the rightly famous ghormeh sabzi cooked by Parinaz's mother especially for me, learning how to thread chicken skewers for the barbecue, tasting the most wonderful fruit and generally having a very relaxing and enjoyable time. I can understand why Iranians who have such gardens would wish to spend their days off there - it is such a change from the busy frenetic pace of Esfahan's streets and traffic.
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