I"ll go anywhere in the world...oops, well maybe not

I often said I would go almost any where in the world….. even Iran. Well I guess I’ll get my chance. But when it came to going to Egypt, thats one place in the world we decided not to go. We had booked a trip to Egypt but when the riots started, we waited a couple of days and then finally cancelled it. We weren’t as concerned with safety, but stores were closed, banks were closed (ATM’s were out of money), many tourists’ sites were closed, and the airports were closed.

So we scrambled to find another destination, and scheduled a cruise down the Dalmatian Coast to visit Croatia, Montenegro, Albania, and Greece. Of course the cruise was more expensive than the Egypt trip and we had to reschedule our flight to New York,another expense. In our rush to get something finalized I booked a flight from Athens to Istanbul on the wrong date, non-refundable even though I caught the mistake minutes later. They charged us $150 to change flight dates… per ticket! All I can say is when we die, we’ll be broke but, we’ll die happy. Despite the frustration we did not endure the nightmare the tourist in Egypt went through or the agony the Egyptian people are enduring.

A Trip to Iran

Why go to Iran? Despite the news media and the political rhetoric (Death to Americans) the Iranian people do not hate Americans. Forget about all the xenophobic, anti-Iranian propaganda dominating the media. What they say about terrorism and your life being in danger in Iran is anything but untrue. If anything, Iranians can be accused of is extreme hospitality. It’s been said you can knock on any door and be welcome. I can’t say the same about an Iranian knocking on any door in the US. We’re looking forward to experiencing the people’s hospitality in person.

The #1 site listed to visit in the Middle East is Esfahan Iran the jewel of ancient Persia, so great it is referred to as ‘half the world’. Rick Steves is the host of the public television show on Europe for many years, a travel guide, published many books on travel, said of Iran “the most surprising and fascinating land” he ever visited. He said the best attribute he had in Iran was that he was an American.

Getting Our Visas

November 29. We made travel arrangements with a travel agency in Iran for our trip. Americans must have a tour guide in Iran.

December 22. We submit request for a visa through our travel agent in Iran. They cannot submit it to the Iranian government until 60 days before we arrive in Iran.

January 25. We get word from our Iranian travel agent saying she will apply for our visa. She says we should have our visa by March 15.  We plan on going to Iran April 11 but we leave on our trip March 21. It’s going to be cutting it close getting our visa before we leave

January 26. We send our passport to Washington DC to a passport/visa service company so they can get our visa for Syria and Iran.

February 2. The visa service has picked up our Syria visa and will hold our passport until they can get our Iranian visa.

March 10. Our visa for Iran is appoved, but must wait 3 days before it can be taken to the Washington DC ‘Embassy of Pakistan interest section of the Islamic Republic of Iran’. (there is no Iranian Embassy in the US).

March 15 Tuesday. We are starting to worry we need our passport by Friday so we can leave on Monday and although our visa from Iran has been approved, per our tour company, we do not have it. The visa service took our passport to the Iranian office on Monday and the personal there said they could not issue the visa right then but must leave the passports and wait. We tell the visa service to leave the passports. We tell them they must get the passport back by Thursday regardless so they can FedEx it to us Thursday so we can have it by Friday. The visa service takes our passport back to the Iranian office. We do not have a flight into or out of Iran yet, we were waiting for our visa. If we do not get our visa we’ll be planning a last minute trip somewhere else…….

Wednesday we hear nothing.

Thursday. We are anxious we need our passports by tomorrow. We call the visa service and they say in order to get our visa, Iran wants $58 more each to process the visa. The visa service asked if we still wanted to go ahead and they would go back on Thursday with the extra money and pick it up on Friday. They would FedEx our passport and visa over night and we would get it on Saturday. We Said OK.

Friday we call at 3:30 DC time and the visa service said the courier is setting there waiting for the visa and would call when he picks it up. The visa service office closes at 5:00.

Friday 4:30 DC time. The visa service now has our Iranian visa and passport and will call when they have a tracking number. The visa service office closes at 5:00.

Friday 6:15 DC time the visa service calls with the tracking number.

Saturday 9:30. Our passports and visa arrive and I wanted to kiss the FedEx driver but I don’t think she was as excited I was to see the package in her hand.

It’s been quite and adventure already and we haven’t even left yet. Yesterday I heard about protests in Syria.