Tabriz is cold. It is small, though it does sprawl. The streets have their share of traffic though not nearly as bad as in Tehran. The buildings are mostly brick, probably made from beige and red clay from the surrounding hills. The air is smoggy but sometimes a glimpse of mountains can bee seen through the haze. We drove along the former river bed, past the house where Rowshan was born-- or rather the site of the house. Now the space was covered with large apartment buildings. Rowshan said there used to be only a few houses. Now it was lined with buildings. There was work being done in the dry river bed. I guess they will be building a metro system. Rowshan said even when he was little it was dry except for when it flooded. Later, Rowshan said it was good they were working on it and cleaning because it used to be a place where people dumped their trash. As we were driving through town, we noticed an outdoor equipment store. Rowshan mentioned that Azeris were into hiking more than people from Tehran.

As we wandered around Tabriz, we often saw pigeons circling in the sky. Pigeon-keeping is a popular activity in Tabriz. One of Rowshan's cousins keeps pigeons. The roof of his house contains 3 or 4 pigeon hutches. The pigeons have huge clumps of feathers on their feet so some can barely walk.

The road to Tabriz started out like a California highway, past dry hills and industrial buildings. I actually dozed off a bit telling Rowshan to wake me up when the road got interesting. Eventually, he woke me as we started going through a flat plain with small snowcapped mountains. The land became a painted landscape of wind-carved hills with ripples and stripes of yellow and red, and textures ranging from frosting peaks to curved hills.

One spot we stopped at for a moment revealed a mud walled village between a range of hills with zig-zagged stripes of red. The colors of the buildings reflected the earth around: one reddish, one beige, one darker gray. The highway went right by the town but had no direct route from the highway to the town, even farther down when there was a road, it seemed to go elsewhere. The highway is only a few years old and has no chaihanes, gas stations, or restaurants, or other services along it. It seemed like a good commercial prospect for someone in the village to set up a roadside cafe. However, I guess this was hard when there was no easy way for a car to get to the village. On the roofs of the houses, there were piles of hay, sometimes as big as the house. Piles of dried manure, fuel for the winter, were stacked outside.

We were going to have a picnic lunch by a lake not far from Tabriz but when we got there it had all been fenced off. The weather was also bitterly cold.
Later we learned the only way to get to the lake was to pay to be let through a gate. Rowshan said his family used to picnic there when they went they went to Tabriz. However, the last time he'd been to the lake was 30 years ago. The last time he'd been in Tabriz was for Behzad's wedding 14 years ago. Rowshan's dad seemed to get more excited and happy as we approached saying in English, “I like Tabriz very much.” The main reason we were visiting Tabriz is most of Rowshan's family lives there and I hadn't met them yet.

While we were walking with Rowshan's parents in a park the other day, we heard the sound of a drum and singing. We approached and saw a crowd gathered around applauding. Some women were in the center. One was playing a daf. The others were singing and encouraging the audience to join in. They were singing (in Farsi) “If you're happy and you know it clap your hands.” Many of the people in the crowd were children. After that song they began one that went something like “I made this shape, you can do it too.” Where they did different positions with their arms and everyone followed. They ended with a hug telling everyone to hug someone they love. All the parents and children hugged each other.