bureaumania

My visa was valid until October 22nd. So far so good. But I would fly out of Tehran on October 25th (to Taiwan, then to Germany, for some book promos and some presentations). So I needed to extend my visa, and for that, I needed to print out some documents (like my flight tickets and a copy of my passport).

So I went to a copyshop, and while I was there, waiting, this dude kept looking at me:

Turned out he had recognized me from the weird beard video. So Bahram, the owner of the copyshop, said I should stick around for a photo:

And photos we took:

Then I went to the place where passports and visas were taken care of. It took forever. And I mean every little thing took forever. Go here, go there, sign this, sign that, no, this one, okay, on that one, okay, pay here, pay in the bank, go back to that counter, wait in line, but there is no line, it’s just people pushing from every direction, and isn’t it their lunch break soon, anyway, okay, please come back in a week to pick up your passport.

A week?

Okay.

I celebrated with an alcohol-free beer:

It was from a place very close to my home in Germany. It was, well… alcohol-free.

On my way back to the hotel, I passed this bakery:

And I couldn’t help but buy a whole bunch of cookies:

A week.