Last preparations

Great friends

When we finish, we dash to Richard Stone’s place because he is a writer for NG Magazine and the only one in Beijing who could receive the video cassettes for the cameras NG sent us. We thought we would have to come back to Beijing after our train departure to get them, and we were thrilled to have them before leaving. Richard hands me the new National Geographic Magazine on Iran. And since I am also Iranian, I am happy to have one of the best maps of Iran that I’ll hang in my room when I get back to Paris. Richard’s wife showed us photos of her trip to Iran; we saw a lot of landscapes, people; it was like I was traveling in the country I want to visit the most in the entire world. Leaving Richard’s, we take another taxi that drops us off in front of the large office buildings. I saw a tennis court with a Chinese practicing his serve. It was funny. We then go into the software store and dad goes to see about the repairs on our Mac while I use my new IBM to do small searches about our journey. Our assistant goes back to her place to get her things ready for the departure. It’s at that moment that a loud and arrogant Frenchman enters the store and whistles to the saleswomen instead of calling them, like a real rich kid throwing a fit as soon as he saw the stock market plunging. An hour later, we have to pay the Mac technician and leave, without anything being fixed.