7. There are lots of Muslims in Amsterdam. As the first result for me, it was easier for me to have hijab. One of my friends went to Switzerland for 6 months of research a few weeks before my travel to Amsterdam. She had kind of shock. She was under pressure because of her Hijab, and her belief to God. She said that there are lots of people even in the university who do not believe God. Even her supervisor asked her “Why do you have hijab?” Fortunately I didn’t encounter such problems. Well, it was not that much easy for me to stay on my beliefs. It was too hard the first time I decided not to shake hands with men. I know that my other friends (with hijab) do that and many of them are not happy with that. But they wanted to reduce the differences. I’m not in a place to judge who did the true work. Each person has his/her own life and I should decide for myself. I had some bounds for myself, and I know that if I pass one of them today, I would pass the others later and nothing would be remained. These bounds may be different for other persons. They even may change for me in the future, but now at this moment I should act based on my current thoughts and believes. Anyway, it was too hard for me not to shake hands with my supervisor in my first appointment. I became so sad. I even couldn’t explain about that. I didn’t want to be impolite. Here, in university of Amsterdam, they easily accepted me with my differences. I know that part of this is because of dealing with people from all over the world, but maybe this is not the only reason.
One of the other important results of the large population of Muslims in Amsterdam is that you can easily find halal meat. I know that Quran has just prevented from eating pork, blood, and meat of dead animals (not be hunted or killed). Quran even has insisted on that all other things are allowed to be eaten. But I eat Halal meat because of caution. It would be a detailed discussion. Anyway, easily finding halal meat makes the life easy.
8. I was talking about my colleges in University of Amsterdam. They were from different countries. Although I was less open-minded than them, they were patient against me. Or at least, they didn’t argue with me. They accepted me in the group so I didn’t feel alone. I appreciate them.
9. There are lots of Iranian people in Amsterdam and especially in the University. At first, this is the sign of the bad situation of my country. Ignoring that, this was like a treasure for me. Sometimes you need someone to talk by your mother tongue. They accepted me as their friend and I didn’t miss my country.
10. Amsterdam is not crowded, you can go to work, to your friend’s house, go shopping, etc by your bike. The shops are on my way from home to university; it’s just about 25 minutes by bike from my home to the university or to my friends’ houses. It’s also just 5 minutes biking from university to the very beautiful place my friend and I go jogging every two days. In Tehran, you can not visit your friends easily. The city is crowded, houses and work places are far from each other, and people are busy and tired. Here, in Amsterdam you can save the time.
Many of people here asked me if I had a cultural shock. To be honest, I should say no. Although there were too many new things I encountered, what happened in Middle East was the real thing that my brain and heart was involved in. Those happenings along with some new thoughts caused one of my revolutions after 6 months. I had the experience of thought revolution in Iran. Some of them were much more important than this one. Absolutely, living in a city with more freedom and more time for thinking, and having access to different resources made this revolution possible. Thanks to Amsterdam for providing the necessary conditions for my evolution.
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