This is part 1 of my Axis of Evil Ski Tour, to Dizin, Iran. I'll also be going to the newly opened Masik Pass ski resort in North Korea and at Penjwin in Kurdistan, Iraq. I first read about skiing in Iran in the Guardian. I am also in discussions with Untamed Borders tour company (what other name could they possibly have!) to do the 4th Afghan Ski Challenge. 
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3:30am, I'm finally on the plane. Tehran bound, via Dubai. What an exhausting past month. Last night I worked until past midnight testing I a release of our webmap and doing a couple of volume calculations. Ended up being a 17 hour day. There have been countless other days where I've put in significant overtime, so I think I've really earned this holiday. 

I had a fantastic evening just now at the recital event by the Kuwait Writing Club. Many members including myself recited a poem or story we'd written and mine was well received apart from requests initially to speak up. I'd never really used a mic before and it was kind of outputting for being so loud. Anyway we all had a great time reading or reciting our pieces and 6 friends came along including 3 from Kuwait Bibliophiles and 2 from the Kuwait Mapping Meetup. The audience was about 100 strong! Not what I was expecting.  

The most powerful piece was at the end, a duet about homosexuality. A man and a woman performed it together, in some cases speaking the same words simultaneously, then sometimes relating experiences or feelings from their own lives solo before returning to speaking the same words. It was another way to add rhythm to a piece and somehow gave it a lot of power. There was a recording for the whole event so I'll post it here if I can. 

After the event it was really nice to have a Kuwaiti audience member come up to me and compliment me on my piece (for its text see last post). He said he liked my directness and was very genuine in his appreciation so that was a nice way to end things.