I had another opportunity to visit Iran and am writing this and hopefully other blogs (trying to stretch it into a few :-) for the handful of readers who've read my blogs over the years.  There have been so many changes over the past few years and I've chronicled them to document the changes as I've seen them.

So this was the year when the moderate President Rouhani has been able to secure a nuclear framework.  Last year hopes were dim and economy in tethers, sort of like how W left America in 2008.  This year hopes were high and moods on the uplift.  The main point of discussion surrounded around the mood that "while the inflation is still here, it's always here, it's more like what we've been used to, like 15% - 20%, not like 200% - 500% when Dollar jumped from 1000 Tomans to 4700 tomans."  People are not afraid to spend as much as they used to.  Everything is still mighty expensive but people are not afraid of waking up to astronomical inflation overnight.

On a personal note I was really surprised when the EU Representative read the text of the framework agreement in April, really surprised.  Those clauses were major headlines.  However, it soon followed by major BS when first Obama made statements such as we've reached unprecedented agreement to go anywhere, inspect anything at any time, any military site and basically piss anywhere we want without getting taharat as we wish!  Iran has agreed to this and in return we will only remove sanctions when our piss dries and Republican congress agrees not to do anything that would embarrass me on the world stage!  Then it followed by Khamanei saying if this doesn't work we go back to the "resistance economy"!

My hope is still high (much higher than before the framework agreement) that the final agreement will be made and sanctions will be lifted (perhaps not the Senate sanctions) and at least the Europeans will be back picking up where they left off and not allow Russia and China to continue to take advantage of the sanctions.

In future blogs I'll post more about some other changes since my last visit.

Photo captions: on the billboard picture it's warning not to play volleyball in the park due to previous "bodily" injuries such as head injuries as requested by the public (they go crazy on volleyball like in Meet the Parents' Ben Stiller's waterpolo spike that injured the bride by breaking her nose :-) but instead play harmless games like badmington!

Another billboard shows the restaurants in a mall and it's call the "green way" as in the Green Movement 2009, wink! wink!