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I entered the airplane cabin, and the first thing that caught my eye was flight attendants wearing no hijab. Their beautiful, blond hair carefully dressed on the back of their head, and their bare legs were visible under their short skirts. I couldn't stop looking! They were beautiful and free! When you are born and raised in a country that punishes and arrests you for making your hair visible in public, no scene is more astounding than seeing women wearing what they want and feeling comfortable with it, if it's hijab or a short skirt or legging. Freedom was the most significant unknown thing for me during this whole trip. Freedom to feel the weight of my hair on my shoulders when I'm walking out in public, freedom to use certain websites and social media without connecting to a proxy, freedom to drink alcoholic beverages and feel tipsy, freedom to playing billiard!! (yes, playing billiard is forbidden in Iran for women!); all these silly little things that make a massive difference in the quality of your everyday life and general satisfaction of your situation. I'm at a club, Erasmus students from around the globe are drinking and dancing carefree. I'm self-conscious I don't know how to dance with this foreign music, I don't know salsa or any other moves. Dancing and dance classes are also forbidden in Iran. So I stay aside watching, listening: "YOU'RE SUCH A FUCKING HOE; I LOVE IT." sings Kanye West. The scene gets more familiar as I start to track signs of sexism in music and atmosphere. I look at the girls dancing swiftly and wonder how many of them are going to slip aside unwanted advances or get called a hoe passionately accepting them. Sexism is universal I get it now that I'm here a month. I can't enjoy it. I don't know if it's my age or background or reading too many feminist texts. I'm in a mall amazed at the variety of commodities, of how brilliantly some of them are designed and how perfectly they would cover my needs. We have malls in Iran, but they are not really for everyone, mostly for the wealthy, upper class. Things considered everyday and ordinary here would cost a fortune for an Iranian to buy. Our currency value has dropped dramatically since the U.S has imposed several sanctions on us. I notice that food tastes better, chocolate tastes better, even plain pasta tastes better than the ones we have in Iran. I guess it is due to the quality of the primary ingredients or maybe the production process. People living in developed countries are not even near realizing how lucky they are. I realize it now that traveling is not about sightseeing or sunbathing; it's about imagining yourself in the parallel timelines; it's about thinking who you would be without your privileges or with having a lot more. It's about finding how politics affects every single detail of your life and planning to turn back to your country with a new set of purpose, fighting for change!