One time when I was sitting on our wall I saw Morad coming back home from buying bread. He spotted me and walked towards me with one hand behind his back. He then made a weird face and produced his hand from behind him with a long brown object in it. As I tried to make sense of what had just happened he took a bite of out of the brown object that made both of us laugh. It made it clear that this wasn't what I somewhat assumed at first and to further emphasize it Morad showed me the missing perimeter around the fresh bread that he had just purchased.
"My parents, brother, and I left Iran in 1980, shortly after the revolution. After a brief stay in Italy, we packed all our belongings once again and headed west to the exotic and the unknown: Vancouver. We had recently been accepted as landed immigrants, meaning Canada graciously opened its doors and we gratefully accepted; we arrived at Vancouver International Airport on my 10th birthday, three suitcases and one sewing machine in tow. After respectful but intense questioning at immigration, we were dropped off at a hotel on Robson Street, which was then still a couple years shy of becoming the fashionable tourist hub it is today. We were jetlagged, culture shocked, and hungry, so that first night, my father and brother courageously ventured out into the wild in search of provisions. I fell asleep before they returned. The next morning, I woke up at 5 a.m. and ravenously feasted on a cold Quarter Pounder with cheese and limp French fries that had been left by my beds...
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