I've traveled through the Middle East- Iran, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, UAE, Qatar, Egypt, Turkey. In my 20's (I was 24-25 when I did this. 10 years ago now), and I'm glad I did because now would be a nightmare post plandemic.

Here's a few things you should understand if you haven't been there-

The Middle East is not like South East Asia. Specifically Pakistan, India, Afghanistan). These guys are very different in culture, language, general appearance, food, history etc.

Iranians and Arabs speak a different language. Iranians speak Farsi (various dialects within). Arabs speak Arabic.

An Arab in Syria can barely understand an Arab in Saudi Arabia. Lebanon and Syria are similar in many ways.

Turks speak Turkish. It's different from Arab and Iranian languages

Turkey, Lebanon and Iran IMO are unbelievably beautiful countries as are their women. In some places it's like travelling in time. Feminine, nurturing and find it a duty to serve their men. It's NOT like what you think it is.

For example in Iran it is impossible to walk around an entire day as a tourist and not get invited to someones house for dinner and an educational session about their country and history. They are extremely patriotic. One thing I noticed right away was during gatherings, the women will cook the side dishes, the men the main dish (bbq of some sort) and the women will the clean up after the men and allow the men to speak in one part of the house and the women will chat and gossip or whatever in another. While cleaning up they serve the men tea. Eventually everyone gathers for dancing and sweets like cakes etc. The heat in Iran is dry in the south and extremely humid in the north close to the Caspian Sea.

No one wheres the "hijab" (head scarf) in their homes. I never experienced any of them doing so. I went to a lot of houses and saved a ton of money on hotel costs. The women are quite chatty and curious. Very intelligent people. The younger generation (30 and under) are highly educated. Massive sums of people there speak English and French as second languages.

Arabs are more "starey". The will stare and it's just the way they are lol. Very hospitable as well. Gulf Arabs love guns. They have a lot of them. The average person is what we would consider upper middle class here. The streets are clean and crime is low. Obviously, they don't fuck around. They love spending time outdoors as much as they can. The heat is dry in Saudi Arabia.

Lebanon is beautiful but a mess. No real government at that time and still the same I believe but none the less. I don't know what's in the water there but it's like every 3rd woman is a 10. No obese people walking around even though the food is seemingly extremely fattening (as told to us by "doctors" here) yet I never witnessed a "wal mart" type (Except in Qatar and UAE). In Lebanon you'll be hard pressed to find someone that doesn't speak French. That nice French not that Quebec weirdo French. It's extremely attractive on the women lol

Iran and Turkey have the greatest food I've ever tried in my life. I can't even describe it. The freshness and lack of "gmo" taste if you can call it that is just something else. We simply don't have that here. Something in the soil over there.

I didn't particularly enjoy my time in Qatar and UAE. There isn't much history and it's like a giant Americanized "downtown" lol. However, the people are fantastic. This is the only place in the Middle East I experienced obese people lol.

Turkey is incredible. It is like being in historical Europe/Middle East at the same time. Churches and Mosques that are thousands of years old and still standing. Fantastic architecture.

The bad stuff-

Governments are terrible but not as bad as they used to be.

Lots of secret police everywhere and I mean everywhere. Everyone knows about them. Not even sure why they call them secret police.

Some places are extremely poor and it's mostly due to some sort of race or ethnicity issue. Complicated stuff that goes wayyyy back. Hundreds of years in many cases.

Here's what I learned about their culture vs ours int the west

They're going to SURVIVE- They DO NOT tolerate globohomo shit. This isn't to say they don't have their little areas. They do in all those places. But it is isolated and never ever allowed to move out or into the mainstream. There's absolutely no negotiating that. From everyday people to hardliners. They like to act like they are liberal to foreigners but they aren't lol. They find it disgusting how we cater to them in the west. Curious about why and what benefit it gives us. None of course.

They are a lot like us. The Muslims and Christians of the Middle East are similar culturally. They hold generally the same traditional views on family, marriage and society. They do NOT want the shit we deal with here

Did I find the shit media is constantly yapping about? Not really. Do they hate Americans? I would say it's the opposite.

Father is German so I get to have a German passport if you're wondering how I traveled through there.