When I arrived in Iran I knew zero words of Farsi, or Arabic. (In Iran I learned about 80 words of Farsi but have since forgotten most.) I was flying from Amsterdam, on a budget airline with a long layover in Ukraine, so that contributed to the low price, although that was a remarkably low fare. My only "connection" so to speak was that a friend is Iranian, but he hasn't been back to Iran in many years and can't go back without facing execution.

I am also a white American of European descent, although I'm a dual Dutch-American citizen, so my Dutch passport was what I used to enter the country.