“I headed straight for the supermarket to buy groceries like a woman”
Marjane equates herself to a woman when, even though she is still a teenager, she establishes herself at the nun-run boarding house. She arrives at autonomous decisions just like a woman would for the reason that she has commenced her life at the boarding house without her parents and Zozo’s family.
Orphan
Marjane likens herself to an orphan to connect with Thiery and Oliver, who are actual orphans. Even though Marjane’s parents are lives, she lives in the same way as an orphan because she barely sees them due to the unbridgeable distance separating Iran from Austria.
“A New Set of Parents”
Marjane speaks of Lucia’s parents as her “New set of parents” because they are cordial and compassionate towards her. They treat her similar to their daughter all the time she spends with them. During her departure, Lucia’s father makes her a souvenir (a frame) and Lucia’s mother makes her “candied apple and some fruit for the road.”
“Decked out like this in Vienna, I felt like I was on the Slope of Innsbruck close to my friends”
Marjane brings up the time she dressed in a ski suit to go shopping at the supermarket. Even though she was not going to ski, the dressing made her emotionally close by her companions who had gone skiing.
