O-Man... I love Oman!

Isn't it beautiful!??!

Eid Mubarack everyone! Our first break from school is underway for Eid, the Muslim holiday. What to do with four days away from school? Well apparently I chose a little bit of everything!
Thursday morning, I flew to Muscat, Oman and came back Friday morning. I was only there for about 24 hours. The flight is only 45 minutes each way and only cost about $175 USD round-trip. Not bad at all.

With only 24 hours in Oman, my friend Shannon and I knew we definitely wanted to hit the huge souk there. Other than that we really didn't have anything in mind.

When we got to Muscat, we dropped our things at our hotel and hopped in a cab to the souk. We shopped around.. It is quite overwhelming.. People and things everywhere! The things people sell here range greatly from clothes to knick-knacks, to antiques, to art and jewelry. As you pass by each store or stand, you have the men working there trying to push their products on you... "Feel this pashmina, real lamb's wool", or "Here, smell this oil, the best in the world". The one that always cracked me up was the men wanting you to buy frankincense and myrrh. Unless I see baby Jesus, I don't need any.. get outta my face with that! They say how nice it is to burn it in your house.. Great, I really need my house smelling like Christmas Eve mass.

Anyway, Shannon and I shopped around for about an hour or two until they closed for the afternoon. Everything here, in Oman or Abu Dhabi, closes for a couple hours in the afternoon. I call it 'Siesta', but obviously that isn't the correct term for it. Shops usually close around 1pm and re-open around 4pm. We got some food and took pictures of the scenery. The landscape is fantastic! Mountains by the sea with little villages nestled in the valleys. Quite beautiful!

After we finished taking some pictures, the BEST thing happened. We got into a cab with the most sweet, generous, and amazing driver. His name was Saeed. I guess I should note here that Saeed was Omani. Most of the cab drivers in Abu Dhabi are Indian, Bangladeshi, or Pakistani, and most barely speak English. In Oman, they still employ their own people, so all our drivers were Omani and spoke very good English. Saeed knew that we were obviously tourists and offered to take us everywhere! We went from the Souk to the Seaside, then to Old Muscat (which was the "city" years ago - Now the city is newer and nicer on the other side of the mountain, but when you go to the other side of the mountain into old Muscat you can really see the history of what used to be). We saw old forts, the Sultan's palace, and the seaside. It was beautiful and so great that Saeed took us all the way there, stopping the taxi anywhere we requested to take pictures.

I will say one of the oddest things to get used to here is the currency exchange... I turned in 800 UAE Dirhams at the airport and was given 77 Omani Rials. Basically it is 1 Rial x10= dirhams. With this being said we realized how expensive taxis are in Oman. Everything else in Oman seemed to convert to being reasonable or cheap. Basically there are no meters in the cabs, it is generally a 7 Rial ride inside the city. 7 Rials = 70 dirhams! In the Abu Dhabi, you can basically ride across the city for anywhere between 8-20 dirhams!  So I guess this is where you really realize the value of a good driver like Saeed. After taking us all over Muscat, we asked him how much we owed him and he told us "Whatever you feel like giving me"...

Saeed dropped us at the hotel and agreed to pick us up again at 5pm to go back to the Souk to shop some more. During this time, we went to the pool, and I was able to assess what I wanted to buy when I went back. He picked us up at 5pm, looking dapper. He had gone to the barber and gotten a fresh shave for the Eid gathering the following day. He dropped us off and said he would be back at 7:30pm to take us to a place he likes to eat dinner.  We shopped and I bought gifts to send home to my family for Christmas. And then Saeed took us to a restaurant where we could eat. We picked our own fish and they cooked it for us. It was really good. Saeed was waiting outside for us when we were finished and we went to the hotel. Although checking out a bar would have been nice, it was the Eid weekend, meaning no alcohol could be served anywhere. Saeed offered to come in the morning to take us to the airport.

The next morning I woke up and it dawned on me the Saeed had offered to come get us on his holiday! That was so generous of him. Not only that, he showed up with traditional Eid breakfast for us that was made in his village! Awesome!

This is why I love traveling. Not because of the scenery or the food, but the people. Say what you want about the Middle East, or what goes on in the news. I have felt nothing but warmth and welcoming from the people here. Some are just as fascinated with me as I am with them. They want to know about the USA and my blue eyes. I want to know about their customs and families. It is quite remarkable that you can come to a place that is so different with people that are so different and the one message that resounds in your head after all the experiences is how people are all the same. 



So if you aren't much of a reader and skipped over the text, here is my trip in pictures and concise captions!
Also, my apologies for the crappy pictures. On my to-do list: Buy a nice camera to document my travels with! The iphone camera just will not do anymore!

Shannon and I in the taxi after landing in Muscat.

Finally got another passport stamp!

The Grand Mosque as we drove past. We normally would have stopped but it was closed to tourists because of Eid.

The souk. Many, many hallways like this.. You can get lost in this place.. Every shop looks similar, every hall looks similar... It was fun to bargain and haggle and I came away with some great gifts for my family. I can't post them on here because it will ruin the surprise!

Two things I bought for myself. A wall hanging, and a Buddha for my collection.

Right across the street from the souk was a beautiful view of mountain, village, and sea!

We also saw old forts nestled in the mountains.

We ate outside in a little cafe.

I had the spring rolls. They were amazing, if you can find them on the plate. Apparently french fries are a universal food, as they are thrown on top of every dish here.

Just like Abu Dhabi, the stray animals are everywhere. This cat was under our table and not happy to have his picture taken.

The entrance to Sultan's Palace. Nothing here is quite as grandiose as in Abu Dhabi, but it is actually quite majestic. Once again, the iphone pictures just don't do it justice. Also, Saeed reminded us that the Sultan is higher up than the Sheik. Not sure if that is true or not, but I love how wherever you go here, people show great patriotism and love for their country and their leaders.

This is the view from the back side of the palace.

Saeed and I in front of an old boat near the palace:

This is the entry/exit way between new Muscat, on one side of the mountain and old Muscat on the other.

One of the Sultan's boats.

Saeed pulled the cab over partway up the mountain so we could take a picture of the view behind us. I love the sea!

Omani Rials. They don't use coins. The bottom one is a half Rial.

Choosing our fish for dinner. Ok, I didn't choose it, we let Saeed and the man behind the counter choose for us since we had no idea what to choose! We ended up eating hammor fish and it was delicious. You choose it whole and they de-bone and cook it for you. We also had calamari and hummus and huge bread!

And here is the traditional Eid breakfast Saeed brought us from his village to eat on taxi ride to the airport in the morning. It was some sort of rice with a tangy chicken gravy with raisins and dates in it. It was very good, although I probably would have preferred it as a lunch or dinner meal! 

And last but not least - a view of MY HOME, Abu Dhabi, right before landing back at the Abu Dhabi Airport!

I'm a Celebrity!!

I'm a celebrity.. I made the front page of the newspaper.. Ok, I didn't, but my car did!
Let's back it up a little.. I have been MIA from my blog... I had the best intentions of writing at least one post a week.. Eventually I got into a routine or just plain busy... Busy is an understatement of my last few weeks. I guess I will back this all the way up to moving into my apartment.

Moving into Al Rayyana took a lot of work and patience. I was to the point where every day I left school and waited on furniture and appliance deliveries, internet and cable guys, and gas and utility hookups. Not only that, the dust in the apartments had me very sick to where I had to invest in an air purifier. But finally, I was getting settled. I actually spent the weekend of September 28 and 29 in my apartment, finally able to cook, lay on the couch, and watch American TV.
 I went to work on Sunday, September 30 and came home and took a walk. The apartments we were moved into were essentially still a construction zone unfit for people to live, but we were moved there anyway. During my walk I had some thoughts running through my head about what a liability it was for us to be there. As I walked, I stepped over electrical wires on the ground, jumped over manholes that had no covers, and walked past buildings that were not completed, yet wide open to any adult, child or animal that would want to wander in. My logical brain thought "Man, this is not safe and I should not be walking here". My sarcastic brain said "Well, they say it's safe and they put me here and this is where I live, so I should be able to walk whereever I please". I finished my walk and went back in my apartment, excited to cook my meals for the week. I made a ton of healthy foods and preportioned them in containers for the week. I was sitting on my couch and got a text from Brad, who lived 5 floors above me.
Brad: "Does your internet work? I am trying to Facetime my brother, but can't connect"
Me: "Yep. Come on down."
Brad: "Be there in one minute"

As I sat on the couch, I heard a loud, long rumble, and felt my building shake.. With my laptop on my lap I posted on Facebook asking others if they felt it, and asking if I had just felt an earthquake.
Ten seconds later, Brad was at my door, and I asked him if he felt it. He said no, he was in the elevator, but as he got off the elevator on my floor he heard girls saying something about an explosion. He came in and put some beers in my fridge. After two or three minutes, we looked at each other and said "let's go be nosy".. We went to the ground floor and walked out the front door... as we walked out I grabbed Brad's arm and all I could say was "OH MY GOD!" Actually I am pretty sure I dropped the F-bomb in there too. The entire courtyard that our buildings were situated around was GONE. Underneath the courtyard, there was an underground parking garage that apparently had crumbled and our courtyard collapsed down into the ground.. After staring at the hole in the ground for a good 45 seconds to a minute, I finally realized something else was missing.. OUR CARS! We parked our cars around the perimeter of the courtyard. When the parking garage crumbled and the courtyard fell in, our cars went with it!

Here is the picture I took within minutes of the collapse. You can see the back of the parking spaces where our cars were..

Here are some pictures taken in the days following and used in the newspaper.. Coincedentially, I had to have the people at Hertz look at the pictures online to understand what I was telling them about their car. I tried to speak to them in their own language, broken English, by saying "Car you gave me, finished. You give me new car, inshallah." They still didn't get it.
My car is the white one standing on it's front bumper.

The night of the collapse we were immediately evacuated from the apartments and stood outside for about 3 hours.

We were not allowed to re-enter the apartments, so we were bussed to a hotel with only the clothes on our backs and whatever you had with you (for me, it was just my cell phone, which was almost dead, and my apartment key. Brad coincedently had his car key... to the car in the pit)...
On the plus side, we were bussed to the Yas Viceroy Hotel.. The five star hotel that has the Formula 1 track that runs through it.. I had even posted a picture of it on my first blog. Here are some pictures of my place.

 My hotel at night:

My room:

 

My tub:

View from my balcony: Great to watch cars go around...EXCEPT sometimes they race past midnight when I have to be up at 6am for work!!

Where I hang out as often as possible:

On Tuesday nights, they have "Train Yas" where you can walk or bike on the track, which is approximately 3.5 miles.

So as I write this, I have been living in this hotel for the past two weeks. I love it. We get 3 buffet meals a day (paid for by the developer of Al Rayanna), as well as 4 items laundered for free each day. We really don't know where we will be living and when we will be moving again. I can't even begin to think about moving again, nor returning to Al Rayyana - I had raw meat in my fridge.. The power hasn't been on in the building since the collapse.. I don't want to imagine what my apartment smells like at this point in 100 degree heat with no air conditioning. Uhhgg.. For now I will just enjoy the 5 star hotel life, and cross that bridge when I come to it.

As for my life at work, NO COMPLAINTS.. My school is awesome, my administration is awesome, and my girls are awesome. All smiles in Abu Dhabi!