Thursday, December 18th - We're coming home for the holidays

Our week went by pretty quickly. We are so anxious to come home for the holidays. We fly out of Muscat at 5am Friday, get to Dubai at 6, then leave at 10am for Toronto. We get there at around 3:30 (all times being local, with a 9 hour difference between Muscat/Dubai and Toronto).

It has been the first week where we have slept without the AC running. Kinda nice to open up the windows. We finally have all the papers required to get our liquor license. Now the problem is getting it as they are only open until 2 pm. We'll have to wait until Thursday, as we get out of school at noon.We had "sports day" at school on Tuesday. Actually, we weren't really at school as all the activities took place at the Sultan Qaboos Stadium. It was very nice place.

And that does it for my blog for 2014. Merry Christmas to all, and best wishes for the New Year. This blog will be up and running again when we get back to Muscat, early January!

Sunday, December 14th - A nice weekend all around - Bonus: Julie's engaged to Dave!!!!

Our last weekend in Muscat for 2014 was very nice. Friday started out with a drive around our neighbourhood; we discovered a lot of nice places that would make for interesting walks. We then went for our walk on the beach, lunch and the Crowne to spent away the rest of the afternoon by the pool. We went out for dinner, and then called it a day. Saturday morning saw 7 of us get on a charter boat to go visit an island and swim/snorkel in a bay located about 45 minutes from here. With the 7 passengers, I couldn't help but think about Gilligan's Island; that's how it started!! The ride there and back was a little bumpy, as waves were of decent size. It was a lot worse when we left, as we had to go between two islands, and waves there were a least 10 feet high. Once we got back to shore, Jacqui and I went shopping a bit then I went to school while she stayed at the mall. The marina where we had taken off from is about 5 minutes from school, and so is the mall. We came back home late afternoon, ordered chinese food and watched TV a bit.
Our last week at school started out fine. We had a good day, but a much better evening as Julie told us that her and Dave were now engaged! We are so thrilled! We are now counting the days before coming home.

Getting ready to leave!

The spray gives an idea of the force of the waves crashing on the rocks

Much calmer inside the bay

Don't you just hate having salt on your shoes? Oops, it's not from the street salter but from the ocean, so it's not so bad!

At the mall

Our last Saturday night in Muscat for 2014

Thursday, December 11th - It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

The work week wasn't as busy as the one before, but still kept us pretty busy. We did manage however to go out a few times (dinner, quiz night, shopping) and it's beginning to look like Christmas in Oman! A lot of public places have Christmas trees and decorations; we even heard Christmas music in one of the malls! You can buy Christmas cards, trees (artificial or natural - for a hefty price!), decorations. It's great. We haven't seen Santa yet, but I guess he's busy in the North American malls and doesn't have time to see us yet.
On Thursday night, we went out to see a standup comic, Maz Jobrani , at one of the top hotels in the area, the Shangri-La. Being from the USA, we could understand what he was saying. Our big question going in was "What will he talk about?". Being in the Middle East, you have to give a show without swearing and where sex is not a prominent part of your act. He did a really good job, talking about the diversity of an international crowd like he had, sports refering to the world cup, the way people dress, parenting, age groups, also imitating the different accents of Africans, Indians, Latinos, ..
It was a very nice evening. Before the show, we had dinner on their outside patio, and since the hotel is a short distance out of town, there was no light pollution and we could see a bunch of stars up above. It was really nice.

Christmas tree in a mall

Christmas tree an dGingerbread house at the Crowne Plaza

Christmas tree in a restaurant

Taken from one of Jacqui's math books - just too cute with Julie (blond hair) and Dave (brown hair)

Christmas is coming in Oman, but the weather is still nice (picture taken Dec 4th!)

Saturday, December 6th - No time to play

This weekend has been as hectic as the week. We went out a bit on Friday as the cleaning lady was cleaning up our place; we walked on the beach and went for lunch, then came back and worked all day (at least, I did). Saturday was pretty much the same story, except that we went grocery shopping and saw some Christmas decorations, cards, wrapping paper, ...  that you could buy; we even saw a real Christmas tree - for a hefty price of about $ 125 CAD, but hey, if you want one, you can get one! We went out for dinner as we had to fulfill our need for red wine.; we still don't have our liquor licence and we would rather have our friends buy white wine as we are more picky on red than white. So sometimes, we need red badly! We are told that we should have all the papers needed for the liquor licence by next Thursday - we are not counting days yet, but just about! But then again, being in the Middle East, it's one of those Isha'allah thing! The nice thing about this weekend coming to an end is that in less than two weeks, we'll be home. We are very much looking forward to it. We really love the experience that we are living, but we also miss the people that we left behind a lot. It will be nice to see everyone (or as many as we can) again. But after two weeks of cold, snow and windchill factors, we'll be OK with getting on a plane to come back to this winter weather of +20ish degree!

The beach, at low tide

We got soaked last week, trying to walk by the wall in the background, at high tide

Christmas in Muscat!!!! - a lot more visible than in Kuwait

A real Christmas tree - never thought we'd see that in the ME

At about $ 125 CAD - I'll pass!

The "pork"door!

I'm sure they wish Merry Christmas to all!!

Thursday, December 4th - Busy Week

Back to work on Sunday was like any other day that we go back after a holiday: we don't feel like it, students don't feel like it, and it's hard to get motivated. Thankfully, we got it done and moved on with the rest of the week. I was super busy as I had to finish my exams and review all the exams of the other math teachers; not only questions, but types of questions and mark distribution as every exam has to be approved by the Ministry of Education. There were a lot of late nights this week. We finished our week at the Crowne Plaza, as usual, by the pool, having a beer. Looking forward to the weekend!

Jacqui with Anwar, a friend leaving Oman to go work in Kuwait

Jacqui's little angels (?!?!?) on dress down day; they normally wear the dishdasha and the kuma (hat) 

The rest of them!

Saturday, November 29th - Back to Muscat

We got up at 4 am, early again, to head to the airport to catch our 7am flight. We were back in Muscat by 8:30 local time, so decide to stop for groceries before going back home. We got home by about 9:30, and to our great surprise, we didn't have power in the building. So there we are, with our luggage and grocery bags, and an elevator that doesn't work. We brought everything up ourselves (OK it's only two floors!) and headed to the beach afterwards as it was too hot to sleep since the AC didn't work. We went for a nice long walk, then lunch and eventually ended up again at the pool at the Crowne Plaza. Funny how this seems to happen a lot on weekends. We had an early dinner then called it a weekend. It was however a very nice 4 day weekend.

Here are more pictures from our trip. I forgot to talk about this Fort that we visited in Agra on Thursday. Since a picture says a 1000 word, you'll get about 6000 worth of it!!

Entrance to the Fort

The Taj Mahal, viewed from the Fort

 

Friday, November 28th - The Forts of Jaipur

Our driver picked us up at 10 and we headed up to the Amber Fort. This fort was built at the end of the 1500 and is surrounded by a wall just like the Wall of China. It overlooks a lake, where some of the gardens are (see picture below). The buildings were pretty impressive; one of them had so many mirrors that it would have been really neat to see when the place was light up by candles and oil lamps many years ago. The art work sculpted in the marble all over the place is very impressive.  We were told that one the maharaja had 3 wives and 300 concubines. Must have been the life of the rich before cable TV!!

After that, we went shopping for a bit. We saw carpet makers, marble sculptors and jewellery makers. The work they do is quite amazing, as they do it by hand the same way it’s been done for ages. From there, we went up to the highest point of the city, inside another Fort, the Nahargarh Fort. The view of the city and the area, from the outside restaurant was breathtaking. The tables were set up on what used to be the top of the guard towers. It was a nice way to finish our first trip to India.

Amber Fort

Part of the Fort

A view of the wall surrounding the Fort

The Palace inside the Fort

The wall

Decorations on the wall

All made by hand!

The gardens

The mirror ceiling

Coming up to the Fort by elephant

Another garden, on the lake

This one is "in" the lake!

Vendors along the street

View from therestaurant which is at the highest point in Jaipur

The table next to ours - we had pretty much the same thing but had a small wall all around

Life is tough!

It's a pull tab

Parts of Jaipur, from above!