Jacqui and Richard Abroad: Thursday, October 16th

Our week at work was OK, but it's always hard to go back after a holiday. The kids aren't motivated (neither are the teachers) and we were pretty tired as we had spent another week of basically being on the go all the time. We skyped with friends on Sunday, then went out to Quiz Night on Tuesday and Wednesday. Quiz Night is like a big game of Trivial Pursuit, where you get points for answering trivial questions. Tuesday night was at the Crowne Plaza. Out of 16 teams, our team of four players placed 16th! We figure we had the right answers but they had the wrong questions! Wednesday was a different story. It was held in a smaller hotel, with only 8 teams, and we had 5 players on our team (different players than on Tuesday night). We finished first, and won 55 OMR in vouchers to spend at their restaurant/bar (that's almost $150); we can do that! So I guess we'll have to go back next week! We also went to the bank on Wednesday to get some cheques to pay for the car that we are buying - pre authorized withdrawal doesn't seem to exist around here; you pay by postdated cheques. Of course, you cannot get them right away. We have to open another account as the one we opened a few weeks ago is a savings account (even though we asked for a current, or checking, account). But in order to open such an account, we need a letter from the employer stipulating our monthly income. We had asked for that letter before the Eid holiday, but knew we wouldn't get it at that time. So we got that letter Wednesday, went to the bank, and were told that we should have the cheques by next Monday. So in the meantime, we keep driving our rental car. We went to dinner at "On the Rocks", at the Golden Tulip Hotel. It was a pretty cool place to see and the food was absolutely delicious. It was a nice evening and a good start to the weekend.