Saturday, January 24th - It's a long weekend!!

There is always two sides to a coin: the King of Saudi Arabia past away on Friday, which is a sad news in the Middle East. As a show of respect for their country and all the Muslim world, Oman (and all the other ME countries) have called for three days of mourning, which gives us Sunday off. What can we do? The schools are closed; oh well!

This past week, we had a rainy day. It really poured! Back home, we'd say, no big deal. Well here, it is a big deal. On a personal level, we had water coming in from our three windows giving out on the outside walls of the building. Things aren't build to be fully sealed (whether it'd be water or sand in a wind storm). At a city level, since there isn't a full drainage system like we know, water has nowhere to go, so every little dip on the road gets flooded in a hurry (just like the Don Valley does once in a while in Toronto). It makes driving back home a little challenging. And then, on top of that, we decided to drive by the beach as we figured it be quieter (it took us one hour instead of 30 minutes to come home in pouring rain); well, hell, everyone was at the beach watching the storm off the ocean. The place was packed with cars; it was amazing!

The rest of the week was fine. We are into exams, so kids leave at noon for Jacqui and I'm busy overseeing marking and trying to get stuff ready for our second semester. Exams is always a nice time of year. We get Sunday off, then have exams on Monday and Tuesday, and then two days at school without students, followed by a four day weekend and a PD day after that. We don't see kids until the 4th of February!

On Thursday afternoon, we went for a nice long walk at Qurum Park, about three minutes from our apartment - it was "too cold" to go to the pool at the Crowne Plaza as it was only 21 degrees. We then went for a drive trying to find a liquor store nearby, and to our great amazement, we found it!

The r.est of our weekend was good, so far (as we still have one more day to go). Typical Friday - nice walk in our neighbourhood, followed by a session on the beach at the Crowne Plaza. We did a bit of school work on Saturday and Skype with family and friends.

The following pictures are from Qurum Park - a five minute walk from our apartment.

The private golf club close to our place; we have to find a way to get there!!

Wednesday, January 21st - Finally got it!

There isn't much to write about these days. Last week at school was fine; I didn't teach much as all the grade 10 students were doing mock exams, and therefore didn't have any classes to attend. Since half of my schedule is teaching grade 10, it made for a pretty easy week. I did however supervise a lot of exams! This week is the school exam week - up to next Monday. All students leave at noon, which means that Jacqui gets short days as well. She doesn't seem to mind at all!

Our weekend was pretty typical: walk on the beach, groceries, school work (as report cards and comments are due later this week), afternoon by the pool.

On the news front, finally, on Tuesday morning, I ventured off to the Royal Omani Police station in Ruwi to get my liquor license. It took 10 minutes and I walked out with it. So after school, we venture off to find a liquor store, which we did, and we made our first purchase. From now on, we do not need to worry about running out or do not need to go to a hotel to get our "wine fix" - but we're still going to go, but just not as often. So last night, for the first time ever since we embarqued on this teaching abroad adventure, I had a beer at home! Man was it nice!!

Saturday, January 10th - Back in the routine

Last Sunday was a holiday, therefore no school. We were so glad! We had landed at about midnight on Saturday night/Sunday morning, and didn't get back home until 1am. It would not have been fun to have to get up at 5 to get ready to go to work. That day off did wonders for us. We were able to sleep, unpack, go for a walk on the beach, go buy groceries, go back to the Crowne Plaza for a bit in the afternoon - it was great. The walk on the beach was interesting as we normally go around lunch time, and the beach is filled with families and kids swimming and playing in the sand. But on Sunday, we went in the late afternoon. It was low tide and the beach had practically been transformed into a bunch of soccer fields, one after the other. Some games seemed to be more organized than others, as teams had all the same colored shirts. It was pretty neat to see, but didn't make for a great walk!

The rest of the week was fine. It's always hard to get going after a holiday, and this was no exception. Between the jet lag and the sometimes lack of motivation, some days seemed to be longer than usual! We got more into it as the week went on, and by Friday, we were fine!!

Jacqui spent part of her weekend working on her report cards. We still managed to go for a walk on the beach on Friday, and did groceries on Saturday. We didn't buy much food as our cooker (stove/oven) doesn't work. We had our gas tank filled in November and it seems to be empty already. At the rate we cook at, it should last years! So someone will look at it in the near future (whatever that means!). In the meantime, we use the microwave, go out or order in (not necessarily in that order!)

We're back!!!

This is what we got back to!

Part of Qurum Beach, at low tide (viewed from the Crowne Plaza)

The beach is transformed into a big soccer pitch

Friday, January 2nd - Our two weeks at home are over

We got home on Friday Dec 19^th and things have been pretty hectic since then! We spent a lot of time with our children in the first week; it was so nice. Julie is working hard in her first year of residency at Hôpital Montfort and she also started planning her wedding which is coming up this summer. Nicolas finished his last work term just before the holidays and will be back at school for his final semester in January. Vincent is also starting his last semester in January, but will continue with a Master degree afterwards.

We visited with many friends and family over the holidays; it was great. We did manage to make it to Chatham and Ottawa for a few days. We are very grateful to our friends who lent us their house over the holidays. It was greatly appreciated!!

We headed back to Muscat on Friday, January 2^nd. That is also the day that we found out that our first day back at school, Sunday, was officially a holiday – what great news for us, with the travel and the jet lag, it will surely help. Travel was fine both ways. We had the chance to fly the Emirates Airbus 380 from Dubai to Toronto and back. That is their big “double decker” plane. It is huge. We were obviously in the Economy class - the lower floor. But it was still impressive!

Christmas at the Dubai airport

Emirates Airbus 380