Vol 69 Michele Day 1

Alrighty then. My sister, Michele, came to see me here in Oman. Yay!!!!!! My first non-CouchSurfer visitor! Airfare to Muscat is stupid expensive so I had told her all she had to do was get here; I would gladly pay for everything else. Incidentally, I extend this offer to all my loved ones. She scheduled her trip to coincide with Firas' trip to Chicago for a dental conference so that I was off too. She arrived in the morning on my last day before vacation reasoning she would have the day to rest before we hit the ground running. Mahfoodh picked her up at the airport for me. I have to say it just about killed me to think that her first impressions of Muscat were formed without me.

As I mentioned in the last blog post, my camera was no more, so everyday I downloaded all the photos from Michele's camera onto my laptop. It is her photos you will be seeing in the coming posts. She took a butt-load of pictures. I will attempt to choose the best ones as I've always done with my photos but I also want to show quite a lot of her photos as I figure if these were the things she found interesting, you will too.

Our photo journey starts with this little duck. This is Puddles. Puddles belongs to my sister's 9 year old daughter, Chloe. Chloe reasoned that since she was not able to come along on vacation with Mommie, Puddles ought to come instead. So here is Puddles in London, at Heathrow Airport.


Here's Dubai from the air. She had a quick layover there before continuing on to Muscat.

Here's Muscat from the air. It shows very well how the city is wedged between the mountains and the sea.

As soon as I was finished work Michele and I headed out to the Muscat Festival. It's an annual, month long event focusing on cultural heritage and shopping and there were only 3 days left.

The event takes place at a number of venues. I took her to the venue which focuses on the traditional culture of Oman and other countries. We headed to the other countries section first, pausing along the way to watch some dancers from Mahfoodh's village.

I spotted this guy shortly after we arrived. He's pouring Moroccan tea. Yummy! I hadn't had real Moroccan tea since returning from Morocco.

I was excited to discover that he was also selling coconut cookies just like Hassan's sister Rabha had made in the cave. Bliss. My friend Emie from work came along with us as she had not been to the festival yet. I think we thought this was a "Who can be the least pretty" contest. We sipped our tea and pigged out on pastries while watching a Moroccan band.

While my back was briefly turned my ultra-friendly Canadian sister started chatting with this guy. She took a video of him in which he extended an offer of friendship and help. He states over and over "I like Canadians too, too much". I think she met her match in Oman for friendliness.

Later we returned for more tea and little doughnuts thingies. Yummy!

We toured through the stalls for various countries. This one was in the Iran section.

Michele insisted on taking a photo of this giant hubbly-bubbly (aka water pipe, aka bong) for Chloe. Seems Chloe has a fascination for hubbly-bubblies. Seems Michele doesn't mind feeding this fascination even though it will surely lead to her started smoking at an early age which will surely lead to her getting hooked on drugs, getting pregnant at 13, dropping out of school and working the streets for tobacco money. But who am I to judge?

Also in this section was an Iranian artist whose work I quite liked. I bought this painting from her.

When we were leaving the section featuring various countries we were approached by these guys. They asked if any of us were tourists. Michele confessed. They asked if she would mind taking a short survey about the Festival. Would she? A chance to talk to real live Omani guys? You bet! Much laughing ensued.

Michele made Emie stand and pose so she could get a photo of some Omani women. It's not cool to take photos of Muslim woman so she took one of Emie instead..... See how that works? We talked about a couple of other sneaky photo-taking tricks I have picked up along the way. My best two tricks are holding the camera casually at my shoulder, snapping away or having the camera completely ready to go at all times so that when you see something good you just quickly bring it up and snap, even if they see you doing it. The theory behind this one is that sometimes it's better to ask forgiveness than permission.

We stopped to eat. I was delighted to introduce her to Koushari, an Egyptian dish consisting of rice, macaroni and broken spaghetti topped with lentils, chick peas, tomato sauce and crispy caramelized onions. Vegetarian and oh so good.

While we were eating Michele snuck over and took this picture of some Omani men hanging out, waiting for their food. She employed the "easier to ask forgiveness than permission" technique. This photo shows how Omani's will just cop-a-squat anywhere, anytime.

She wasn't completely thrilled with the results so she went back over again and this times asked if she could take a photo. This one makes up for it's loss of candidness with the smiles on their faces.

After eating we headed over to the traditional Omani side of the festival.

These guys are engaged in some sort of black magic/evil spirit chasing/removing ceremony. We were the only women watching.

These guys are making Halwa, Oman's most traditional sweet. I call it glop.

Sugar and ghee are cooked in a copper pot until a good, gloppy consistency is reached. Then rose water, saffron, cardamon and sometimes nuts are added. It's poured into a bowl to congeal. It's surprisingly good.

Puddles really wanted a camel ride. People thought we might be crazy.

We ended the evening with an eggie/crepie thing from this lady. She has a flour dough in her hand which she smears across the griddle.

Then she cracks an egg on top and smears that around. When it is mostly set she folds it and it's ready to eat. And it's surprisingly good too.

We headed back to my apartment. Such a fun evening and it was so nice having Michele in Oman, though I must admit I was somewhat dismayed that night when I discovered that my dear, sweet, beautiful, ladylike sister snores like a chainsaw. Sorry Michele, I'm a journalist, I have to tell the truth.

And now for a little video:

Vol 68 What I've Been Up to Since Turkey & Morocco

Ok, Ok! Stop complaining everyone! I'll get back to blogging. Sheesh. Take a couple of months off and you get so much grumbling....

I'm going to do a quick run down of what I've been up to since I got back from Turkey and Morocco. Mostly with photos. Gotta make it quick- I have new adventures to report on.

Mid-October 2007

Mahfoodh and I drove down to Quoriat. Not much to see in the town but there was a really pretty beach.

Mahfoodh goofing around.

Quoriat is FULL of goats, just wandering the streets.



And the beaches. Go figure.

November 2007

My first chance to host a CouchSurfer came at the tail end of November. Angie hails from Scotland but she lives in Australia. She was a great guest! We had a blast. So much so she's coming back in April.

We borrowed an SUV and went wadi-bashing. What's wadi-bashing? Well, a wadi is a dry river bed (though it doesn't stay dry when it rains). People take their SUV's and drive up the river bed, which has been somewhat graded.

Along the way the scenery is spectacular. At times the going is pretty good. Like a regular gravel road. At other times the road narrows to a track barely wide enough for your tires then hairpins around a corner on a ridiculously steep slant. It is usually at this point we would meet a car coming the other way. Yikes! I started off driving but in no time figured out I was too big a chicken for the job. Angie happily took over and I happily let her.

Every now and then we saw a little village tucked in.

Angie and I chose Wadi Bani Auf because it has a couple of great hikes in it. This photo is of Snake Gorge. No Mom, it's not because there are snakes there. It's because the crevice you hike through snakes through the canyon. Occasionally you are forced to swim if you want to continue the hike. This is as far as we got due to our improper footwear.

Angie snapped this one of me working hard on the hike.

We also passed small farms.

At the top of the wadi there is a really great hike through a gorge that pops out at this sweet village. 2 teenage boys guided us through the gorge into the village, practicing their English along the way.

Once into the village they gave us water from their home that tasted soooo good. Must have been mountain spring water.

Angie snapped this photo of me in the village. These little boys had been following us around. This is one of my favorite photos from Oman. As I said, it was my first time wadi-bashing but it sure won't be my last!

I was invited to the American Marine ball. Katie and I had our dresses made for super-cheap. I LOVE this dress. It flows like water when I walk.

We were feeling too pretty- had to mess it up.....

I hosted my second CouchSurfer, Marlon for 5 nights.

The first night his beautiful sister, Bonita (shown here lounging in the lobby of the Chedi Hotel), stayed as well. She lives in Dubai and invited me to come visit anytime. Marlon and Bonita are from the Dutch Antilles Islands in the Caribbean so they have beautiful accents. Super nice people.

We went out to lunch with Mahfoodh and I got this quintessential photo of him. He really ought to just tape his phone to his head, he's on it so much.

December 2007

I went home for Christmas. Spent half my time in WA State and the other half in BC with my family. In early December I dropped my camera one too many times and it went on the fritz. It still worked but only kind of. It changed the colors of everything. Sigh. So I'm borrowing my Sister-in-law, my sister and my Mom's photos from Christmas.

Here's a nice photo my sister-in-law, Leanne, took of her and my brother, Russ' kids.

Lane came home with me for the first time since our divorce. It was really great having him there after a 5 or 6 year absence. He brought an Xbox game with him- Rock Band. We combined it with the extra guitar my brother's kids had for Guitar Hero and soon we were rocking the house. All the kids got involved. Plus the adults. I know I look grumpy in this photo but they kept playing songs that were way too hard for me and I was concentrating like crazy. An obsessively fun time.

Christmas morning we awoke to this silly sight. My sister had swapped out my regular stocking and replaced it with this jumbo one.

Yay!!!!! All for me!!!!!

I gave my nieces Jessie and Chloe and my sister, Michele an Omani style hair clip. In Oman, the bigger the better when it comes to hair accessories.

I wouldn't normally bore you with a "what I got for Christmas" story but for this one thing I must tell. First a bit of info. I sleep with a stuffed animal and I'm not embarrassed about it. I have since I was a kid. My hand has grown accustomed to having something to hold onto when I sleep. The men in my life have provided the stuffies. But, as you all know, I have no man in my life so I've just continued sleeping with the puppy that Buck gave me when we were together.

Before I moved to Oman my sister, her daughter, Chloe and I were in a mall and I looked briefly for a stuffie I could buy myself to replace Puppy but I just couldn't do it. I couldn't buy my own stuffie.

In our family we all buy gifts for the children but they are not supposed to buy for us. This Christmas I was presented with a gift from Chloe. A rather large gift. "Hmmmm......" I said, "this is odd...."

My sister snapped this photo at the moment I realized what it was. This moment was immediately followed by......

....this moment. I hadn't even opened it yet and I was already tearing up a little.

It was a Build-a-Bear, which if you don't know, is a stuffed animal that the kids help to make. They pick out the body, put a heart in it, help to stuff it, then bathe it and pick out an outfit for it.

The kids in my family are big on Build-a-Bears, as you can see. Mine is a polar bear named Nanuk, to remind me of Canada. Chloe saved her allowance for 3 months to pay for him. She even paid extra to put a little sound box in him. When I squeeze his paw I hear her voice saying "We love you Auntie Susan".

Puppy has been retired and Nanuk and I are best friends.

January 2008

Next CouchSurfers to visit were David, from the US and his wife Syy, from Thailand. They were tons of fun too.


They rented a Hummer and we went wadi-bashing at Wadi Tiwi.

When we reached the top we walked to a tiny village and started chatting with some guys who could barely speak English. They brought us Omani coffee and dates to snack on. The guy on the left with a t-shirt on his head invited me into his home. It was very similar to the cave homes in Morocco. It was partially dug into the mountain and plastered over. It was spotlessly clean and soooooo cool. These photos all look a little funky because of my dropped camera. I repaired them as best I could with my photo software. You should have seen them before!

After David and Syy 2 ladies from Las Vegas came. Deborah and Loretta. They both work in the airline industry so they get super-cheap tickets all over the place. They were about my age and a total kick in the pants! They only stayed 2 days but we packed a lot in. They were so nice and so much fun I was sad to see them go. I have no photos of them as my camera was just to crappy to use.

February 2008

This is Yonas, a German CouchSurfer who came to our first Muscat CouchSurfer meeting and since he had no host I took him in. He was really nice too. He emailed me this photo he took when I dropped him at the airport.

Things keep toodleing along at work. Katie, our office manager took a job at the American Embassy that is more in line with what she studied for. I'm happy for her and I miss her at work. Especially since I'm doing a lot of her job now in addition to mine, including recruiting a new receptionist, a new general dentist and a new assistant.

That about wraps up the update through early February. My sister came to visit me in mid-Feb for 2 1/2 weeks, which I had off. Stay tuned for those stories......

Vol 67 A New Year

Hello 2008! I have plans for you. Big plans. Small plans. And I plan to be open to unanticipated adventures too. I’ve kept my refuse no (safe) invitation policy, which has once again led to good things.

Last week a woman came into the clinic to whiten her teeth. She’s in her early 50’s and had a big beautiful, but yellow, smile. By the time she left she had a big, beautiful, white smile and I had a new friend. She invited me to dinner after learning that I love Indian food. And of course I accepted.

Lata and her banker husband are from Bombay and have lived in Oman for 23 years. Their home is filled with photos and memorabilia of their happy family. I had asked her if I could help cook and she had refused but she allowed me to watch. She had all of the ingredients prepared when I got there.

Wow, can this woman cook. She made rice with onion and peas. Fried potatoes seasoned with onion, garlic, ginger, mustard seed, cumin seed, dry mango powder (which I ran out and bought after- is it ever good) black sea salt and lime juice. Chana (chick pea) masala seasoned with onion, garlic, ginger, cumin seed, coriander, turmeric, fresh pureed tomatoes and fresh coriander leaf. While she was cooking she made pakora for me to snack on. The trick, I learned, with pakora, it to fry them twice. It makes them crispier. Incidentally, this is the trick with fresh French fries as well. You fry them half way, let them cool, then fry them again. She served the pakora with a coriander leaf (cilantro) chutney that was out of this world. When everything was ready she fried fresh puris. The dough is made from whole wheat flour, salt and water. A little dough is rolled into a little, then rolled into a thin circle and fried in hot oil. If the oil is just the right temperature they puff way up. Too cool. She served the meal with a potato and corn raita and a plate of carrots, cucumbers and daikon radish cut into sticks and splashed with lime juice.

I thought I had died and gone to heaven. Everything was so delicious and Lata and her husband are so nice. Towards the end of the evening they busted out some photos and video of a wedding they had gone to in Bombay in November. Now I want to go to an Indian wedding. Beautiful clothes and crazy, happy dancing.

Truly, it was a wonderful night. Right up until the end of the night when I hit a dog on my way home. Or I should say the dog hit me. He came out of nowhere on the rainy highway (Yes, I said rainy. It rained here for the first time since June) and ran right into my tire. He must have gotten caught in the tire because the wheel well lining was ripped out and made a monstrous noise as it scraped on the highway. An altogether unpleasant and quite frightening experience.

How was the dog? I don’t know. By the time I had found a safe place to pull over on the busy highway, get the noisy wheel well lining thingie ripped out all the way, made my way to the next exit then double back, the dog was gone. There had been a man at the side of the road when it happened. I think it was his dog and I think he carried him away. There is little chance the dog could have survived a hit like that.

The whole event caught me by surprise. I realized I have come to expect only good things to happen to me. I read a book called "The Best Year of Your Life" a couple of years ago and I now realize that much of what I had said I wanted, I got last year. 2007 really was the best year of my life. Which is nice, but that dog really threw me. Fear not, I’m back in my stride now and ready for all the year (and life in general) has to offer.

This year, may we all have the best year of our lives. What would yours look like?