Day 14 done

And there you go, two thirds done of the first tour, only 7 days to go now. Ramadan finishes tomorrow, and is followed by Eid. The locals get 6 days off work for Eid from Tuesday - Sunday. Apparently this time is for family and fun and partying, in major contrast to Ramadan. It is customary that the children go from door to door asking for gifts and they are given money or sweets. Doesn't it sound like Lent, Christmas and Halloween all rolled into a month and a bit? Well to me the concepts seem the same...

Anyway, I must say this trip has opened my eyes to the Arab and Islamic world. I think you know one of my objectives in life is to learn as much as humanly possible and this trip has been well worth it. I have "connected" with my driver who is Omani - his name is Nasser. Yesterday he said, "You (pointing at me), your heart (pointing at his heart), white."..."My heart is what?", I say? " you heart ... white, you nice!"..."ahh I say, I think you mean pure or good? You say you think I have a good heart?" ..."Yes, you heart is good!". "Shukaran (the second arabian word he taught me on the first day - means thank you) - you also - I think you also have a good heart." Says I. Even though we struggled at times to understand each other we have have had much laughter.

This country, he says, is a land of too much...too much Indians, too much heat! Belgium I say also a land of too much, too much people, too much rain, too much taxes!

He also introduced me to Akon.

Rob Paravonian - Something You Already Know

This guy is very clever. I've been enjoying some of his stuff on youtube tonight.

The newly possesed house.

So we promised some photos of the new house and here they are...

We finally took possesion of the place last week, and I am only just a weeny bit jealous that I can't get to see it up close and personal yet for another week.

A lovely autumn day by the looks in Belgium too... we thinks some of those trees will have to go, so Mike has been measuring the circumference. Whether we need to get permission to cut them down or not is based on the size of the circumference of the tree at 1m high. Oh you got to love those beauracrates - we will likely need to pay for the privalige of them giving us their permission.

Just clocked day 11

I realised that there had been too many videos on lately. Well 4 of them were from one night of enjoying War of the Worlds on youtube. Thank god for youtube, and thank god I finally got my new laptop. It is so much easier being away from my three boys, when I have youtube, my new 32 gig ipod, a swimming pool, over 30 degrees and sun everyday, and some great middle eastern food!

I just got over hump day so it is all down hill from here. 10 more days to go and I am back on the big bird bound for my new house and lots of kisses with my three men at home. Big huge thanks goes to my love from me for sorting out the house buying thing, in a foreign country, I might add, but I must say I am a little jealous and can not wait to get in my new front door. I am day dreaming about it already. He says the previous owner left a nice bottle of champagne in the fridge - wat een schatje! - What a sweetie, even that she also left the fridge was pretty cool.

Speaking of fridges I got invited to a party last night, so I went. Unusual in Ramadan, but the inviters and invitees were not Muslim, so it was a well kept secret party. The guy that had the party had a bar set up in his front foyer, most excellent! He had all the bar paraphenalia, and a fridge with a glass front and I thought I would like one of those! So it was like the united nations partying in an english pub. It was a hoot and I got to socialise with my new work collegues, who are a bunch of really excellent people. I feel more welcome here in 10 days than I ever did in three years at my previous job. Even my driver, Nasser, gave me a present the other day... I will never forget this...

I mean to go out sometime and take some photos, so I can blog them for you. My lovey has promised some photos of the house on the weekend so hopefully we can blog some of them. Maybe I will ask Nasser to stop on the way back tomorrow so I can get some fotes. Saturday tommorrow and everyone is back at work, full on, as their weekend is Thurs/Fri here.

Oh well here is one fote that I stole of Greystoned. All looking super georgeous, might have something to do with the happiness shining through...

Flight of the Conchords - Ladies of the World

These guys are soooo funny...

"If every soldier laid down their guns and picked up a lady, what a wonderful world it would be"

Jeff Wayne's War Of The Worlds - The Spirit Of Man

Ditto - promise this is the last one...

Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds: Thunderchild

Enjoy but you must watch part 1 and Forever Autumn below first...

FOREVER AUTUMN LIVE

You should watch part one below first...

Jeff Wayne - War of the worlds (Live) (Eve of the war)

I just found out that there is going to be a 30th anniversay world tour of Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds in 2009 starting in Dublin and I am totally going! Apparently they have bought Richard Burton digitally back to life for it...cool...

Reminded me of a couple of naughty sausages in Eizer

A few fotes

I thought you might like a couple of photos. I have not been out and about to take any yet, but nothing a bit of google images can't fix.

This is the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque. I drive past it on the way to work. According to my driver, Nasser, it is only 3 years old.


This is a view of Old Muscat. According to http://www.freewebs.com/alsalmi/capitalofoman.htm this is the History of Muscat...

"Muscat's recorded history goes back to the fist century A.D. when it was almost certainly the 'concealed harbour' mentioned by the Greek geographer Ptolemy. In the early Islamic times, Muscat was minor port by comparison with Sohar, but it was of growing importance by the 9th century A.D. Ships sailing from the Gulf to India called at Muscat to draw their last supplies of water for the voyage. During the 14th and 15th centuries A.D. Muscat increased considerably in importance. The famous Arab sailor Ahmed bin Majid sailed from Muscat and has left description of its trade in 1490 A.D.:" Muscat is a port, the like of which cannot be found in the whole world, where there are businesses and good things which cannot be found elsewhere. Muscat is the port of Oman where year by year the ships load up with fruit and horses and they sell in it cloth, vegetable oils and grain and all ships aim for it. It is a cape between who different routes, safe in every wind and possesses fresh water and a hospitable and sociable people who love strangers." Muscat reached its greatest prosperity under the first ruler of Al Bu Said dynasty. Imam Ahmad bin Said, the founder of the dynasty, ruled from Rostaq (60 kms south of Muscat). Under his peaceful and progressive rule Muscat flourished as never before. Under Imam Ahmad's son, Muscat became the capital of Oman. Through the eyes of a visitor C.E Parsons visited Muscat in 1776 A.D. The town was then the emporium of the Western Indian Ocean, and so effective was the rule of law that theft from the valuable cargoes that flowed through the city was unknown. Parsons wrote: "Muscat is a place of very great trade, being possessed of a large number of ships which trade to Surat, Bombay, Goa, along the whole coast of Malabar, and to Mocha Jedda in the Red Sea. It is the great deposit for the goods which they bring from those part: it is resorted to by vessels from every port in Persia, from Basra and all the parts of Arabia within the gulf and from the coast of Qaramaniah without the gulf as far as the Indus River, and many places adjacent to that river."

Day 7 in Oman

Back again - had a good day today. I was very proud of myself, as I did 30 lengths of the pool today. Never been much of a swimmer before so I thought I would start with 10 lengths the first day and increase it by 2 each day. Well within 3 days I managed to do 20 lengths. Then I decided to see what I could do in 30 minutes today and got 30!

So swimming has become part of my daily routine, as it passes the time and the water is nice and warm and relaxing. So the routine is pretty much rise at 6.30, picked up at 7.15, learn another Arabic word on the way to work, tell the driver something about NZ or Belgium, work, Scottish collegue tells me a joke or two, get picked up at 4.30, back to Hotel (possibly after a spot of food shopping on the way back), swim for 30 minutes, shower, guitar for 30 minutes, have dinner, ring Mike - talk for ages, watch a movie, ring Mike again - talk for ages, fall asleep if I can, if not watch late night TV, possibly call Mike again - talk for ages - fall asleep, and then it happens all over again - so I do this once?? - nooooooo - 21 f'n times! Then I get to go home.

Joke of the day - Scottish collegue (think thick Edinburgh accent)- says "Me oonkul eemmigraetid tooo Ostraelia und when heee arraeved at thee airaporit was usked uf hee hud ay creeminul recorid, tooo whuch hee replied "ee thought thut was nooo longer ay requirement!"."

Day 2 in Oman

So here I am 2 days in Oman. Sure I did not write anything after one day as I was in this exhausted state of “oh Christ…what am I doing? Surely the only thing I want to do right now is to be lying on the couch listening to my love serenade me on the guitar with doglets cuddling me “ … or knuffling – the Dutch version of the word, which I like better – more onematapaeic – if there is such a word as onematapaeic – well there is now as I just made it up!

What can I say about Oman? It is always warm that is for sure. Lucky for me not too warm at this time of the year. It is only 32 degrees in the morning when I go to work. In summer time it is more like 45 – 50 degrees. Surely one’s blood would boil at the temperature? I can not imagine it yet. I have arrived in the Holy Month of Ramadan – so it an interesting cultural experience for me. We can not eat or drink or smoke in public during daylight hours and there is no drop of alcohol existing anywhere – not even in the mini bar as they have cleared them out for the month. Good way to dry out and loose some kilos perhaps? I am told it is followed by a week of going crazy – apparently the Omani’s are party people, just not for one month of the year.

Everyone in the office is very friendly – heaps of xpats so they know what you are going through, plus the project is relatively quite young, so loads of people have not been here very long.. They remember still what it was like on their first day. Those I have met so far only joined weeks ago, months ago or on the same day. So we understand what each other is dealing with.

The Long Awaited Photos of the long weekend in NZ

I said something really profound today...

Today my collegues had a farewell lunch for me and after the ceremonial present giving of course I had to say thank you and I said something really profoud...

"This morning I was driving to work and thought, oh my god, it's Thursday - what am I going to say? I decided not to write a fomal speech and just decided to speak from my heart. In the car I thought about the years I was leaving behind and shed a little tear. So I thought - no I won't talk about that or I'll cry. Koen also promised me that he would not cry - so I am not going to talk about how much I will miss Koen. So this I decided to say ...

three years ago Mike and I were sitting in our spa pool and discussing this oportunity over a bottle of Champagne - or maybe it was good old New Zealand bubbles - I don't know. Anyway Mike said "what do you think?" And I said, "well I do not want to be on my death bed and think - oh I wonder what it would have been like" - so he said...that's it's then we go! So we made the decision in 5 minutes and now at least I know what it was like.

You each know it was a big challenge - it was a big challenge moving countries, but with challenge comes reward and the reward for me was growth. I grew tremendously as a person and I got to meet some wonderful people and I got to do some wonderful things...I got to buy a BMW at half the price it would have cost in New Zealand, I got to live in the same country as my sister for the first time in 10 years, I got to buy a new house - soon - but most of all I got to work with some wonderful people and some of you, as you know I am proud to call my friends.

What I think I will miss is the comaraderie - and as I am going to work as an independedent - that will be a big gap for me. You guys have a great team here and you should cherish that. The testimony to that is what we did when we got together last year and produced what we did for the Christmas party, the best team building I think we could have ever done. I really enjoyed that party - and I will miss the christmas parties, the team buildings and the breakfasts.

Thank you all for the little impression that each of you have made on me. You all make me the person that I am today and for that I thank you....

Now I guess you can all have dessert?"