Salalah, Oman

Tuesday was the national holiday, Sports Day.  It is field day in elementary school, but better.  Instead of playing the game where you eat saltine crackers and then try to whistle, you get paid to perform sports outside in the lovely sunshine.  We are basically professional athletes; getting paid for our amazing athletic coordination.  Add that to the resume. 

Since most of the Sports Day activities involve ten thousand screaming children, we opted to stay in our comfort zone and try to keep up with Uncle Keith.

After satisfying our athletic requirement, we hopped on a plane and headed to Salalah, Oman to really stretch our holiday hours. 

source

Salalah is on the coast where the Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea meet.  It was a major trading post for Frankincense.  Without a current demand for Frankincense, Salalah has adapted into a tourist destination.  It rains everyday during the summer, so visitors come from the Middle East region to cool off during the heat.  During the winter, visitors come from Europe to lay on the beach in the sunshine.  Most of the other hotel guests we met were from Germany and Sweden.

We did our fair share of pool side lounging and beach strolling, but we also enjoyed a day tour of the region including:

Coconuts, bananas, and papaya which grow in the tropical climate

Beautiful sea lines

Wadi Darbat complete with wildlife (Wadi is the area around the rivers flowing from the mountains to the ocean.)

Old judicial buildings to keep peace between tribes

Archaeological sites of the old Frankincense ports

Who has seen the movie Captain Phillips?  Below I’m posing in front of the port where the container ship departed before being raided by pirates.

Toned down Arabic drink name alert.  Anybody know the more daring name of this beverage?

Happy birthday Jonna!  We are sad not to be celebrating together, but we hope your birthday is as wonderful as you.  Lots of love from us.

Howdy Yall

I reckon you're fixin' for a good week ahead.  Remember when we went to the Boot Scoot fundraiser last year?  (Remind yourself here)  Well, we went again.  I'll let you guess which one of us was more excited to line dance!  We will tolerate being surrounded by Aggies if it means our bellies are full of Mexican food.  (Ignore that sentence if your name ends in an e/y sound.)

We are starting to feel like veterans and it is a little unsettling.  In our group of friends, only one other couple was a repeat Boot Scoot attendee.  The rest of the group has moved here in the past year.  People are always moving in and out.

And to keep with the random theme of the blog.  Here are some sheep at the stop light.

Q: What do you get if you cross an angry sheep and a moody cow? 
A: An animal that's in a baaaaaaaad moooooood. 
source: http://www.jokes4us.com/animaljokes/sheepjokes.html

I'm embarrassed to tell you how long I just spent reading sheep jokes.  Now I miss Iceland.  We miss you all and hope you have a great week.

Routine Bustle

I can't believe it is February.  When did that happen?  Our weekly excitement included:

1. Celebrating Jonathon' birthday!

2. Finding an old school diner serving 'Merican breakfast

3. Enjoying some sand between our toes while watching kite surfers (wind is good for the surfers, but not for the hair)

4. Monitoring our mustard greens.  Thanks Nate and Megan.
 

We hope your February has started off well.  Unfortunately we can't watch the Super Bowl (it will be playing here Monday morning around 3am), so I'm excited that clips of the commercials have made their way online.