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. 

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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.

Ecuadorian Food Festival

Two extremely popular Ecuadorian chefs wandered into Doha and my taste buds are appreciative.  We attended the Ecuadorian food festival on Friday night and were not disappointed.  Good food and great company.

Ceviche station:

We are gearing up for more tasty meals because tomorrow is Jonathon's birthday!  Happy birthday Jonathon.  Thank you for being my best friend and adventure teammate.

Culture Shock Repeat

We experienced culture shock all over again after being back in our comfort zone (aka the US of A) for a month.  We found ourselves asking to same questions we asked when the moving van arrived 15 months ago.

1. Is driving like that legal? 
2. Cereal is HOW much?
3. Why is that child awake at midnight?
4. Where does the line start? No lines here?

There is a culture shock cycle that I summarized from here.  It is similar to ex-boyfriends/girlfriends.  After a while, you forget the bad things and remember the good things.

Stage 1: At first everything is new and exciting.  You think moving was the best decision ever.
Stage 2: The excitement wears off and you start asking "Why?"
Stage 3: You criticizes everything and everyone.  You want to get on the next returning flight.
Stage 4: Just accepting the new environment.

We tend to jump back and forth between all the stages.  I like to call it an emotional roller coaster.  It doesn't make me feel so crazy when it has a fun name.  The plus side is that all our friends here have experienced the same emotions and we can laugh about our craziness together.

On a lighter topic, Jonathon discovered the go kart track this week.  I promise we went with friends, but all those pictures turned out blurry.

In Qatar you might pay full price to watch half the movie.  For those complaining that the "Wolf of Wall Street" is too long, then please come watch the movie here in Qatar.  With censoring the movie is only two hours instead of three.

censorship-of-wolf-of-wall-street

Happy birthday Mike and Jonathon.  I know you will be celebrating together in spirit.

When Jet Lag Kicked Our Butts

We had a wonderful marathon trek through the States and arrived back Saturday morning about 2 in the AM.  (This is way past my bedtime.)  We weren't too tired, but knew we needed to try to sleep.  We climbed into bed and woke up 11 hours later.  I'm pretty sure that is the #1 rule with jet leg, don't sleep until 2 in the afternoon.  Rule breakers in da house.

I'm not even sure how that happened.  We slept on the plane and strategized about beating jet lag.  Basically overcoming 11 time zones is for party animals.  

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The awesome thing about jet lag is that you get to be wide awake at 3AM and really tired at 3PM.  It is very helpful in the office setting.  No sarcasm involved, I have honestly enjoyed going to bed at 8PM and not feeling like a loser.   

We were feeling well adjusted by the weekend when it would have been appropriate to take an afternoon nap (as opposed to my office desk during the week).  It rained half an inch and we took that as a sign to take it easy.  We avoided the flood by decluttering our house.  You would be proud of my tuberware drawer.  Oh, these aren't the grand adventures you want to read about.  Okay, well we are working on our 2014 vacation schedule.  Check back later.

This week we did enjoy the things we missed while on vacation by eating record amounts of hummus and shawarma.  I was also thrilled to be greeted by 65-70 deg F running weather.  Look Mom, no coat.  

 

Happy birthday Trudy.  We hope Barney and Munchkin sing to you.  Happy birthday Grandpa Lyle.  We hope your day is full of smiles.

Happy 2014

Happy New Year!

(awkward leg alert)

We made it back to Doha, but before submitting to reality we made our final stops in Southern California and Nevada.

Once upon a time in a fair away kingdom, two jesters gathered with comrades to celebrate the hanging of a new calendar.  Rejoicing followed.

And we lived happily ever after.  The end.  

Happy birthday Mandy!  I am so glad that I got to see you.  You inspire me everyday.