happy holidays

merry boxing day:

so. must be short. havent been on in a while as a cable feeding oman with the internet was severed leaving us with frustrated attempts since the tenth or so of this month. things are somewhat back to normal now and thats great.

the holidays have not been too unlike those weve celebrated in other countries: we found tree in the back lot - its not your average pine tree, but it does have something, we had a delicious and huge turkey dinner on christmas day, we sang songs, watched all the christmas movie classics, listened to the rat pack, met up with three camels behind our flat, gave good presents. you know...typical stuff. 

oh. wait. the camels...well on christmas eve there were these three camels hanging around our back yard. it was great. the way camels move is really wonderful - power, grace, and awkward at the same time. the arabian mountains at dusk, men walking around in dishdashas (robes i guess), the north star, and the general feel of the moment felt more genuine a nativity scene than any ive seen before. sundi said she felt like she was on the set of a play ... it was great.

so. that gives you some idea. we ate so much on christmas day that were both a little worse for wear today. but well get by...

love to you all and i promise to write again soon with a bit of catch up on our travels and the like.

happy holidays from nizwa,

us

Wadi Bani Awf

an nyoung:

after driving through all those crazy roads we threw down our tent in a place called "Wadi Bani Awf." Wadi basically translates to river bed in English and they are all over the place in Oman. Usually they are dry like the one we camped in, but sometimes they can flood and cause all types of problems. Luckily, our spot was slightly elevated so we had no worries. We were worried about the rain, but it just passed by.

I. - Here's our camping spot in Wadi Bani Awf. It was a perfect spot right in the canyon, quite quiet, and with lots of wood for a decent campfire.
II. After cleaning up and all that we headed to one of Oman's great forts: Rustaq. This is from inside the fort's foyer.
III. - Sun and I outside Rustaq Fort.
IV. - Me in front of the great view from Rustaq Fort.
V. Close to Rustaq was an intense hot springs. Here, Gus and I dip our feet. The water was so hot that it somewhat scolded our feet.

Rustaq ...

ma kore?

This week is Eid. We have nine days off. Originally we thought of going to a different country, but didn’t get tickets on time. It actually works out well because we just got our Jeep and want to test it out a bit. Which we did in spades on Friday.

Sundi, Gus and I headed to a town named Rustaq, via a precarious 4 X 4 only road. Here is a short visual presentation of what we saw …

I. - We run out of "road" and prepare for what is next...
II. - What is next. In the far distance you can see the road we will follow and eventually find...
III. This. This is part of "Snake Gorge." You can walk through and continue down through a couple of canyons. Without much water the pools become kind of stagnant making going into them not high on the priority list. Also, as we all know, weird stuff lives in stagnant water and we dont want any of that.

IV. Sundi and Gus heading back to the Jeep with Sundi pointing out how we may be able to get into Snake Gorge without going into the weird water.
V. Way further down the road we saw this. Not sure of the name of the town, but I definitely want to go back already.

Selaif Fort

gruzi:

Not far from Nizwa is a place called Ibri. We almost ended up taking a position in Ibri, but are very thankful we didn’t. There’s not much to do there. Even less than here.

Between Nizwa and Ibri there is a fort called Selaif. We saw it on our way to Abu Dhabi and then, on our way home, decided to stop and check it out for a while.

A very nice Omani man met us there and took us on a nice tour of the fort. His language was very limited, but he did communicate essential info about the fort.

Ill let the pictures do the talking.

I

sun looking through a fallen roof

II

gus, sun, and our guide
III

looking out onto a mosque
IV

how food was hung at the fort

worth the wait

witaj:

We have just returned from abu dhabi where we visited jon, robyn, josh, sam, and the soon to be named child in robyn’s belly. Our trip was a short one, only three days, two nights, but it was full. Mostly we just shopped for things we needed but couldn’t find here for some reason. We made a list and got only a few things we really wanted. One of the strange things about Oman is that everything that comes here first passes through Dubai and Abu Dhabi and is picked at a lot and the remnants are sent here. This means many things just never reach here. This is sad sometimes, but does prevent us from getting tempted by too many things

Anyways. One of the coolest things to see in the UAE is the exhibition at the Palace of the Emirates depicting what is being built on Saadiyat Island. Here is a link to that. Very absurd in a lot of ways. My favorite structure-wise is the Louvre. 

Here are a couple pictures from Abu Dhabi. Oh. This will be the first picture we show of our new vehicle. The Jeep “Cherokee” which is actually a Jeep Liberty in North America. Its in great shape and is a very nice ride.

So. Here are the pictures.

I

Here’s the Jeep in front of the Palace of the Emirates. It’s one of only a handful of seven star hotels in the world. Yes. For those of you who don’t know, there are 7 star hotels. We saw a couple helicopters come and go while there. Also, there was a Lambourghini and Maserati out front for rent. Crazy. Apparently it’s 1000 US a night to stay there. We won’t be doing that anytime. Ever.

II

Sun and I in the centre of the palace.

III

The border leaving the United Arab Emirates.

how things do, etc ...

sawubona:

so. we have a steady internet connection at home now and are pretty pumped about that. AND we are only two steps away from buying our vehicle. i will probably post pictures next week of it as we plan to come into possession this week. sweet.

i realize this may be a short post, but the day was tiring, and i am pretty out of it.

here is the lone pic of the week: a flock of goats walking towards the police station. maybe they are getting their labour cards as well! that's how we got ours. 

working it out

hej:

its been a while. this past week has been pretty crazy all over the place. i will not mention a certain election somewhere that everyone everywhere is talking about, but i will mention a party of other sorts.

as its been over a week since the last post, i am inclined to mention halloween. my mother has now seen 76 summers and winters, and i realize how tough it must have been for her when we were young always wanting candy and never making her cakes. or did we? i dont remember really. i will ask her when i call her soon. happy birthday mamie.

oh. that is big news. we have internet at home. it is not a steady connection (we either prepay a service or pay 10 bucks for unlimited usage for a couple days - this is what we are doing now to "catch up" on the serieses [?] we miss) but will be as soon as we get our work visas. we have the modem in hand though and it is 10 mbps roughly, which isnt bad really.

hmmm. oh, also big news, although we shouldnt count our chickens, is we have found our vehicle and will make a down payment this week. although we were fixed on a new one, we get close to that with a jeep liberty we saw advertised at a local supermarket. i will send pics in the next post.

speaking of pics, here are a few from the past week(s).

I
this is where we work out.II
i am pretty sure you can guess what these are from. hey, czech peoples - is this funny? Červená trpaslíci