Well this has been an incredible experience thus far.It has been hard work to get here.
Fare-welling friends & family with phone calls, dinners, texts & hugs.
It's taken some conviction & belief to get here.
Conviction that adventure is good for me & belief that even doing something as radically bizarre as this- I will have everything I need.
Flying with Emirates was beautiful, apart from having to rapidly shed 5 kilos under a tree in the corner of the airport.
This 5 kilo loss didn't involve dieting or star jumps- only handing stuff I didn't really need over to Z, S & H.
Fear was there, but unfortunately I missed Valerie.
It was a long flight, one I unfortunately think I don't want to do again too quickly.
I watched bits of 3 Arabic movies, trying to learn, gauge something of the culture without understanding a word- the movies being sans subtitles.
None of the movies looked very Omani to me, more Indian & Turkish.
The usual fare of life; love, affairs, loneliness, wealth & poverty.
Knowing that the world is a small digital world made it easier. Also that people get on with their lives & that the suburbs, at the end of the day, wouldn't miss me at all.
(लेटर ठाट वीक...)
Dubai airport- So massive, bright and busy.
It wasn't the curvaceous, glassy architecture that shocked me, it was all the transit people asleep in dozens along the corridors and under benches.
Some young & Asian sleeping on their packs, some covered from head to toe in their native wraps. Unconscious, & uncomfortably close.
My immediate impression of Muscat, the taxi drivers offered me lifts, but not too pushily.
Dubai airport- So massive, bright and busy.
It wasn't the curvaceous, glassy architecture that shocked me, it was all the transit people asleep in dozens along the corridors and under benches.
Some young & Asian sleeping on their packs, some covered from head to toe in their native wraps. Unconscious, & uncomfortably close.
My immediate impression of Muscat, the taxi drivers offered me lifts, but not too pushily.
The heat & the sunshine blinding.
The following morning that I discovered Muscat bakery and began my unhealthy addiction to Indian instant coffee & pies that aren't called pies. Their fillings are vegetarian & spicy, or beef and rough, their shapes odd and curious.
The bakery guys were the first people I learned the local currency on. Which red note is 5, & which red note is 1OMR.
Jet lag was a strange beast. Not knowing sometimes if I should sleep or walk, eat or vomit, be alone or try company.
From there, life just starts to become normal- in a completely different way, in a completely different place.
The following morning that I discovered Muscat bakery and began my unhealthy addiction to Indian instant coffee & pies that aren't called pies. Their fillings are vegetarian & spicy, or beef and rough, their shapes odd and curious.
The bakery guys were the first people I learned the local currency on. Which red note is 5, & which red note is 1OMR.
Jet lag was a strange beast. Not knowing sometimes if I should sleep or walk, eat or vomit, be alone or try company.
From there, life just starts to become normal- in a completely different way, in a completely different place.
(Later that week...)
It's all going quite tremendously.
I'm loving being here, but the heat, once I get happily & enthusiastically thru the day, all I want to do, after some kai & a little reading & perhaps a walk, is to nap!
In Muscat Oman, & its very 1st world in a lot of ways, & also very 3rd world in others.
& the nz dollar shrinks to a pesso when you leave nz.
I'm working back in the 70s- with Chalk!
My apartment is dead cute.
Very happy with it. A little noisy, & not everything works... but it's a palace to me. :)
I'm enjoying my wee bachelor pad.
So, on the whole…
It's Hot!
It's pretty strange!
Keep wishing me luck!
It's all going quite tremendously.
I'm loving being here, but the heat, once I get happily & enthusiastically thru the day, all I want to do, after some kai & a little reading & perhaps a walk, is to nap!
In Muscat Oman, & its very 1st world in a lot of ways, & also very 3rd world in others.
& the nz dollar shrinks to a pesso when you leave nz.
I'm working back in the 70s- with Chalk!
My apartment is dead cute.
Very happy with it. A little noisy, & not everything works... but it's a palace to me. :)
I'm enjoying my wee bachelor pad.
So, on the whole…
It's Hot!
It's pretty strange!
Keep wishing me luck!
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