FJ's space

I went to school on Tuesday morning since I had class at 8, and by 10 most of the students were gone, and by 10:30 all the teachers had the official ok to leave.  Hurricane Gonu was on its way and approaching quickly.  So I was home by 11 with nothing to do.  Linh, Rahim and I chilled for a bit, thinking this isn’t going to be a big deal…but then we started getting warnings on our phones through nawras and oman mobile (equivalent to rogers and bell back home).  So we went out and picked up pizza hut for lunch and dinner and also tried to go to rawasco (local convenience store) to get extra water but that place was crazy – couldn’t even walk in… We also tried going to the new dvd rental store (discovered just a few days earlier) but it was closed.  So we headed back to our apartment and planned on hibernating here for a few days.  We watched some local tv and His Majesty Sultan Qaboos formally declared that people will be off school and work from today (Tuesday) until next Sunday.  Woohoo!!!  But what the heck are we going to do, trapped indoors for so long?!?!?  Face Off was on tv, so we watched that and then we all just passed out from boredom.  We woke up around 7, ate the left over pizza, and were anxiously waiting for the storm to hit, but nothing…just a little wind.  Other areas of Oman had already been hit and hit pretty badly.  We decided to go for a drive to the beach to see the waves.  Athaibah beach was pretty crazy.  Lots of people were coming there and watching.  The waves were rough and high and in the 15 minutes we were there, they become stronger and more frequent.  We headed back home and all just slept for the night. 

Around 4am, it started raining hard and it got really windy.  I was in and out of sleep for the rest of the night.  At 9:30 Linh and I decided to go outside to see what was going on.  We took an umbrella (thinking it would help us, but really there was no point).  We did a walk around our building and were drenched and we almost blew away.  Unfortunately pictures don’t do it justice.  The cable is out, the doors are shaking like crazy and the lights are going on and off.  We’re making lunch now, honestly, not much to do other than sleep and eat.  The worst of the storm should be over by 4pm.  Will write again then to report on what happened…So I’m continuing the story now…the guys (Salah and Aboodi) came to visit us in the 4x4 and took us for a drive to see waterfalls in the mountains, mini-niagara falls, and wadi’s.  It was crazy.  This 1 traffic light near our place had a big wadi and a big truck was stuck in it.  This jeep wrangler tried to go through it and almost made it, but then got stuck and came back.  The water was up to its window.  We were gone for probably less than an hour, but we saw so many crazy sites. Then the storm got really bad and the wind and rain was getting stronger.  The AC in my bedroom (the kind in the wall) started seeping water through the sides into my room.  So every hour we had to go into my room and mop up the mess.  It was crazy.  I emptied everything out of my room, and packed up my clothes so nothing would get wrecked.  Then we got a text message saying that the eye of the storm was going to be around 10pm and everyone would be in the tornado for about 40-60 seconds.  This freaked me out just a bit…so we packed emergency bags (with our passports), and went up to Linh’s place to sleep (seemed safer b/c it was on a higher floor and no leakage).  We were ready for it at 10, but didn’t feel anything, and then we just fell asleep and woke up the next morning around 8am.  It was sunny, but the wind was still strong.  I went down to my place a little scared to see what happened in my bedroom overnight, but it was completely dry.  Yay!  I was ready to shower, do laundry, and put this all behind me….but….the running water was gone – fantastic!  So Linh and I went for a walk to Khimji’s Mart (convenience store).  The line up was crazy inside and everyone got tonnes of water.  We got the last few bottles, and some chocolate bars (the necessities – haha) and walked back home.  Every hour I would open my tap to see if there was any water, but no such luck.  I was at home all day, then in the evening, we were all tired and bored, so Rahim came to pick us up and we went to see if any restaurants were open.  A few were..so we went to this Chinese restaurant, then went for a drive to one of the beaches (jawharat al shatti), but there was no one there…all the restaurants there were closed.  Normally this place on a weekend is packed…you can’t find parking.  But tonight was a different story…the place was deserted.  Then we stopped off at mcdonalds for dessert and headed home.  Again a little anxious to see if the water had returned…but no such luck.  I headed to bed and finally got a good nights sleep.  Again, Friday morning, fingers crossed…any water???  Nope!  So I attempted to shower with bottled water…quite challenging.  Its Friday at 4pm and I’m still waiting for water… 

It's Monday...and this morning when I woke up there was water!!!  The first thing I did was take a real shower...now I'm on my 3rd load of laundry...I feel so fresh and so clean... ok gotta run!

On Wednesday afternoon, after class, we set out for Dubai – 5 of us – me, Aliya, Linh, Salah, and Aboodi.  We had a really fun drive there, and got to our hotel in Sharjah around 9pm at night.  Then we headed straight to Burger King for dinner (its tradition when we go to Dubai, since there’s no BK in Muscat).  Then we took a walk along the water and headed back to the hotel.  We wanted to spend all of Thursday at Wild Wadi (equivalent to Wild Water Kingdom back home).  First we went for brunch at Central Perk and then we headed to the water park.  The entrance was really expensive, so we decided we would stay till the park closed to make the most of our money.  It was a really fun, hot afternoon with the Burj Al Arab right behind you all day long.  Then we went to Mall of Emirates to check out the ski slope, do some shopping and had dinner there.  By 10pm we were exhausted!  We headed back to our hotel and crashed!  The next morning (Friday), we wanted to go to the Gold Souq, but everything was closed in the morning since it was Friday.  While driving through Deira, we saw a machine filling sand in the water… they were creating the Palm Island in Deira – it was such a cool site!  Then we went for brunch, then went to see the new Ismaili Centre being built near Lamcy Plaza and then went to Deira City Centre and watched a movie.  Before leaving, we got Krispy Kreme donuts for the ride back.  We got back to Muscat around midnight.  It was a really fun weekend!

The heat in Muscat was really getting to us, so we had to make an escape to a place a little cooler.  Karim (Rahim’s bro) was now in Muscat visiting and Aliya was still here, so we decided to do a weekend camping trip to the mountain.  You ready for this one?!?!  So there were 7 of us that went, so we took 2 cars, well actually one 4x4 and our rental car (the Honda City).  Some people had told us that you have to have a 4x4 to go up, and others said it doesn’t matter.  I think you can tell where this story is going.  So Rahim was driving the Honda City and our 2 guests were with him (all part of the initiation process), and plus I wasn’t ready to risk my life!  The roads up the mountain were so narrow and rocky.  The 4x4 would go first and then the car, we kept looking behind us after every hill to see if they made it behind us.  One time, it was taking them awfully long to get up, so we started going back in reverse to see if they were ok.  Finally we saw them coming super fast.  Apparently, as they were going up the hill, Rahim’s foot was completely pressed down on the gas and the car didn’t move…it started rolling back down…they were honking like crazy and totally freaking out…but we didn’t hear anything.  Then they tried again and made it up! Whoa!  The scenery all the way up was beautiful…but if you looked too far over you would see the edge of the cliff!  Finally about an hour from the bottom of the mountain we made it to our campsite which was 8000ft up.  From there we did a hike.  The hike was around the mountain and so cool!  It was hard to capture all the scenery cause you had to watch where you were walking so that you wouldn’t fall.  We had some rest stops (requested by Aliya) and just sat in silence!  It was about 5:30pm, and we were still hot…imagine how it would have been at noon! Then we headed back to the camp for dinner.  It was alright….nothing that great… then we all hung out in a tent for a bit, played some taboo (yup I asked Aliya to bring mine from home), and then headed to sleep.  Here’s the fun part again…so as we were getting ready to sleep…what do we find on Aliya’s bed?  Yup a scorpion…we had that killed immediately but obviously Aliya couldn’t sleep for the rest of the night.  There was also a party going on in one of the tents and they were playing really loud music until 2:30am, then there were some dogs that wouldn’t stop barking after that, and then some construction started at 6:00am, so when we all woke up at 7:30am we were in a bad mood cause no one slept well.  We complained to the owners and ended up paying only 3 rial/person, instead of the originally agreed upon 10 rial/person.  Omani wasta at its best!  We ate some breakfast and then headed out for another hike.  This route was really rocky and really hard to walk on, and it was boiling hot, so we didn’t last long at all.  We decided to leave, back in the same cars we came in…we said our good byes just in case the Honda City didn’t make it down – hahaha!  The drive down the mountain actually wasn’t bad at all.  On the way back we stopped at Misfah village (a very nice traditional Omani village) and did a walk through.  We were all pretty tired by then so we just headed back to Muscat. 

Aliya just arrived yesterday and Farrah M will be leaving later on today.  So we woke up really early on Friday morning and headed to Qantab beach so that we could try to see dolphins.  We got a guy to take us in his boat and he drove for quite a while.  It was so hot but the breeze felt nice.  Finally we saw a few dolphins, but they didn’t fully come out of the water, we ended up just seeing a bunch of fins.  On the boat ride back, we asked our boat driver to drop us off on a secluded beach.  We got to one, but there was not an inch of shade in sight.  It was 10am at this time, so we asked him to come back at 11:30 cause we knew we wouldn’t last in the sun for too long.  We got off on the beach, threw all our stuff in a corner and just jumped into the water…it was too hot to stand on the sand.  The water was absolutely gorgeous…crystal clear!  We saw little fishes, sandfishes, crabs, all sorts of things.  When our boat driver came at 11:30 we weren’t ready to leave…so we made an executive decision to ask him to come back at 1:00pm.  We got out of the water for about 5 mins to have a food break.  We had brought samosas (from Shell gas station – they have the best ones!) with us and chips.  And then jumped back in.  We played Frisbee in the water for a while…monkey in the middle style – it was so fun!  While we were at the beach, another boat drove up and the people inside were fishing.  They had some awesome R&B music they were playing on their stereo.  Before we knew it, it was 1:00pm and we got onto the boat and headed back.  This is where the fun begins….we were all exhausted, hot, and dying to shower, so we headed back home…and then the sunburns, tans, and peeling began…everyone was BLACK and in pain!