Welcome to the Hotel Occidental

I can not claim to have written this, a collegue of mine did - but I did inspire it.

On a dark Mukhaizna wadi-way, hot wind in my hair

Warm smell of curry, rising up through the air

Up ahead in the distance, I saw a sodium vapor light

My head grew heavy, and my odor grew grim

I had missed the last flight

There he stood in the doorway;

I heard the fire alarm (again)
And I was thinking to myself,
This ain't heaven this surely is hell.
Then Kelman lit up a torch and showed me the way
There were voices down the conference room I thought I heard them say.....

Welcome to the Hotel Occidental

Such a lovely place
All in such a haste
Plenty of room at the Hotel Occidental
Any time of year, you can find Herman here
 
Lot 1 is chemically twisted, it got dolomitic lime on both ends
It got a lot of pretty, pretty reactions,
that will soon fill up LIMS
How they sample in the clarifier, sweet summer H2S .

Some smell and remember, some smells we'd like to forget

So I called up the  Field Manager,

please bring me my contract
He said, we haven't had that day-rate here since 2009
And still those other projects are calling from far away,
Wakes you up in the middle of the night Just to hear McTiernan say...

Welcome to the Hotel Occidental

Such a lovely place

All in such a haste
They steamin it up at the Hotel Occidental
What a nice surprise, all have alibis
 
GRE on the ceiling,
The strawberry pop on ice
And Smith said we are all just prisoners here, to our own surprise
And in Chamber's chambers, Expats gathered for the feast  (goat)
They stab it with their two fingers,
But they just can't eat the beast

Last thing I remember, I was

Running for the plane

I had to find my ticket back

To the place I was before

relax, said the PRO man,

We are programmed to receive.

You can checkout any time you like,

But you can never leave!

Enter guitar solo .....

Hello from the Desert

Thought it was time for another post.  I got back to the field on the 6th and one week down today.  I spent an extra week at home so only doing three weeks in the field this time.  It took me longer to get into it this time as five weeks off is a serious amount of downtime and I had to get used to the pace being a bit quicker and thinking about different things.  Quite frankly I am simply looking forward to flying out of here on the 27th, even though it is going to be a seriously loooooong flight this time.  Off to New Zealand that night and for some strange reason (cost I think) I decided to book a 30 hour journey - urrgghhh!  Will be interesting as I have never flown through Bangkok before.  Got 7 hours lay over in Hong Kong so will just have to do some shopping - dang!!!  Am really looking forward to catching up with friends and family in NZ & OZ.

Braden arrived today.  Braden is the 21 year old son of our very good friends Mik & Deb who live in New Zealand.  I can not believe how those 21 years have wizzed by.  Braden decided it was time for an adventure so he packed his bags and jumped on a plane to Oman :-)  While Mik was waiting for him to arrive he txt me and said "I hope he arrives".  I txt back saying "Yeah me too, otherwise we will have Debbie on our ass".  Happy to say he arrived all in one piece and has begun his Middle Eastern adventure.

Pic of the Grand Mosque in Muscat at night. 

Apparently it is very beautiful inside but we have not seen it yet, but can see the dome from our house at night.

Sultan Qaboos Street Lit Up for 40th Celbrations Last Year

Road Rules in Muscat

Road rules in Muscat?  I am pretty sure there are no road rules in Muscat and if there is any, nobody follows them.  Certainly one should not try and follow the markings on the road as they will just put you crook.  Like I am driving down an off ramp from the highway - certainly knowing I am going the only way possible and there is an arrow on the road pointing back at me - I am like WTF??  Oh and Stop signs are merely suggestions, Give Way signs doubly so!!  If you see a spot you just go for it and if there is no space you just create it by nudging your way into someone elses space and push them out.  There is no way of knowing what anyone is going to do until they actually do it because hardly anyone actually indicates and if they do they usually do as they are making the manouvre.  Noone here has heard about the two second rule, nor have they heard that one should never pull into another cars blind spot.  So I am like indicating that I am going into the fast lane on the highway, giving the obligatory 2 seconds see nothing in it behind pull out and honk, honk someone is pulling into my blindspot right there and then - pffftttt!!!  The only way to safely travel around a roundabout is to do so in the inside lane as this has the right of way to exit the round about - I mean like hello????  Actually took me ages to figure that one out.  General rule of thumb is you give way to anything that is bigger or more expensive than you.  A quick cost to mass ratio is a handy calculation to be able to do in your head on the roads here.  There is an average of 20 deaths on the road here every month!!!

Our Place on The Map

Back again. Been a busy few days.  Getting braodband internet here has been a bit of a challenge.  A local friend assured me we should already have the land line to the house here so I went to see Omantel to get it sorted.  They told me to look for a grey box on the outside of the house that would have the CAS and DP numbers which I need to put on the form to get the service.  I couldn't find it so I went back to another Omantel shop.  When I asked the girl what it looedk like, she turned the page over and drew a square on the page and said " It looks like this".  Hmmmmm not extreemly helpful, this is the same girl that said after I asked for a Mobile Modem, "oh sure, which model would you like?", I said "what do you have?", to which she replied "oh we don't have any at the moment".  Hmmmmm.....  So anyway we end up at the Nawras store yesterday trying to find our place on google maps in order to be able to get broadband delivered via sattelite instead of the phone line.  You think we found it while in the store?  Nope!  But we did when we got home.  So off to the Nawras store again today.  Here is an idea of where Villa Vennik is on the map.  Hint: If you click on the map it comes up larger.

Oh yes and we did manage to buy a stove too yesterday so we should get that on the 30th :-)

Got Ourselves a House Boy

Have been dusting and mopping floors this morning.  Gosh the dust just sneaks in all the little nooks and crannys.  A bit like cockroaches really, but we got the pest control people onto that particular one.  Roaches are considered pests by some and apetizers by others.  We are definitely of the former variety, while Frodo tends towards the later variety.

But back to the house boy.  While there were many good candidates we decided to go for the cheapest option that provided the best value.  It was quite possible that a good house maid here would take a lot of training.  We did meet one who was quite experienced, but she wanted too much money and was more interested in the lodgings.  So our best friends in NZ are sending their first born to lodge with us a for a bit and help out.  At 21 years old he has his most of his adult life in front of him so an excellent oportunity for him to take some time out from the serious job thingy and take in some of the good ol' Kiwi OE. 

Some House Pics

At last I have figured out how to post pics.  It is a lot easier now than last time I was blogging.  On this blog you will never see a post titled 'Our House in the Snow' but it has it's own beauty.  Here is a pic of our house the day we had a few pieces of furniture delivered.  We needed some extra furniture because as you can see it is a pretty huge place.  Speaking of huge, check out the size of our kitchen below.  After the one we had in Belgium we are kinda getting lost in this one.  Mik and I need to text each other to find out where each other is - hehe!

Off to pack the doglets into the car to pick Mik up from work and go for a walk along the beach for sunset.  Photos to follow - my how we have missed the beach.  Till later XXX

Muscat News

http://www.muscatdaily.com/Home

Gots me a liquor permit :-D

Busy day today - but I am now the proud owner of a liquor permit *grinz widely*.  To buy alcohol here we need this permit.  I had to go to the Ruwi Police Station with a copy of my residency card, copy of my passport, an application form (filled out in Arabic of course) and a letter of no objection from my employer.  Paid 85 OMR and I can now buy up to 90 OMR of alcohol per month.  Alcohol is seriously cheap at the liquor stores here so I am sure this will do us fine.  Watch this space to see if we survive - hehe!!!

Oh still getting the hang of blogger again, so as soon as I figure out how to blog pics I will do so...

Week One in Muscat

Hi again - time for a new blog seeing as we are on a new adventure.  I thought it would be nice for people to see what we are getting up to and don't want to clogg up facebook.  It is also very therapeutic to write a log - so I found out when we did it for our adventure in Belgium.  The above pic was just taken when we left Belgium - the crazy Frenchies threw a bon voyage party for us.  We will miss our friends in Belgium a lot actually but here we are - so making the best of a new adventure.

Been here just one week now and still trying to get everything sorted.  We packed up our things in Belgium early this month and it is now on a slow ship to Muscat.  We have been told it will arrive mid December - so now it is just a waiting game.  At that time I will be in the field and Mik will be on his way to NZ so it will be a bit of a juggle to actually recieve it then.  The house is kinda empty but my good friend Ronaye arranged a bedroom suite for us so we could at least have something to sleep on when we got here.  Frodo and Forrest travelled well and are adjusting to their new home.  The place was a mess when we arrived so have spent some time cleaning.  It is a huge house and the dust seems to get in the tiniest of cracks so am frantically interviewing for a house maid.  We really need someone in the house also to look after our babies, so that Mik has more flexibility for his work when I am not here to support.  Lots of things on the list to do before I go back to the field; broadband internet, car, maid, liquor license ;-)  we got ourselves a fridge and microwave and a few kitchen things so we can at least eat in now.  A collegue of mine helped us out tremendously with some red wine stocks so we all good there.

Lots to tell, did some walking on the beach on the weekend (early in the morning as after 9 it is too hot for the boys) - had our first run in with a scorpion.  Got some furniture arriving soon so better sign off.  More to follow and some pics of our house.