Two things about living in Muscat

I think the fact that we are leaving on Saturday for 10 weeks has something to do with this flurry of posts about life here.  Whatever the reason for the timing, I hope you are finding them interesting.  When I got to Seville when I was 20 and I was so horribly homesick (and after my father had refused to allow me to come home early!), my friend Nora -- who was just completing her term abroad -- advised me to ignore all my homesick and just focus on noticing and recording all the differences.  It is advice I have come back to again and again.

We live in a complex called the Wave and it is at all times teeming with workers mostly focused on the plants and trees (although also doing things like washing and polishing the garage floors, and scrubbing out the recycling and trash bins).  We were outside waiting for Tommy's bus when this man slipped off his shoes and began to climb the palm tree right off our patio.  Lizzie has loved to climb the palm trees since we arrived and so she rushed off to help him.  I got her out of the way before the branches he was trimming began to fall.

One thing that is very fascinating and incredible to expats in Muscat is the parking situation.  It is pretty much a free-for-all.  You can park anywhere you like (I have noticed only ONE exception to this, and it's at the big Mutrah Souk where I have never driven myself).  Anyway, my favorite is when people park up on the footpaths in the mall parking garage.  It makes me laugh every time because just how special would you have to believe you and your car are to do that? SO special.  (Do you like the arabic writing on my side mirror? So do I.)