My first weekend in Oman

I was lucky enough to have the whole weekend off this week (weekends are Thursday & Friday in Oman). We got a flier on Wednesday afternoon so went straight to the Intercontinental Hotel - its only a 5 minute walk from the Opera House but that is as far as you can walk without melting - needless to say, being a Stabler, I won the "let's see how much we can sweat competition", but managed to cool down in the air-conditioned bar with a couple of pints of lager.

When we left we had to reject 5 taxis who all asked either 4 or 5 Rials before we found one that would give us a lift home for the correct price of 3 Rials (£4.80). At home we watched "The Fighter" - a great film in which Christian Bale gives a fantastic performance.

On Thursday we did the compulsory laundry - our apartment has semi-automatic washing machines (for 'semi-automatic' read 'manual'), had a severe haircut, something to eat, lazed about a bit, then eventually got round to going to the souk (market) in Muttra. I managed to get the driver down from 10 Rials to 5 Rials, but when we got there it was closed! We had checked it would be open on Thursdays but it shut for the afternoon just before we got there (we had been told this, but with the amount of information our brains had taken in over the week we had forgotten). Anyway, we had a look around Muttra, saw the Sultan's (massive) yacht, saw the Sultan's (massive) spare yacht and saw the Sultan's yacht that he uses for his vehicles when he is on one of the other 2 yachts. We could have stayed until the souk re-opened but as we had been invited to a barbeque we decided to leave early.

The barbeque was in Muscat's equivalent of Ramsey Street where all of the grown-ups (management) live. It was a great night - it was even only a little bit ridiculously hot. Yet again the management excelled with lifts, food, drink. music et al being provided. They really are making everybody feel welcome, at home and at ease. There were a few other people there I hadn't met before, including Craig - a Pars fan. Everyone seemed to have a good time although there was one case of dehydration. Arrangements were made to meet up & go to Dive Beach the following day.

Again the management excelled themselves with phone calls & lifts to get everyone to the beach. Entrance was 6 OR and the food and drink was expensive but the beach was excellent, the Arabian Sea was nicely warmed - it didn't take me the customary 10 minutes to get my shoulders in the water. I saw a school of fish that were diving out of the water in a synchronised swimming sort of way and a massive puffa fish that was getting on for the size of a football.
On the way home Jon took us through Ruwi, again giving us a running commentary - explaining that the main street used to be the runway of the airport, that it is an area where a high proportion of the residents are Indians, Pakistanis and Sri Lankans, that there is a fantastic curry house there (I must remember to find out the name of it), an amazing tool shop and welding shop.

All in all a fantastic weekend, I only hope that all my weekends here can be as good.