Friday night, many, many miles from home. It’s been a long road to here, but so far a good one.
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It’s been a long road
Author: Dennis
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Parents on the road
I’m still at home, enjoying the long weekend, thinking about packing and the like. Mom and Dad have already been on the road for a day and a half – should be in Iowa soon. 48 hours from now, we’ll be ascending the eastern front of the Rockies. Looking forward to it.
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Oh my, Oman
My eyes have been opened to a country I would never have imagined visiting. Oman, with it’s pretty (and empty) beaches, sand dunes, forts and sunshine blew me away.
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I’m in Oman
It’s about midnight local time, and I’ve just completed my first full day in Oman. I’m tired, but, I think that’s a good thing — I’ve adjusted pretty well to the 9-hour time difference, and I should be tired. I haven’t napped yet, and I’m sticking to my timezone busting strategy of drinking lots of water, powering up with natural daylight (no shortage of that here) and otherwise pretending that I’m supposed to feel good now.
The journey here was long, but pretty uneventful, which is a pretty good way to travel across the world. The highlights weren’t too remarkable, but, I did get a great view of the core of London as we approached Heathrow … I can now say that I’ve flown over Iraq … I saw two sunsets and one sunrise in a single journey … and I read about 350 pages of the 7th and final Harry Potter book.
After waiting my time in the slow-moving immigration line in the Muscat airport, I finally got my passport stamped, picked up my duty-free alcohol, and met Chris in the arrivals area. Given that it was nighttime, there wasn’t too much to see on the 20-minute drive back to his house … I guess my first impressions were that it was dark (duh), there were loads of square buildings lit with ample neon, and that things were otherwise pretty normal. It’s holiday time here (Eid) which means that traffic patterns are a little off the norm — it didn’t seem too busy on the way in though.
Chris and Mel’s house seems nice – the building style reminds me a little of Taiwan, not so much because of how the outside looks, but more the interior – the bathrooms, kitchen, etc. The similarity probably has more to do with both being semi-tropical locations more than anything else. They’ve got a quite a large yard which was nice – we took advantage of it and sat outside, enjoying the pleasant nighttime temperature, had a beer or two and caught up on life.
Today (Friday) we started off with the “lay of the land” drive, giving me a pretty thorough overview of the city and surrounding area. It’s really not all that big of a city, but it’s broken up into a lot of distinct parts. Muscat is sandwiched between the Sea of Oman and a pretty abrupt mountain range, so the city is wide, but not too deep if you catch my drift. We drove past the diplomatic area where most of the embassies are … caught several glimpses of the sea and beaches … drove past the Sultant’s Palace … and eventually ended up at a beautiful secluded beach. It was very romantic — Chris, Cade and I had a great time. Actually, Cade seemed rather terrified of the sand and water, so I’m not sure if he had a great time or not — I certainly enjoyed the super-soft sand and warm water. I don’t think that beach-going is a big part of traditional Omani life, so there weren’t too many (if any) Omani’s around — some of the migrant workers from Asia seemed to be enjoying the day off though, which I’m sure is very well deserved.
After the beach we headed back to home base – before long we were playing outdoor ping pong. Chris certainly took advantage of the home court and his acute knowledge of the wind conditions. Having never played outdoors before, I had no idea how to deal with the wind and lost many more games than I won. Turns out we’d play again in the evening under the lights, and I would restore my confidence with several decisive victories.
In between rounds of ping pong, we made a trip to the hyper (super) market to pick up some supplies for an upcoming trip out the city, and then went to another beach for a sunset walk (the romance continued), Mel joining us this time. Muscat is really blessed with a lot of beautiful beaches and scenery, though they certainly weren’t blessed with many other natural gifts. It is exceedingly hot and sunny during the day, and the land is very dry, rocky and mountainous. I haven’t seen anything else in the region to compare it to, but, the people who had the vision to create a settlement here way back when must have really been amazing people. To my eye, there is virtually nothing here — I’m still surprised when I do see a bit of greenery breaking up the brownery that otherwise dominates the area.
Tomorrow, we’ll be heading inland, through the mountains, to a famous desert camp. I’m looking forward to the scenery of course, as well as to my first real sand dunes and my first desert camp out. Given that we’ll truly be in the middle of nowhere and that there won’t be a moon, the star vision should be incredible. I’m not sure what else mother nature might have up her sleeve, but I’m looking forward to it. I’ll be out of communication for a few days, but will surely have lots of updates once we’re back in Muscat.
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2006 Recap
We moved from Madison to Milwaukee … with a quick stopover in Canada, Ireland, Scotland, England, Italy, Croatia, Hungary, Austria and Czech Republic along the way. Oh, and Michele finished law school too.
(c) Dennis Flood 2006 
(c) Dennis Flood 2006
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Threading the Needle
Our final few days of life on the continent came and went without too many remarkable moments. The weather was fairly poor for most of the time, we were tired, and less than impressed with our accommodations, so it was hard to get excited about the whole Prague experience. Had we gone there first, I’m sure we would have had a much different impression. It certainly is old and has lots of beautiful/interesting buildings … just make sure that you pick some better accommodation than we did!
We flew from Prague to Edinburgh via Gatwick (London) without any troubles — British Airlines was a pleasant change from the usual discount airlines that we had been dealing with. The only minor problem was that I had booked our flights with the credit card that we lost along the way … only took a few minutes to get that straightened out.
Back in Edinburgh, things felt very familiar … our few days there earlier in the trip helped us out. It was good to see family again. The city was cool but crowded, with the very large Edinburgh Festival going on. We took it easy for a few days, picking up some souvenirs along the way and getting in a bit more pub food. We did manage to take in a big soccer game too — one of Edinburgh’s teams was playing against a team from Athens, Greece in a qualifier for the European Championship. Unfortunately the home team shat the bed, so to speak, giving up two goals in the last three minutes to lose the game. The crowd was pretty excited up until that point, and it was fun to enjoy some good live sports.
After wandering the city on our last full day abroad, we returned to my brother’s apartment to find out about all of the terrorism-related arrests that had been made in England earlier in the day, and that flights everywhere were messed up. We weren’t too certain what this was all going to mean for us, but, it seemed that the worst was happening for flights from England to the US — we were flying from Scotland to Canada, so, things should be okay. As it turned out, they were — we weren’t allowed to bring anything with us on the plane … no water, no reading materials, no camera/film … nothing. That was a bit of an inconvenience in some respects, but, it felt quite liberating to be able to walk around an airport without all sorts of bags weighing us down.
Our timing was pretty remarkable all in all. We flew through London two days before the big day, and then one day after. Had our timing been a bit different, at the very least, we would have been stranded in an airport for a long time, and possibly could have missed all of our non-refundable flights. It could have been ugly, but it worked out well for us.
Before we knew it, our six-hour flight to Toronto was finished, and eventually we made it back to Athens safe and sound. Over. Finished.
Done.
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The Prague Welcome?
Made our way to Prague without too many difficulties … unofficially the last new city of our two month travel bonanza. By now, we’re getting a little jaded, and feel like we’ve seen enough to know when we’re getting screwed. So, here’s a bit of our Prague welcome.
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Time Flies
It has been quite a while since my last post here … much has happened, and little time has been spent online. I will try to give a brief summary, though I have to note that I cannot use an apostrophe, and my z and y keys are messed up on the keyboard. Bear with me.
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The Cost of Travel?
We’ve had an interesting struggle in Croatia, trying to use credit cards to pay for our trip to make sure that we keep lots of liquid cash for ‘just in case’ times that might come up later. Other countries were easy, but virtually nobody in Croatia other than the big (expensive) hotels and jewelers take them. We haven’t had a whole lot of luck.
Yesterday, we tried to buy some groceries on my card in Dubrovnik, but the attempt was blocked by Mastercard. I contacted them today, and found out that my account has been closed because of suspicious activities … somewhere along the way, somebody stole my card number, and has been gambling online with it. I’m guessing that it happened at an insecure internet cafe somewhere along the way, but, it really could have been anywhere. I don’t think that this will actually cost me anything, other than the $15 or so that I had to pay to call my bank today. Fun times.
Otherwise, things are going well. We just finished a great dinner in an outdoor restaurant here on our last night in Dubrovnik. We head north to Split tomorrow, and then further east the following day. Put Croatia on your list of places to visit … just expect to pay in cash, not with credit.
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Marco …
I never really understood the whole Marco Polo game that people played in the pool … seems popular for some reason.
We’re still in Korcula, at least for a few more hours. Korcula claims Marco Polo to be their own … apparently he was born here once upon a time. Loads of shops, hotels, etc. bear his name … hopefully it is what he would have wanted.