The Thick of It

Things are such a humid, conglomerated mess so don’t ask the date or time. I have no clue. Yesterday morning (?) we visited Sultan Qaboos’ Grand Mosque and it was spectacular. We all had to be dressed appropriately before the armed guards would grant us access into the gardens. You must remove your shoes before entering. You must stay on the blue carpet once inside. The women’s room was impressive with breathtaking woodwork on the ceiling and doors, tile blooming into indefinite patterns on the walls, and glittering chandeliers above us.
Fabulous.
Until we saw the male prayer room… All colors used on the interior are natural, nothing is painted. Every small, seemingly insignificant detail is attended to, the stone inlay is mind-blowing. The Swarovski Crystal chandelier in the center of the ceiling weighs 8 tons. The room’s rug was the LARGEST in the world until Dubai one-upped-them within the last year. The buildings, grounds, garden, library, bathing rooms, shoe cubbies… all of it was immaculate stone and or rich brown wood. Qaboos paid for this Mosque “out of his own pocket” as everyone says, and he spared no expense.

That afternoon was our second drop off activity. We were broken into mixed-gender groups of three and were given a slip of paper with a destination. The assignment was to hail a taxi, tell them where you needed to go, get there and take notes on specified Arabic foods, and then use similar methods to return home. In Oman one barters with the driver before entering the cab in order to determine price. Under no circumstances does a woman ride in the front if there is a man with her. Under no circumstances are their seatbelts for backseat passengers. And under no circumstances does the taxi driver abide by any kind of traffic law or limit (mom and dad, this would be a good part to skip over). The driving here is atrocious. EVERYONE cuts off EVERYONE, honks at EVERYONE, speeds past EVERYONE without turn signals in a kind of merging/braiding motion where turns are always too sharp and you’re always in your neighbors lap 30 seconds in and if you are still breathing by the time you tumble out of the back seat into oncoming traffic, the trip has been of the utmost success. Haha… maybe that’s a little exaggerated. But just the breathing part.

Last night Scott tracked down a “traditional Omani restaurant” on Ruwi, so like 18 of us went. The food was delicious as usual, I think we probably gave our waiter a heart attack, and no one remembered the name of what they had ordered by the time the food was brought out but, hell, what would life be without a little utter chaos.