July 3rd 2011

I had quite the weekend in another far away land. The land of Oman was not initially the most welcoming place in the world, but over a couple of days I was able to appreciate the place. We left Wednesday night on Swiss Airlines and arrived at a decent hour. We made our way to the Visa check-in and had a financial mess. The Oman Int’l airport is much smaller than the Dubai airport. We took a taxi to our hotel, the Ramee Guestline, which was marketed as a four star hotel…and we found later is probably not so. Call me spoiled.

We checked in and crashed, by this time it was getting late. However, at 3:00 in the morning screaming and yelling woke us up. Apparently there was a fight in the hallway near our room. Glass breaking and the pounding of hotel room doors followed the yelling and fighting. I jumped out of bed to see what was going on. I attempted to look out the peephole but was unable to see anything. I just went back to bed and tried to sleep it off. A few minutes later the yelling began again. Again, I forced myself back to sleep. Eventually it was morning.

This was the first day of no plans. It was great to actually sleep in. Brad and I ordered room service (since we had no other food to have) and then went to the beach. The water of the Indian Ocean is really warm. It reminded me a lot of the Gulf of Mexico. We relaxed there and caught some rays. A group of Indians (not sure if they were actually Indian or Sri Lankan or other) came up to us and asked if they could get a picture with us. We obliged and let them get about four pictures. Still not sure what it was for, but they were grateful and went on their way. Following the beach we took a tour of the city with our taxi amigo Ali. Ali is the taxi driver that gave us a ride to our hotel from the airport. He loves Americans and gave us his card and told us he would be more than happy to take us around to see all the sites of Muscat. So we called him up. He took us to the Grand Mosque, the Sultan’s palace, old city Muscat, the Muscat Souk, and finished off the night letting us grab some McDonald’s. I took it back to the hotel and crashed while watching Harry Potter on our less than glamorous hotel room TV.

Friday morning arrangements were made to attend church. We attended the Oman branch -which had a booming total of 20 members in attendance-and 6 of us were out of town visitors. Church is held for only two hours. It was a nice humble church though. We were welcomed and treated as if we were members of their branch. Some even commented on how we were “normal” Utah Mormons. After church the branch got together at one of the member’s homes for lunch. We stayed and hung out all day until it was time to head to the airport that night.

We arrived safely back in Dubai at around two in the morning. It was funny because I felt relieved that I was “back home.” Oman definitely is more rugged and middle-eastern than the UAE is. It was nice to be back to some civilization.