DaKleins in Oman: June 2007

Off to See the Royals!

Fair warning . . .

this blog isn't one of my best. I am just writing this in the event anyone needs a blog fix . . .With the aftermath of the hurricane still in full swing, which is to say that the city is still at a complete standstill, I decided to go to London with Jason on his business trip. We actually stayed in Reading, which is a small town about a 30 to 45 minute train ride outside of London. It isn't the most exciting town, but my expectations were so low, based on what I had heard about it, that I was pleasantly surprised. They had a decent mall, so what more do you need! The one thing that did catch my eye was their "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" attitude regarding their night life. I am going to assume they have had one too many drunks urinating on the street, so they have installed pop-up street urinals! Yes, you heard me. They have these things that, during the day, are nicely tucked away in the ground, but at night, there they are for all to use in front of everyone. That makes for a classy town, huh? On the second day of my trip, I met up with a friend of a friend who lives near by. She had come to Oman to visit this friend of mine, and when she heard I was going to be in the neighborhood, she was more than eager to entertain me for the day. We went to a vineyard and did a wine tasting. (Did you know they made wine in England?!) Then, after the inevitable lunch at a local pub, we walked around her home town of Henley, about a 20 minute drive from Reading. The second picture is Henley Town Hall (just to prove that I was there). I spent the next couple of days shopping my heart out . . .I managed to fill an entire suitcase with new clothes, (can you tell we are deprived of decent shopping in Muscat?) . . . And in between shopping excursions, I took in a couple of shows. First, it was Spamalot. If you haven't seen it, it's Monty Python

and the Holy Grail with a couple extra songs. The show was pretty amusing, but I think I would have enjoyed it more with the original Broadway cast (Eric Idle, Tim Curry, David Hyde Pierce, Hank Azaria). In any event, it was well worth the money, but it didn't come anywhere near the next show I saw . . .Les Miserables, my all time favorite! Jason even joined me for this one, and even he was impressed with their performance. All in all, I am so glad that I went to the UK. It was so nice to get into some cooler weather for a little while!

Cyclone Gonu - The Aftermath

Well, we made it through the storm. Now, we just have to make it through the aftermath. Jason finally made it home after sitting in the Dubai airport for about 15 hours or so. Our electricity was off for about 24 hours, and the water didn't come on for another 24 hours after that. And the city is just one big mud pit. Our neighborhood faired extremely well, relatively speaking. I have attached pictures showing you the rest of the city, though . . .Mud, mud, mud! And if you look closely at the last picture . . .That is a 37 foot boat completely submerged! But never fear, our b

oat surviv

ed.

Cyclone Gonu

If you haven't heard yet, Oman just got its first hurricane in about 25 years. Go figure that I leave a hurricane prone area to move to the desert, and what happens? We get a hurricane. Oman isn't usually prepared for rain, so you can only imagine how people reacted to hearing of a hurricane. Massive panic. The lines in the grocery store were 3 hours long at certain points. Jason is in the UK, so he got to miss all of the fun. I didn't really feel like being alone with my cat, so Sammie and I moved into a friends house. The hurricane itself wasn't very bad. For you Houstonians reading this, I would say Hurricane Rita was worse. It rained all day, and there was some wind (less than 100 mph at the worst bit). The problem with a hurricane here, though, is the flooding. The ground doesn't absorb water at all, so any time it rains, we have massive flooding. This was no exception. Most of the shops were under water, and a good chunk of the suburbs were under water as well. We were high and dry the whole time, so we were never concerned. Now, I am just waiting to get my electricity back on. My friend's house has some electricity. (Don't even ask how you can have some!) I just went to check on our house, and all of the floors had about a millimeter of water on them from various leaks around the house. Nothing seemed to be damaged. Just a lot of cleanup to do. In the end, some people did have to be evacuated, and it is a bit of a mess in places. But Sammie and I faired just fine. Jason was supposed to get home this morning, so he got a flight to Dubai, which is about a 45 minute flight from here. From there, it is just a waiting game to see when the Muscat airport opens. The information at the time Jason landed was that it would be another 14 hours, but we'll see!