In Paris!

The hostel is really cute, they have a cat. And a tiny courtyard. I had to take a nap after I got here, but I'm feeling better now. I am going to walk to Sacre Coeur now. My computer is still being dodgey, so I'm posting via my phone. Tomorrow I'll go see super touristy things like the Eiffel tower and champs d'elysees. I'm thinking of trying to take a side trip, any suggestions?

I had a decent time in muscat. It was so nice to work with real animals again, and continues to reaffirm that I am on the right career path.

This camel is only special as it is the first one I saw here, on a lot with one other, plus some goats and chickens. As soon as you get out of the city goats are a common sight, often grazing within a few yards of the highway.

Anyway, I finally met some people here and went to the beach yesterday with a couple of girls. We went to the Oman dive center, as it's a pay to enter beach, so no one stares at girls in bikinis, or anything else.

This rocky outcropping looks a lot like coral up close.

Today I drove to see Wadi Tiwi and Wadi Shabs. I knew I wouldn't be able to see very much of them because 1) They were probably overflowing during Phet and might still be full, and 2) I am driving a sedan, and eventually the road into Wadi Tiwi is only passable to 4WDs. Well, I couldn't even get close enough to look into Shabs at it's mouth since the roadways had been washed away approaching it, and the road up Tiwi needed 4WD to cross a washed out area right at the mouth.I did get to go for a little walk there, in the sweltering heat, and even just that first bit is beautiful. 

Going fishing?

The washed out road

Sand, or rock, bar where the wadi empties into the gulf

Maybe it was worth the drive after all...

World cup, fattoush, and the English language

I'm watching Spain's first game at the home where I am staying, but since the family is Croatian, the station is Croatian, and it's even harder to pay attention to football broadcast in a completely foreign language. And I say complete, because I think da means yes in Croatian same as Russian, but I'm not sure.

We had a sick peacock in today from the Iranian embassy. Afterwards they were joking to offer me up to be kidnapped, as I'm an American.I said I was more likely to have been kidnapped in Oakland than here. Also the dog in for castration was absolutely vicious, breaking one rabies pole and then breaking on of his own teeth on the other just to catch him to give him sedation. The owner's didn't believe it, of course. Otherwise it was a very slow day and I left a bit early.

I finally ate from an Arabian restaurant here, called Tarboosh, and it was, of course, awesome. I had a mixed grill, plus hummus and fattoush salad. I love the hummus here, it is like I was taught to make it, lots of tahini, with noe of the flavor of unknown origin that hummus has in the States. But the fattoush salad was the best. It's lettuce, tomato and cucumber in an herbed vinaigrette, topped with deep fried bits of pita. Yum. I got another from the Supermarket today at lunch, which was not as good, as there was no dressing and the pita wasn't as fresh, of course, but it was only 275 baisa, which is about 65 cents.

Which brings me to English. Laura, one of the girls at the clinic from the U.K. laughs every time I say grocery store instead of supermarket, and today I found out they say plait (pronounced platt) instead of braid, but it's still a French plait. I've been spectacularly remembering to say football instead of soccer, which is good because they love to make fun of Americans. But then, so do I.

This is the clinic.

Momma cat and 7 babies came in, Mom leaves, 7 babies sleeping in a pile.

Synchronized sleeping :)

This poor kitty hid in a car engine during the storm last week, car was turned on, then took 8 days to catch the cat. On front left paw, the ends of p2 are exposed on 3rd and 4th digits, p3 is gone. Also radius is exposed, abscesses on base of tail, front paw, and L hock. BUT, it's eating fine. Wild.

Luna waiting for her mum.

Nizwa Friday market

I drove to Nizwa Friday morning. Nizwa is about 150 km inland and was the capital when Portugal occupied the coastal areas. Fridays there is a livestock market, goats and cows, where the owners lead the animals around a small ring and if you want to buy you throw a small rock at the animal and then haggle, haggle, and haggle some more. Otherwise it is like a farmer's market, with a produce souk, meat souk, and craft souk. I would have bought something, but all the non-perishables were just made in China crap. It was an interesting market to see though. There is a wadi (big dry riverbed that fills up during flash floods) just next to the market where most everyone parks, though I stuck to street parking and am glad for it, what a mess of traffic. I drove around a neighborhood that was like a labyrinth, at one point passing under an arch from an old fort that was only a foot or so wider than my car.

The Wadi

There were also 2 or 3 goats in the back of that pickup.

As usual, old is mixed with new.

The market dies down around 9 a.m. because it's so damn hot. I think the Arabs have it right covering up, which the men do also, with white robes down to the ankles and wrists and hats called dishdash I think, because I have not had even a bit of sunburn and have not had to use hardly any sunscreen.

So I was back in Muscat by 11, stopped by the BIG mall, found a few Arabic cookbooks at Border's, and went back to the house I am staying at. I must admit I am a bit bored. I cooked a goat & fava bean stew last night that turned out fairly well, and finished the first sleeve for the cardigan I am working on.

Muttrah pictures

I drove down to Muttrah today, the harbor area where cruise ships stop, and the large souk (market) but it is not open midday as it was quite hot. But not any hotter than when we would walk to work in St. Thomas.

Here is an ancient castle just above the modern town.

Also ventured to a park where no one was...

One million pictures

Cliff hotels with muddy water after the storm

Hilltop view and I think that's a private residence.

Very loud bird.

Rain and more rain.

Flooded wadi just past the road, closeup on the right.

Some damage to the beach.

I would buy this art if only I had an extra $1500 around.

Pakistani mangoes are the color of orange sherbet on the inside

also, Indian junk food is the best junk food. They have these bite sized curry flavored fried wheat biscuits that I might actually be willing to kill for. Also I had a can of rose milk today and bought some goat stew meat that I am planning to cook in lebanese spiced fava bean mixture. The can says secret recipe, so I'm sure it will be good.

Things I want now but didn't know any better about before: pod espresso machine, the new Motorola android phone, a maid.

I just found out that the luggage weight restriction to fly into Europe is 20 kilos. I don't know if that includes carry-ons, but I may have to ditch the suitcase I have now and maybe some of the work clothes I brought.

titles are for suckers

I was going to post a bunch of pictures, but I'm not on my computer, so maybe tomorrow. I am finally out of the hotel and staying with one of the vets, Natalie. She has a very sweet chocolate lab and a kitty. It's really nice to hang out with a dog outside of the clinic setting. One of the clinic's cats got adopted, so of course there was one immediately brought in needing fostering and adoption, maybe two weeks old.

I've decided that when I grow up I want to be an expat, and live in a bunch of places, all of which adhere to the European standard of 6 weeks vacation per year. Americans are insane, working million hour work weeks 51 weeks a year.

Ok, more clinic differences: all vaccines are given yearly here. A lot of the business is in import and export.
Similarities: everyone complains about the boss. Wussy people have bad dogs who think they are in charge (difference being that the vet here actually said the words "It's your fault.").

One of the nurses brought in a baby bird that she found at the British School, a yellow vented bulbul. They eat fruit and we all had fun feeding the bird tiny bits of melon and bananas.

I don't think I will be able to on this trip, but I really want to visit Salalah in the South of Oman, where there is a little more rain.

Electricity is my friend.

We finally got power back at the clinic and hotel after about 48 hours. I think I sweat at least 10 gallons during that time. I had to go to a mall yesterday just to cool down, well, also to pick up a few groceries, but mostly for the AC. At this particular mall, of which there are many here, there is an H&M, Starbucks, and Marble Slab Ice Cream for familiar shops.

The people here are very friendly, and from all over: Germany, UK, India, Houston, Croatia, etc. The cats, however, are for the most part wild and not friendly at all. There's a massive stray cat problem here. Just today at least 5 clients asked to leave the strays they brought in, but the clinic is already full of stray cats, probably 20 rescued cats on the premises. Also, instead of barn cats, outside but homed kitties are called garden cats.

The clinic is in a different world from what I am used to. Because of difficulty with delivery, they order medicine 6 months ahead, but usually cannot order any in the summer as it comes by auto from Dubai and will be ruined in the heat waiting several hours at the border. They have no gas anesthesia, just injectable, and no gowns/caps/masks for at least the basic surgeries. They did stay open while the power was out, an impressive feat in the heat. Vaccines were kept on icepacks, but no xrays or bloodwork without power.

Much more to come, but didn't sleep well last night and need to crash.

Tropical Cyclone Phet

Ok, bad weather following me around is getting a little out of control. Oman is at warning level orange for tropical cyclone Phet, a category 4 storm. Muscat got hit really hard back in '07, so even though the storm is heading for the East coast, and will probably just cause some rain here, people are a bit panicky, stocking up on bottled water, and hunkering down for the weekend (which is Thursday afternoon and Friday here). The problem is that since it's such a desert, any rain causes flash floods, and locals are horrible drivers in the rain, so if it rains, everyone just stays home to avoid car accidents.


It turns out Elke put me in this hotel (Hilde's B&B) because the small rooms at the clinic will flood if there's a big storm. Her house is scheduled for demolition, and although they may not need to move for a few weeks, the air conditioning has been turned off, which is a big problem here. So it looks like after the storm passes I will be staying in the apartment of one of the clinic's employees while she is on holiday and look after her cats.


Things are very relaxed at the clinic, everyone wears sandals, and when there's nothing to do because everyone is hiding at home from the storm, the girls stand around chatting. Though I suppose that doesn't include the kennel attendants, who always have the most to do.


I have a car to drive here, and went to the supermarket. There's actually a lot of vegetarian foods here because of the large Indian population. The Arabs speak Arabic to each other, the Indians Hindi, the Africans Swahili, but everyone speaks English and the people are very friendly. 

Holy long trip!

I'm here! And I didn't get lost once along the way! Which is amazing since O'Hare is big enough to be it's own country. New favorite airline: Swiss. Free headsets, movies, wine, and the best food I've ever had on an airplane. Oh, and they give you chocolates, and the flight attendants all speak English, German, French, and I definitely heard one talking in Spanish as well. The flight path from Zurich to Dubai clearly skirted around Iraq, and Dubai reminded me (from above) of Vegas, although I suppose there are fewer hookers.

And then I get here, no problems with visas or customs, after which all my anxiety melted away into excitement. Plus the clinic gave me a mobile phone to use here, and a studio apartment to stay in, with a terrace and a pool. It's definitely showing a little age, but seriously who cares.And yes, that is a bidet. Well, time to shower and try to sleep.

Waiting at the airport.

So it turns out that my new friend Jeannie has known the owner of the bar with the martini (North Bar) since she was in 5th grade, and her husband Craig worked on building the new Predators of the Serengeti exhibit at the zoo. So if you read yesterday's post, umm, weird coincidence.

I'm waiting at PDX, and I just finally got a bit nervous. And had an asthma attack, which is really weird, but I put my inhaler in my carry-on, so I didn't die. I also got to pack 3 extra shoes in my carry-on to keep my luggage under the weight limit.

My total travel time is just about 24 hours, stopping in Chicago, Zurich, and Dubai along the way.

Flying out tomorrow!

Rachel and I had a really fun time in Portland. We went to the zoo, which is really a great zoo, especially compared to the one in San Francisco. My favorites were the river otters, all curled up sleeping they looked a lot like kitties. I think Rachel really identified with the naked mole rats, with their poor visual acuity.

Then stripperaoke (sp?), and random bar hopped to a couple of bars. I had a dirty serrano martini (actually two) that was probably the best martini ever. I think I might wander back down Hawthorne and peak into some more shops. I really like Portland.

Wish me luck! I'm checking in online right now.