Our Travels

I watched Obama's inaugaration with so much enthusiasm that I'm sure I was an African slave in the US in my past life. I had tears in my eyes as I watched history unravel before my eyes. And I feel that I was in tune with what all those hopeful people standing in the cold were feeling and listening to Obama's speech I believed in that change and have faith that changes are on the way. 'Hope over fear' was an important line in his speech. It was amazing to flick from CNN to Sky to BBC and find that all the commentators were so positive with their comments. Another thing I found interesting about the inaugaration was having an opening and a closing prayer. I don't know if it's always been like that but it carried on to the lunches the following day which were opened with a prayer. This is normal in Samoa where nothing is done without a blessing so maybe this is one of Obama's changes to put God back in the "In God we trust" logo of theirs. Great...

And so the celebrations continue late into the night here in Oman. We walked down to the road in front of our building to find it in chaos as people are celebrating on the roads. People are sitting on their cars and on the windows hanging out with flags and all dressed in their colours to celebrate their win tonight. I hate to think of the accident toll tonight due to the excitement. There are also children with their heads out the windows. What's funny is all this is live on TV as they cover all around the country and their celebrations on the roads. The cars are still moving on the highway and some people are dancing on the streets. People are just elated. The top scorer, best goalie and best player got apartments in developments around the country. The reporters are on the highway stopping cars and interviewing random people driving past. It's all in Arabic but the pride shining through need no translation as they praise their team and his majesty. Congratulations Oman. Two ...

I'm watching the Oman vs Saudi final on TV. It's being held at the local stadium near us so we can hear the cheering. This is a football loving nation and wow I've never seen such patriotism in the way the Omanis are supporting their team. For this occasion people are allowed to decorate their cars with the Oman colours. So the cars on the roads are quite colourful, some with stickers stuck all over their cars of the Oman flag colours and others bear the team posters. The stadium is very colourful just like anywhere else with the team colours in the crowd. There are also lots of women in the crowd and interesting also they are wearing the team colours as scarves and others with the wigs even but still manage to be conservative.It's quite something. It's great that the women are very involved as well. Right now they're going on to a shoot out as it's full time now and no score on the board. Ali Al Habsi is the local hero. He's the goalie for Oman and also...

It's long overdue that I update my blog. We did a lot since my last entry. Hubby was quite busy on the phones when we got back from the desert to find us a place to stay in Salalah. We had decided to go to Salalah for New Year's plus we hadn't been there before. So hubby found a villa at the Crowne Plaza with 3 bedrooms for a very good price that we started packing right away for our trip the very next day. Tau, his nana and I were to fly down the following afternoon while hubby, his dad and the kids were to drive the 1000kms down early the next morning. We landed in Salalah at about 2pm and what a sight it was. It was very green it was just like being back home. I was so surprised and immediately warmed to the place. Moreover the drive from the airport was like that from Faleolo airport to Satapuala with rows after rows of coconuts trees on both sides of the road. We checked in and as I was so tired we just went to the villa relaxed and tried to have a nap. Didn't succ...