M&B in the ME

B and I went to Oman for the weekend towards the end of February with the intention of resetting my visa clock (With a tourist visa, I'm supposed to leave the country and re-enter every 30 days... or so I thought). However, once we got to the border, we found out that a recent change to the tourist visa schedule/policies meant that I was actually there illegally and should have visited Oman mucccch sooner. Luckily, the penalty was just a fine (although it wasn't cheap!) and everything was fixed pretty easily. Once we were in Oman, we traveled to the Khasab area (actually at the top of the UAE, surrounded by the UAE and separated from the rest of Oman). It's known as the Norway of the Middle East because of its fjords. We decided to go there to check out some dive shops because we'd heard the diving was good in the area. Since we only stayed for about a day and a half, we didn't go diving, we just scoped everything out and went to a museum of an old fort/castle (which actually has some interesting historical exhibits inside), drove around the small city, and then went to the beach. Once at the beach, a group of Omani guys who were camping at the beach invited us to sit down for what I thought was a typical Omani tea -- complete with a nice rug, a beachside fire to heat up the tea, etc. However, in another unexpected twist, we were instead offered vodka and OJ... and hilarity ensued.

Also -- I forgot to post some pictures of our apartment/neighborhood so you can see what it looks like since many have asked. We decided on the downtown area so we'd be closer to the Corniche (the boardwalk/beach area) and to the restaurants/activities of downtown. After many trips to Ikea/the mall, one makeshift moving company (with men in sandals with no tools, no trolley, and no official moving truck), lots of phone conversations with appliance store delivery and internet provider guys, we finally got everything settled into our apartment at the end of February. Our neighborhood has pretty much everything we need -- There is a nice little fruit/vegetable stand next to our apartment, a laundromat, a really fantastic Lebanese/shawarma place, a knafeh/middle eastern dessert place, and a baskin robbins. What more could you want?

Now, I am headed to Morocco for March/April to meet/visit B's family and B is in Serbia and probably Jordan for work. At the end of April, B's immediate family and I will meet B in Malaysia for a little reunion/vacation at the end of April. Let's hope no one gets lost on this trip ;)

Here are some pictures from Khasab castle (and no, the lifesize dolls in the displays were not creepy at all):

Some pictures from around town in Khasab, Oman:

Some pictures from the beach in Khasab:

Omani hospitality

Pictures from our drive back from Khasab, Oman to Abu Dhabi, UAE:

desert highway

glimpse of dubai (with the tallest bldg being the Burj khalifa) from highway

And some pictures from Abu Dhabi/our apartment:

Arabian nights! (view from apt. at night)

Arabian days (view during day)

B's building - leaning tower of Abu

Canada in Abu dhabi

dessert from bakery across the street from apt.

our apt. building (right)

bedroom

kitchen

living room

That's all for now. :)

Hi everyone,

I decided that instead of emailing a bunch of pictures to 20+ emails or making grandma sign up for facebook, I will just post on this blog. B has posted these all on facebook, too, but I figured you'd want a little more explanation ;)

I'll try to share pictures of our adventures in the Middle East, North Africa and wherever else we end up visiting. However, this time, I'm making no promises that I'll update it regularly. I could be bribed with nice beer, chocolate or dinner, however. ;)

First post --- #Yallah Habibi

Yallah means (roughly) "let's go my dear/baby/sweetheart/buddy" in Arabic... although it has many other uses, too. We heard it a lot in Jordan and I got to like it a lot :)

So.... to give an quick update about what we've been doing since September, here we go baby:

September - December: M finishes up in Haiti ; B starts working in Abu Dhabi, UAE. But, he is located almost exclusively in Jordan for work during this time.

December: M joins B in Abu Dhabi. We head to Dubai for NYE and to explore.

January: We head back to Jordan together for 2.5 weeks and explore (Jerash, Petra, Amman). Then back to Abu Dhabi to look for an apartment.

Jan - present (mid-Feb) - We move into apartment and get a car and finally get established in Abu Dhabi, UAE after a month (for M) and several months (for B) of living in hotels and out of suitcases!

Next steps: Heading to Oman for a visa run (my tourist visa only has 30 days so i have to leave the country and come back each 30 days until/if I get a residency visa for UAE).

Now, for the only part you're interested in... the photos and the adventures. Here is a quick photo update of what we've been up to in each of the cities (Note: we haven't explored Abu Dhabi much because we've been so busy getting settled in, so no Abu Dhabi pics besides our apartment):

Stop #1 -- Dubai for NYE.

We went to Dubai for a few days to see the fireworks at the Burj Khalifa (the world's tallest tower). We also explored the Dubai mall -- which is Yuuuuuuge (one of the top 20 in the world maybe? i didn't fact check that though). The mall was super modern, super huge and super fancy. It includes an artificial waterfall, an ice rink, a movie theatre, a fancy Dubai version of a "souq" (a typical Arab marketplace), an aquarium (you can even scuba dive in the aquarium! although we did not), a kid's amusement park (with the world's tallest slide -- i think?) and hundreds and hundreds of stores including all of the top American/Canadian brands and then also some European/other brands, including all of the fashion/luxury brands (like Gucci, Prada, Louis Vuitton, Louboutin, etc.). We ate at a Cheesecake factory in the mall and had a snack at Tim Hortons (Canadian coffee/donut place) in order to get into the international mood ;) And, we rang in New Year's Eve watching maniacs (i mean, fireworks professionals) light hundreds of fireworks off of the world's tallest building. We opted to hang out on the side walk to watch the show instead of paying for the $2000/plate dinner (without alcohol ... because.. no alcohol in the Dubai mall... at least not that we could find). We figured we could make better use of that money ;) Then, after the mall, we went driving around a bit to explore Dubai -- (see skyline pics and desert pic). In true Dubai fashion, we saw not 1, not 2, but 5 lamborginis (spelling?) parked next to each other outside of a fancy hotel on the boardwalk. We also tried some delicious and dirt cheap Pakastani food from a restaurant near our hotel :)

Stop #2 - Amman, Jordan

B worked and M enjoyed the fancy hotel and we explored Amman together in the evenings and weekends. The people were incredibly friendly and the food was DELICIOUS. One night, we took a cooking class to learn how to cook Jordanian food. I particularly enjoyed the "mezze" -- which is basically the equivalent of "tapas" or a collection of appetizers. It's usually some combination of hummus, baba ganoush (dip of eggplant and veggies), mouttabal (roasted eggplant dip), galayet (roasted tomato dip), pita bread, olives, olive oil, etc.

Stop #3 - Jerash, Jordan

During one of our weekends, we drove about 45 minutes outside of Jordan to see Jerash, which is an ancient Greco-Roman city. It reminded us of our visit to the Roman Forum in Rome :) It was really impressive! Afterwards, we (obviously) found some delicious food in the town next door to the ruins -- chicken shawarma (not pictured because I was so excited and we inhaled it so rapidly in the car) and knafeh ... both heavenly. Knafeh is a typical jordanian dessert which involves melting a middle eastern cheese (a kind of squeaky, but meltable one) and topping it with some sort of crushed pastry and pistachios and then topping all of that with a sweet syrup. It's the perfect salty/sweet dessert combo! We also got to see a little of the countryside in Jordan and B used his negotiation skills to buy some freshly picked oranges and some pomegranates off of the roadside.

Athena's temple

Amphitheater #1

Amphitheater #1 - Very high up!!

somewhere in the "city" - Jerash

Entrance to Jerash

Jerash's main plaza and main "road"

close-up of main plaza/road

Really neat old church w/ mosaic tiles!

Amphitheater #2

Knafeh

world's oldest machine (apparently) - a mill

buying roadside pomegranates

Stop #3 - Petra/Wadi Musa

On our next free weekend, we went to Petra. It has been on our bucket list for awhile and we were so excited to finally see it. Many people recognize Petra because one of its buildings (The Treasury) was featured in an Indiana Jones movie. However, Petra is actually a HUGE ancient Nabatean city which served as an important part of the trading route for spices, oils, perfumes, etc. Almost the entire city is carved INTO the stone in the desert, making it very unique and very impressive! It's located in the middle of the Jordanian desert and it's one of the "7 Wonders of the World". The town next to Petra is called "Wadi Musa" and it is the place where Moses supposedly found water after striking a rock. Back in the days of Petra, this is likely water source that was used. They piped this water over many miles in order to sustain life at Petra, an impressive hydro-engineering feat for that time! Shout out to Cindi for gifting me the world's most comfortable, warm and aggressively colorful leggings featured in all of the pictures which were perfect for all the hiking we did and made it very easy for B to find me when I wandered alone. It actually gets pretty chilly in the desert in the winter! Although, after 8 hours of hiking around Petra, we warmed up!