I've been keeping myself busy with work, mostly, but also have been trying to enjoy myself now and then. I've been spending evenings hanging out with friends, going out to eat or cooking, and playing Ultimate and soccer (just once a week for each unfortunately). Weekends, though, I've had better success at seeing other parts besides the school grounds.
Last weekend was the highlight that I'll write about in this email: I was supposed to go camping with some friends, but we decided last-minute to postpone our adventure and instead stay around home. This worked out in my favor, because I was then able to do some exciting things around Muscat. On Thursday I went with Zach and Jeff to the Grand Mosque. It was perhaps the most beautifully intricate yet simple architecture I've seen. The Mosque is home to the world's largest rug, and housed some pretty stunning chandeliers as well.
The walls are stone/concrete and have Arabic writing or art covering them - inside and out. The entire building is stone, which keeps it cool, yet inside the men's and women's sections air conditioned coolness fills the rooms. To enter the prayer rooms, everyone must remove their shoes. As non-muslim tourists, we are only able to visit the mosque on Thursdays between 8 and 11am. During the tourist hours, the prayer room floors have a cloth sheet/fabric isle that designates where we are allowed to walk. Typically, men and women must enter the mosque from different doorways, so as to avoid interacting with each other, then enter designated prayer rooms. 
As a tourist, though, the three of us got to see both areas. The men's prayer room is quite huge, decorated with chandeliers and mosaics, and comes complete with an intense-looking sound system. The women's room, on the other hand, was about 1/6 the size, with low-ceilings, minimal artwork, more basic lighting and two flat-screen TVs where the women could (I assume) watch the prayers being said in the other room. Everything was, of course, designed so that the people would be praying toward Mecca. I thought it was all stunning and gorgeous. I had to cover my entire body - minus my face, feet and hands - to be able to enter. 
The boys, too, had to wear long sleeves and long pants. There were a couple of times we had to remind ourselves that we couldn't touch each other while taking pictures. The trip was great, but (again) made me conscious of the fact that I am female in a male-dominated culture.After the mosque, we stopped at Dunkin' Donuts where the boys got donuts and I found a restroom, and then we made our way back home. At home, Zach and I hung out until it was time to head upstairs to Courtney's apartment (another teacher here) where we made pancakes and ate them with chocolate syrup and strawberry jelly. :)
It was the first time I've had pancakes since I've been here, and the first time I've had pancakes with chocolate syrup on them. Mmmm! We were joined by Courtney's friend, Greg, who had been completing his Fulbright Scholarship program in Yemen and then in Oman. He has amazing stories to tell about Yemen and the adventures he had there!! He does a lot of adventure leading, which happened to be what he would be doing with the three of us that day.We packed our climbing shoes (well, I'm actually waiting for my sister to bring mine in LESS THAN A MONTH!!!, so I borrowed Greg's) and our snorkel equipment and headed to a beach right near Muscat. From there, we hired a fisherman for 2 hours to take us to a nearby island that has some climbing routes on the rocks leaning over the ocean.
The tide was low enough that the fisherman had to help Courtney, Zach and I onto the initial ledge from his boat whereas Greg could just climb up from the water. Once on the ledge, we traversed the rock wall several times (for about one hour) until our arms were too weak to even get ourselves back into the boat without help. The climbing was great! There were a variety of decent handholds, but it was challenging for me to reach them all (yes, I'm short). Luckily, when I got tired (or even when I was getting-close-to-tired) I could just let go of the wall and fall into the ocean for a refreshing swim!! :) What a great morning!!
When we could no longer use our arms productively on the rocks, we asked the fisherman to bring us back to shore. We paid him, said goodbye, and got in the car. On our route back to Muscat, we decided going in to work on the weekend was overrated and instead we made the spontaneous decision to turn back around and head toward the town of Seefa. Seefa is the town that Zach, Lydia and I attempted to visit the weekend before, but failed to find. Luckily, Greg knew exactly where we were going. It turns out Seefa consists of about 5 fishermen's huts in a little cove in the ocean. The drive to get there was great!
There were islands all along the coast and the drive went up and down the mountain slopes. We got to Seefa and took turns snorkeling and swimming along the coast. While I was snorkeling I saw a sting ray!After snorkeling we threw a Frisbee around for another 20 or 30 minutes, then packed up and headed back into Muscat. We made it just in time to catch the end of the sunset from Zach's rooftop, and then headed to Jeff's house, picking up shwarmas and falafel sandwiches along the way for dinner, to watch 5 episodes of Lost. :) What a great day!!!
Then, Friday morning I spent the day being somewhat productive: I went grocery shopping (it's great, at one of the supermarkets, there are men that wash your car in the parking lot while you're in shopping), straightened my house a bit, then headed to school to grade papers. It's a little too convenient that work is a 7 minute walk from my apartment. At 2pm I attended the high school musical: Back to the 80's. The show was great! And the finale was "Time of my Life" - you know? the finale of Dirty Dancing. Ha! All the talk of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and hearing songs like Video Killed the Radio Star brought back memories.
My school will be starting construction this winter on a new section of the school. Next year, we are supposed to have a completely new middle school building, a new regulation-size soccer field, a track, a weight room, a performance hall and who knows what else. I'm excited to see the musical next year in the new performance hall!
Anyway, I'm up way past my bedtime finishing this email. I hope you're all wonderful and cozy as the temperatures start dropping. I always love hearing from everyone, so please do write a little note letting me know how things are going! And in the meantime, have a wonderful Thanksgiving (we have a lot to be thankful this year, now that we have a new PRESIDENT!!!!!), and don't forget to have more fun!
:)sara
