MP3 Books

I've just finished listening to the last few pages of Isprinsessan (The Ice Princess) on my iPod while going for an early morning run. The running track here in Nizwa is not lit up, unfortunately, but with the full moon lighting up the whole landscape I had no problems seeing the track.

Isprinsessan by Camilla Läckberg is one of two MP3 books I got from my sister for Christmas. I'm really getting into this audio book thing.  This was a great read (crime fiction) and I've listened to it while driving to Muscat several times and while driving to Dubai over the New Year - and now while running.

Do you ever listen to MP3/audio books?

Oops!! I just discovered that Isprinsessan has already been translated into English. Here's the hard cover version at amazon.co.uk: The Ice Princess. And here's the hard cover version at amazon.com: The Ice Princess. I say! After the success of Henning Mankell's novels, I guess Swedish crime fiction in translation has become quite a markatable genre.

Merry Christmas!

God Jul! ¡Feliz Navidad! Fröhliche Weihnachten!
Joyeux Noël كل سنة وأنتم طيبين

I bought this beautiful Nativity icon above while living in Egypt. Click here to listen to a "Christmas Carol" in Arabic, not very unlike what you might hear in my church here in Muscat - though we don't have the polished background singing.

We had a 70s roof party yesterday. It was great, one of the best parties in Nizwa this year!

The party was on Gail's roof and Matt had put together a great selection of 70s music. Just my kind of music.  Lots of us had dressed up for the occasion. Derek and his peace-loving family...

Linzy and Lucy - the flower-power duo.

Yoko Fatima Ono.

Joan Tahl Baez.

Funnily enough, most of the younger generation just sat and talked...

...until the first 80s song came on just before midnight. Then they suddenly all started dancing.

More pictures here.

Seeing the Nutcracker in Abu Dhabi was fantastic! Very graceful, very beautiful.

And the venue was also amazing: The Emirates Palace. I think this goes a bit beyond five stars. Wherever you looked, it was incredible. And gold was the colour of choice, I think.

And it was great to see my friends Daniel and Lorraine again. By the way, the ballet picture at the top was taken by Lorraine. Although I've got a fabulous camera, I have to admit that her brand-new Canon SLR beats mine.

For more pictures from the Nutcracker performance, click here.

Abu Dhabi

One thing that makes Abu Dhabi different from Nizwa is that you can have breakfast at Starbucks.  Gavin seems to like the croissants, but preferably on-the-go.

And, of course, that the beach is in the centre of town.  Here's Cien and Gavin enjoying a morning at the beach.

For more pictures, click here.

Dubai Beach

I drove on to Dubai and stayed at the Youth Hostel. At $30 for a bed in a dorm that sleeps five, that is as cheap and cheerful as it gets in Dubai.

Before sunrise, I drove to Mamzar beach, near the airport. They had this running track along the beach with a special running-friendly surface and markings telling you how far you had run - every 50 metres! The track is to the left of the street lights in this picture.

As I was finishing my 4 km run, the sun rose.

Mamzar beach is really nice, and not very crowded. And no Red Tide.

Like in Abu Dhabi, it's also a city beach.

For more pictures, click here.

Downtown Dubai

I've driven through the downtown area in Dubai several times but I've never stopped there. I've always wanted to walk among all these amazing skyscrapers so this time, I decided I'd have some tea somewhere in this area. It was really stressful driving along the service road next to the seven lane motorway, and I had almost given up finding a free car parking space when I finally saw an empty slot.

And what's more, it was next to Starbucks!

From where I was sitting and having my mid-morning tea (yes, you can actually get tea at Starbucks!), I could see Burj Dubai, the tallest building on earth - 688 meters.  By the way, I just saw an ad for a 2-bedroom flat on the 63rd floor for $3.8 million. Would you like to live on the 63rd floor in the world's tallest building? I'm not sure I would.

And with my x18 optical zoom plus x3 digital zoom, I got a pretty good picture of the top of the tower. They say it will be completed by the end of 2009.

For more pictures, click here.

Dubai Mall

When I heard that they finally opened Dubai Mall last month - allegedly the biggest mall in the world - I decided I had to take a look. There are 600 retail outlets open already and there will be 1,200 outlets when it's all done - including Galeries Lafayette and Bloomingdale's.

And the food court was almost as big as the brand-new Qurum City Centre Mall in Muscat! With a very arty outdoor seating area for the food court - water art, I suppose.

Is this Regent Street? Nope. Dubai.

And the biggest bookshop I've seen for a very long time: Kinokuniya. It was gigantic!

And Waitrose.

It was very difficult to get a feel of how big the place really was. At the same time, it was surprisingly easy to get in and out. I think it took me less than three minutes from reversing out of my car parking slot to being out on the main road again.

For more pictures from the Dubai Mall, click here.

OK, for the rest of the holidays, I'll just chill out here in Nizwa...

OK, this is the plan. I'm driving to Abu Dhabi early tomorrow morning (early means around 3.30 AM) so I can avoid those mile long queues by the Emirati border. Tomorrow is the first day of the holidays and traffic will be crazy.  But my thinking is that if I leave sometime around 3.30 AM, I'll be at the border by sunrise, which shouldn't be so bad.

So, why Abu Dhabi? Well, we were having this bonfire by our house last Wednesday evening - which we thought would be the beginning of the holidays but wasn't.

Anyway, some friends who used to live here in Nizwa - Daniel, Lorraine & kids - but who moved to Abu Dhabi in the summer suddenly showed up. After talking about good old times, they mentioned that they were keen on going to see a performance of The Nutcracker by the Russian Festival Ballet on Monday the 8th - a single-day performance in Abu Dhabi. So, we decided there and then to try to get some tickets. And while everybody else was enjoying the bonfire...

...and the kids met up again after haven't seen each other for quite a few months...

...Daniel and I went indoors to buy some tickets online. And that was it.  We got the tickets OK. Here's the link. I'm so excited! I've never seen the Nutcracker and I know it's one of those things one should do at least once in one's lifetime.

After having decided I'd go to Abu Dhabi, I felt much better about the holiday thing not working out as we had expected. I even felt I'd be up to checking the sea in Muscat the following day. So, what's this checking out the sea business? Well, we've had what they call the Red Tide in Muscat for the last four weeks. It's something to do with the layers of seawater being mixed up and red algae colouring the sea reddish brown and the fish dying.

Well, red is not entirely correct. It's more a shade of diarrhoea brown, like this...

...and the beach does not look very inviting.  In fact, there are lots of dead fish lying around and the sea stinks to high heaven. Sometimes you can even smell it far away from the beach.

Anyway, I hate this Red Tide business and each weekend for the last month, I've gone  down to Muscat to have a look at the sea - and each time it's the same.  Someone told me it's the worst it has been for eight years. There is very little information about what's happening in Omani papers, but I've seen some articles about it in the Emirati press, like here for example, since it's also affecting some areas of the UAE coast.

That said, with plans to go and see the Nutcracker in Abu Dhabi on Monday, I could even cope with yet another trip to Muscat to check out the beach - which was as bad as ever.

While in Muscat I also got this idea that I ought to invite everybody for some Christmas Glögg - i.e. some Swedish mulled wine - for St Nicholas Day. So I got all the ingredients, sent out a few text messages and that was it. Two days later - yesterday evening on St Nicholas Day - about 20 people showed up for Christmas Glögg.  Just like that.

This is what I love about the social scene in Nizwa. You send out a few texts and you have a party.

OK, time to pack.  I've got no firm plans for after the Nutcracker tomorrow. I'll hang out with Daniel and Lorraine for a while, maybe go to the beach - no Red Tide, please! - and then I might drive over to Dubai for a day or two.

Sounds like a good holiday plan to me.

The holiday announcement came just two hours before the start of the weekend.   Feels a bit strange to find out that you're actually not starting a 9-day holiday that day - as was widely expected - but you need to be back at work on Saturday for two days.  However, we're getting a 6-day holiday, which is not bad.  Here's the announcement as reported in one of the papers the following day:

Eid Al Adha holidays announced

ONA Thursday, December 04, 2008 12:18:08 AM Oman Time

MUSCAT — On the advent of blessed Eid Al Adha and as per the orders of His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said, Eid holidays for ministries, public authorities and other state administrative apparatuses, will start from Monday, December 8, and end on December 13, Saturday, according to a ministerial decision issued by Sayyid Ali bin Hamoud Al Busaidi, minister of Diwan of the Royal Court and chairman of the Civil Service Council.

What should I do over the holidays, now that I know when they are happening? I'll try to think of something this weekend.

It's Tuesday evening at 8.20 PM. As our weekend is Thursday-Friday, tomorrow is the last day before the weekend - which is nice.  It could also be the last day before a 9-day public holiday, celebrating Eid Al Adha. Or it might not. We just don't know!

According to Omani tradition, the Sultan announces all public holidays - usually just before they start. As the religious festival of Eid Al Adha starts on Tuesday 9 December, we might get the whole of next week off. Or we might not.

OK, I'll watch the News in English at 8.30 PM on Omani TV, to see if the Sultan has made any annoucements.

---*---

No holiday announcement in the news.  This means that when we finish work tomorrow at 3.00 PM, we won't know whether that's the start of the weekend or a week off. The UAE announced two days ago that 2-11 December is a public holiday over there so they are getting 10 days.

I can just see it happening. We get back to work Saturday morning, only to be told that we can go home again because we're getting the week off.

Work, work, work

It's the same as it was last semester. And the one before that. And the one before that. At about week 6 in the semester, I get swamped by work and I don't have time for much else.  But I shan't complain. I'm fine. My students are fine. And we're now at the time of year when the weather is really nice. It's about 28 C in the shade and 20 C at night. Lovely.

We had a few gorgeous sunsets last week. Here's a picture.

This year, the Haj holidays (when Muslims make the pilgrimage to Mekka) are in the second week of December, and the exam season actually starts 20 December.  However, Christmas Day is on a Thursday, which is the weekend here in Oman, so it's not too bad.

One very positive thing - in the middle of all the economic gloom - is that my monthly salary has increased several hundred pounds in value over the past few months because of the exchange rate between the £ and the $.    It's not that the dollar has strengthened; it's the pound that has dropped. But since most of my study loans are in pounds and in UK banks, I suddenly owe less money.

And I read in the paper today that the Omani economy is doing very well. The budget surplus stands at 1.7 billion Omani Rials ($4.4 billion). So, it seems I'm in the right place at the right time.

OK, must go now.

24

Doing 24 in 24 hours was fun! I thought I'd be the only one watching it for part of the day - but there were actually people there throughout.  We discovered quite quickly that each episode is a fair bit less than one hour with all the anticipated commercial breaks - so even though we took fairly long breaks over both breakfast and lunch, we still finished a couple of hours ahead of schedule.

Anyway, we kicked off right on time at 6.00 AM. I got an emergency plea from Derek at 5.53. Although he'd set out walking from his house at 4.30 AM(!), he told me he wouldn't make it for the 6.00 o'clock start. So in five minutes I had raced down the street, done this action-style U-turn in the middle of the road and picked him up.

With strong coffee and a major terror attack early in the first episode, people quickly perked up. By 7.00 AM the I-can't-believe-I'm-up-at-this-time-on-a-day-off had been replaced by quite a lively atmosphere.

By 9.00 it was time for a cooked breakfast.

The early morning gang included Heather and Marilyn.

Derek.

And Matt.

Maybe smelling the sausages and fried mushrooms from across the street, Wendy and Ahmed also joined us.

In good Swedish style we had coffee and cake around 11.00 AM.  By this time, Lucy and Bahrom had joined us. And I can understand that mid-morning coffee sounds more civilised than a crazy 6.00 o'clock start.

And before we knew it, we'd watched six episodes.

I got busy in the kitchen making lunch about an hour later.

After that, there was a bit of a lull - though Matt is actually also watching - just to the left of my new tripod.  With only four of us this was the lowest viewing attendance for the whole 24 hours.

By mid-afternoon, there was a definite tendency towards napping while watching.

After sunset, people got going ordering take-away TV dinners. By this time, Tahl had joined us - as well as Anna, Alexis and Lorenzo.

This turned out to be peak viewing time for 24 - with the maximum number for the day = 10 people. Even though I'm in this picture, using the delay mechanism on my camera, only one of Matt's knees is visible at the bottom left of this picture - I need a 180 degree wide angle lens.

Our youngest viewer was Lorenzo - though I think he was more interested in playing with his cars and chatting to people than watching 24.

The liveliest viewer was definitely Matt. He started telling corny Jack Bauer jokes before 7.00 AM and he never stopped ("Apple pays Jack Bower 99 cents every time he listens to a song.")

Around midnight, Jeremy and Chris arrived. It was not easy summarising the 16 or 17 episodes they had missed. I don't think anybody really tried.  It was more along the lines of "Is this a good guy?" - "Yes!"

In the small hours, the attention span varied a bit.

But no-one was asleep when the aerial attack of the oil platform got going in the last episode.

Which brought the plot to a successful resolution - I hope I'm not giving too much away if you haven't seen Season 6.

And even if we felt a bit dazed by 05:40 (virtual time) and nearly 24 hours of non-stop viewing...

...there were still surprises.

I think 24 is a brilliant series, and by the turnout - 15 people all in all, spread over the day - I think people here agree with me. BTW, Matt kept telling Jack Bauer jokes till the very end - even sending them as texts after we'd finished.

24 in 24 Hours

The dates for the Eid Holidays have just been announced here in Oman and we've worked our last day at college.  

As we are still in Ramadan and people are fasting - the Eid celebrations following Ramadan will start either on Wednesday or Thursday - we've got these in-between days tomorrow, Tuesday, and possibly Wednesday, which are not part of the Eid festivities but still are days off - and which are the busiest shopping days in the whole year here in the Gulf. It will be absolute chaos out there tomorrow.

So, I thought this would be a perfect day for doing something I've wanted to do for long time: watching 24 episodes of 24 in 24 hours - in real time, starting the DVD on the hour of the first episode. I've handed out this invitation to my friends:

As it's Season 6, we're kicking off at 6.00 am with the first episode.  I've told people I'll do a cooked breakfast for anyone turning up in the morning.

I'm ready - let's see how many people turn up.