It’s been just over a month and we’re about as settled as you can be with 10% of your stuff. We have dutifully leapt through all government approved flaming hoops and now have the proper permits, visas, and shiny collar tags. (Full Disclosure: I made one of those up.) The process may have been less obnoxious than in Qatar but then again that was before I had any idea about what life in a foreign country is like. In Doha the visa process was surprising/shocking to me because, well, everything was foreign and strange and time consuming. It didn’t seem that way here, but maybe I’m just broken-in…?
Life updates: Importantly, Adam is crawling a mere 2 weeks after he started sitting. Probably this means he will walk in 4 weeks and fly in 6. (That will be so convenient!) He is relishing movement and a chance to crawl to exciting new locations and drool on them. Wynne isn’t so keen on this new development as her toys are a lot more accessible to him now.
Wynne has discovered she can get out of bed. At 7 a.m., after we had a lousy night of sleep, Wynne wandered in to our room, opened the curtains and said, "You awake?" I said "No, Mommy's sleeping". She then closed the curtains and left. Steve was downstairs and heard her come to the baby gate on the 2nd floor and say “Hi Daddy!” A bit later Steve came in and opened the drapes. Discussing this incident later, we’d each assumed the other had gotten her out of bed. Nope.
Life here seems a lot more like expat life as we expected before we moved to Doha. We interact with Omanis regularly. We went to a local park this weekend and were the only expats there. Wynne managed to make friends with some of the local children - language barrier was not a problem! They tried to give her a toy phone and they were helping her up the stairs of the slide. We are certainly in the minority here. We go to restaurants that aren’t in hotels (as opposed to Qatar where if you tried that too much you might get served cat). We’ve only eaten in two hotel restaurant since we moved out of the Radisson.
Don’t get me wrong, there are certainly many things here that are like Qatar. The same sort of grocery conundrums - you can get most things in one store, but still have to go to a more expensive store to find “western” things like pork (which has a 100% tax on it), sun dried tomatoes,.mexican food, and every type of British sauce ever made. I can’t find applesauce anywhere annoyingly. We get great (and inexpensive) olives, cheese, and hummus of course. Surprisingly, a lot of produce is locally grown and I can get bell peppers for less than $1 each!
We’ve enjoyed our time here. We enjoy having little, casual restaurants to go to (where Wynne and Adam are doted on). We have a beach two minutes from the house and that’s been fun. The traffic is nowhere near as horrendous in Doha (in terms of quantity of cars or reckless drivers). The people are friendlier. I work with mostly Omanis and a few expats.
We’re car shopping again (well, Steve is- I’m not that into it). The company reimbursed us to buy rugs for the house. That trip was surprising; in 30 minutes Steve and I picked out 4 rugs for the house and had not one heated rug discussion (We often find home decorating decisions difficult- he’s not psychic and is too detailed oriented for me).
Our newly reupholstered sofas came back yesterday. Unfortunately, there was clearly a communication error and we’re not thrilled with the results. When I asked them to cover the sofa pillows in a different fabric, they thought I wanted the sofa cushions covered in a different fabric. That’s the style here, but we would describe the couches as “Godawful”. Our friends saw the couches being delivered and the only thing they said was “nice that they match the drapes”.
Since hardly anyone drinks the tap water, we ordered an Ozarka style dispenser which was delivered the other day. It leaks. We also have a gas stove with only 3 out of 4 burners working and each burner works at a different temperature setting. So you move your pots and pans around a lot. They’ve been mum on whether it will get fixed. And our TVs and microwave were certainly manufactured before me. The microwave had only Chinese lettering so we just went ahead and bought a new one. The TVs are being replaced (currently, one makes it look like everything is re-runs of the incredible hulk).
We now have a live-in maid named Fely but she only works for us part time now. In June, she’ll move in with us. With two tater tots, cleaning up after us is a full time job. Plus, we plan to use her to be a nanny when Steve starts working as she has lots of experience with little ones.
We also bought Wynne some new toys- Woody and Buzz dolls from the movie Toy Story. She loves them. Probably more than her parents at this point.
Oh, and fun find of the week comes from French grocer Carrefour: Lemon and black pepper flavored Tang.
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