So, it's been less than 24 hours since we landed in Muscat, and I'm already loving it. Last night was one of the most humid - my hands were nearly wet from being outside for ten minutes. Apparently the average daily high is 115F... thank goodness I was inside most of the day today.
Muscat is about 4km wide and 45km long, just like any beach town in America. We are staying in Midan Hotel, which is around 800m the coast (I apologize for the metric system - it's what the rest of the world insists on running by). I have three sweet-as-can-be roommates: Lili who goes to Kenyon College, Candace who will start grad school at Columbia in the Fall, and Zan (short for Alexandra) Pomona College. We share what is basically an apartment, which is so nice, way more than I would have ever expected. It's my first time to have a kitchen in college, after every year on campus!
We haven't had too much interaction with actual Omanis, but Oman is such a huge change from Cairo last summer. Cairo=New York; Muscat=Santa Barbara. It is absolutely beautiful, very clean, and much better off than its other Middle Eastern counterparts.
I had my first Omani hypermarket experience tonight... talk about crazy. "Lu Lu's," as it's called, is like a much nicer souq, with all shapes, sizes, and colors of people reaching for the same items simultaneously on the shelves. It's also much more comprehensive than Wal*Mart; you can find anything there, including designer watches. People just eat the produce from the baskets then walk off... quite amusing.
A few of us made our first trip to the beach tonight. It is like bath water, in concurrence with the 91 degree air. The smell of salt rises to your nose about 10 feet before the water. The sand is not white, but we were just right off the street. I snuck a dip in my bathing suit, because I'm not too sure how many more times I'll get to go in the water without being completely covered.
We have our first day of Omani dialect class tomorrow. I feel like I've already been here for three days.
I'll be posting more stories soon :)
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