BOGOF

You just can't beat a good bargain and so for those of you who are quite new to Oman, or even for some of you who have been here a while, you may not have heard about this fantastic book called “The Entertainer”.

Basically you pay 29 OMR and you get a book full of vouchers allowing you to buy one main course and get one main course free in a load of restaurants around Muscat and beyond, including some of the top end ones. There doesn’t appear to be any restrictions on using the vouchers, i.e. they can be used at weekends etc, just not major holidays. I reckon you need to use the book at 4 or 5 meals out to cover the cost. It also works for golf courses, BOGOF on green fees and other activities around the city such as kite surfing, scuba diving etc. We got ours at Al Fair but I am sure you can pick it up at a lot of other places.

(And no I haven’t been paid by the authors of this book or given any freebies for this article!)

El Lifo!

Friday or what felt like Sunday to us, and Jenny, Julie (a French girl who started work at the same time as Jenny), and I headed east, up and down some crazy roads to a town called As Sifa where a new resort has been built called Jebel Sifah - about a 40 minute drive from Muscat. Just after you enter this resort, there is a restaurant on the left called ‘As Sammak’ which means ‘The Fisherman’. The setting of this place could not be more beautiful as it is literally on the beach, surrounded by amazing mountainous scenery. It is open air and so we had a lovely breeze blowing in keeping us pretty cool. Given the temperature was 39C, the breeze was very welcome. 

The menu, whilst relatively small, did not disappoint. Julie and I shared a calamari and a grilled jumbo prawn dish. Look at the size of those prawns!!

This was accompanied by a selection of green salad, babaghanoug, tahini, rocket salad, and arabic pita and washed down with an amazing mango fruit juice.

The salads were very tasty and the rocket had a sweet balsamic syrup on it.  The service was excellent and friendly and the food tasted extremely fresh and looked amazing on the plate. The table next to ours ordered the catch of the day which also looked amazing and is a good reason to return here in the near future.

The bill came to 24 OMR for fish fingers and chips, calamari, jumbo prawns and the sides I talked about earlier along with 3 fresh fruit juices, namely mango, pineapple and a lemon and mint combo.

I am also excited to say that I have also found a new food wife, having left my estranged food wife, Sinead in Chicago. Jenny has a number of interests but unfortunately for me, seafood, cheese or anything that is not shaped like a burger and doesn't taste like a burger, has no place in her heart, hence today she enjoyed fish fingers and chips from the kids menu. Seriously!

Dinner was followed by a lovely dip in the Arabian Gulf and a short drive back to Muscat. As far as weekends go that one wasn’t half bad. As a friend of mine Barry would say “this is the lifo”

Are you barking mad?

As promised I wanted to properly introduce some of you to our other companion Ralph, our 5 year old German Shepherd who has been as much a part of our travels, if not more than I have.

Whilst living in Chicago Ralph quickly became one of the group and no matter where we would go with him, he always became the centre of attention. On arrival in the States we were lucky enough to fall in with an organisation called the Canine Therapy Corps. CTC is a Chicago-based network of dedicated volunteers and their certified therapy dogs offering rehabilitative therapy to people with physical and emotional challenges. Ralph took part in a number of programs working with autistic children or teenagers who had suffered from abuse. Callie and Beth who run the show are two amazing people who are extremely dedicated to their work and it was an absolute pleasure to meet them and have the chance to participate in this work.

http://www.caninetherapycorps.org

This is also a great time to tip my hat to a few individuals who have helped us when looking to transport Ralph from pillar to post. We did the usual online searches for pet transport and got some seriously ridiculous quotes for these services. However, if you look hard enough you will find smaller local companies who are actually experts in the import and export of animals and also proved to be a lot easier on the wallet too.

So, if you are in Northern Ireland I highly recommend the services of Wes at Breeny Kennels. This guy was a font of knowledge in what can be quite a confusing process.

http://breenypetsbelfast.co.uk

Then on a similar theme in Chicago we were lucky enough to find Clay at

http://www.aarkair.com

Finally, to import Ralph to Muscat we utilized the services of Yolanda at

http://muscatvets.com

She was so prompt and patient when dealing with us that I would highly recommend using her if you are considering bringing an animal to Oman. Also, since arriving here we have unfortunately had to visit the vet on a couple of occasions and have found the staff and vets here to be absolutely fantastic and we will certainly be using them if required in the future.

I know that a lot of people are unsure about bringing a dog to Oman and there is a load of stuff online about rules and laws as to when you are allowed to walk them. As far as I can tell this has all been abolished and you are free to walk them anytime of the day, although the weather will decide that for you. I would seriously think about whether your pet can adjust to life here. We are lucky enough that we knew Ralph could take most things in his stride and so we are confident he will do just fine out here. But, this is not a dog loving nation and so I would consider things like where you are going to be living and walking your pets as you do get some strange looks from people. But it is just another cultural difference that you have to just used to. Before moving here I came across a blog called ‘http://theduncanadventures.blogspot.com’. The creator of this blog Heather was very kind to share her experiences of moving to Oman with a German shepherd and we have found this an invaluable source of information. She also wrote a very good piece on bringing your pets here and I suggest you read this if you are in the same position we were a few months ago.

http://www.expatarrivals.com/article/moving-to-muscat-an-expats-experience-of-shipping-a-pet-to-oman

I don’t plan to talk too much more about this as this article covers most of the issues, but if you have any specific questions then please feel free to ask and I will do my best to help.

It feels like home to me!

So, after weeks of worrying about moving to Muscat and how my fair Northern Irish skin was going to turn 17 different shades of pink during the Summer, it turns out I have nothing to worry about.

This is an example of some of the flooding that is going on around Muscat and Oman at the minute. Flooding like this at home would take days and days, if not weeks of solid heavy rain. Over here 2 days of rain, which I don't think has been that heavy and there are floods everywhere. I suppose when you get 362 days of sunshine there is always going to be a knock on effect. 

I think my new found confidence in surviving the summer will be short lived. The locals tell me that sometimes Mother Nature likes to tease people like me and by next week I should be prepared!

Sweet Home Chicago

Now I have always tried to be one of those people who looks forwards and doesn’t think too much about the past. But it would be remiss of me not to touch on the last two and a half years of our life living in Chicago. I will admit that Jenny was right when she said I should have started my blog then as all the fun things we got up to would have been collated.  All I am going to say on the matter is that if you ever find yourself with a chance to live or even visit the Windy City then I highly recommend you do so. It has to be one of the best cities in the world. We met some people who I am confident will remain friends for life and we shared some amazing laughs along the way. Trips such as Nashville, Puerto Rico, Cayman Islands, Las Vegas, California and even Michigan will always be fondly remembered. On top of that the many nights out, each one memorable for their own reasons! Hopefully those people who shared these experiences with us will have the same smile on their face recollecting these good times as I have now writing this post. To the whole Chicago gang, thank you so much from Jenny and I for making the last two and a half years, an absolute blast!

In the beginning

Having considered writing a blog for several years, I have decided that now is a good  as any. The thinking behind it is for several reasons. Mainly, it allows my family and friends to get regular updates about what we are up to and to keep in contact. Hopefully it will also offer some help and advice to those people who are considering moving abroad and maybe people can learn from our experiences, or mistakes, whatever you wish to call them. This can be for specific to the places we move to or in fact just general information when it comes to putting your whole life into a number of brown boxes and setting sail to foreign lands. Finally, I love visiting new restaurants and eating out, so you’ll also find a few restaurant reviews of places we visit. 

So my life up to now in 2 paragraphs...

I met my wife Jenny whilst working on a summer camp in Pennsylvania, USA. By pure luck we were both studying in Edinburgh at the time and so holiday romance turned into university relationship, which turned into marriage! On the evening of my wedding, (or as I call it 'the best day of Jenny's life') my new bride and I danced to the song by 'The Calling' titled "I'll go wherever you will go", hence the name of the blog. At the time I didn't quite realise the significance of those words but having been dragged all over the world in the years we have been together, this makes me think she had a plan all along!

And so a few years ago, this love of travel developed into something a bit more long term. Jenny was offered a fantastic opportunity to work in Chicago for 18 months and I thought why not? So house rented out, our whole life in storage and a one year career break secured, I found myself saying a tearful goodbye to my parents in Dublin as my German Shepherd, Ralph (I'll introduce him properly later) and I boarded an Aer Lingus flight to join Jenny on the other side of the Atlantic. That eighteen months became two and a half years and I have just recently found myself boarding another flight to Oman where the next chapter has recently begun.

And so the story continues...