Why?

Back in May we were lucky enough to be invited to an awards ceremony for the ‘Oman Sail’ Sailor of the Year Awards. Quite a big event to celebrate some of the amazing accomplishments that ‘Oman Sail’ has made over the last few years. The event was televised but I am not 100% sure to where though. So I thought it would be a good time to provide a bit of information on what brought us to the wonderful country and why we left our close friends in the city that never sleeps (no really it doesn’t, we tried on many occasions to prove that wrong but never succeeded).

A lot of people might think that the tax-free earnings would be the main attraction but to be honest the expenditure required on my Factor 50 sun cream pretty much exceeds the generous contributions I was making to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs so there was more to it than that. It might have had something to do with the year round sunshine, living beside the beach and a pool, petrol cheaper per litre than bottled water, having someone to do all your housework and washing, water sports, fantastic local people, short drive to Dubai…ok enough is enough.

Truthfully, one of the main factors was the opportunity for Jenny to leave behind the stresses and strains of working for a Big 4 company and take up her new role in charge of the finance department at ‘Oman Sail’.  For those of you with a few minutes spare you should check out this link which gives you an overview of the fabulous work this company has done in the Sultanate of Oman both changing the lives of local people and putting the majestic city of Muscat on the map as a tourist destination.

http://www.omansail.com/page/About

These pictures give you an idea of the view from Jenny’s new office and the ghastly surroundings she has to endure. 

And as I mentioned at the start we attended the Sailor of the Year Awards at the Al Bustan Palace. Obviously Jenny got to go and I managed to wangle myself an invite as my company took a table at the dinner. We had a fantastic evening and enjoyed some fantastic food courtesy of the guys at the Al Bustan.

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...