Today we left the apartment at 8:30 and got on the bus with Hamed, the Vice Principal, and 21 other staff members from AIS (our school). Our first stop was the Seeb Fish Market. We could smell it before the door opened on the bus. The smell in the parking lot was unbearable to Layla so she headed back onto the bus and waited for us there. Once in the market, the smell was tolerable enough to have a look around and watch all of the locals dickering over prices o...

Today was our first official trip to the beach. I woke up early and went to the Carrefour to buy an umbrella and some sunscreen and a cooler and was a little anxious, as it was already 35 degrees at 9:00. Daryl met us at 10:30 and led us to the beach with all of the folks from our building. We arrived at 'The Wave', an upscale ex-pat area of Muscat where we unloaded the car and walked on the scorching sand down to the water. The blue waters of the Gulf of Oman ...

Our first Thursday night! TGIT! Holy day is Friday so the work-week goes Sunday to Thursday. We loaded up the car and headed to "Souk Street" in the Seeb district. The street is about 9 blocks long and has many brightly lit storefronts to shop in and many restaurants to try authentic food. We ate dinner at the New Tasty out on the patio and then found a bakery to buy some Omani sweets to take home for the week. Layla is bugging us about finding a Henna parlour;...

We went out for dinner to the Turkish Palace, an amazing restaurant that serves the greatest Hummus and Baba Ganoush ever! It was here we met more of our colleagues and had a great night of laughs and stories. After dinner, we just had to head over to Sebastian and Julietta's house to see their birds; something Leanne was not too thrilled about. Layla got to hold them and feed them right from her hands. We left their house fairly late and got a little lost tryi...

Our first visit to the school had us going through a brief orientation followed by a tour. The building is definitely amazing and is much different than schools at home. We are looking forward to meeting the students for the first time and seeing their reaction to meeting us. We have 1.5 weeks of 'teacher time' before school starts on August 31. It will be a very busy time!