Welcome to Oman

Ahlan wa Sahlan! I’ve been in Oman for three days now, and it is something else. This past summer I spent a month in France with a Loyola study abroad program. After my time here, I can say that I feel more welcome in Oman than I ever did in France. Everyone is here is welcoming and more than eager to tolerate my bumbling attempts to communicate in Arabic.

On my Arabic: I took two semesters of Arabic during the 2008-09 school year. I took them post-secondary at Baldwin-Wallace College while I was still a señor in high school. Since that was about two years ago, I’ve become a little rusty. Give me a few weeks and I should be refreshed.

Winter Oman is one of those times when it is just simply perfect weather. There is nothing quite like reading how your colleagues in Chicago are freezing their toes off as you are basking in the sun in a comfortable 77 degrees.

Classes still haven’t started, nor have I moved in with my homestay family yet – that comes tomorrow. Right now it is just the orientation: buzzing around the city hanging out, and having simple lectures.

I’ll update in a few days once the real work starts.

Oh, and by the way – Mountain Dew, my favorite soft drink, is known colloquially as the “beer of Omanis” – they just call it ‘dew.