Football, Rain and Art

I apologize for my little girl sending out her unauthorized blog, we will try to keep a closer eye on her next time.

Two years ago, in the last Gulf Cup, Oman finished second to the UAE. You would have thought they had won the World Cup the way they celebrated here in Muscat. We know as we were out on the road when it happened. This time around Oman is currently hosting the Gulf Cup Football championships over the last couple weeks. You can always tell when Oman wins their game at night as you can hear the cars honking all through the night as they drive around. You can see the lights of the National Stadium from our roof. The Omanis are very patriotic, especially when it comes to their football. Everyone dresses their cars up in the national colors of red, white and green. They take their car to the detailers to have it done professionally, and have lots of flags, stickers and other decorations plastered all over the car. We even saw one guy driving around in a black car covered in red hearts, why he chose heart stickers we still haven't figured out. They also all wear scarves in the national colors. It is OK when we have cool weather but they still wear their supporters winter scarves when they have big matches in the summer months.

Last night a big lighting storm came through with high winds and some heavy downpours. The rain continued today. We don't get a lot of rain but when we do it really comes down and floods many parts of town. Our front windows leaked like usual and we had flashbacks to when Gonu hit and we had towels all over the floor in our front room. Two of the schools were shut today. There was much talk on the radio about what they might have to do with the semi-final football matches scheduled for tonight. The rain has let up so the matches are going on as scheduled.

On Jan 5 I missed a step coming down the steps in our house and landed badly on my left foot. I heard the crack which inspired me to go to the hospital right away. The x-ray confirmed that I had broken the outside bone in my left foot (the one that runs to the little toe). I have been in a cast on crutches when I do manage to get off the sofa but am not allowed to put any weight on my foot. Tonight I had to go back to the hospital to have the temporary cast taken off and have more x-rays. On the way past the stadium to the hospital you could see the stadium was already full and cars were parked along the road for a long way past the stadium. Oman is playing Qatar in the first semi-final. While waiting to have my x-ray the game started on the TV in the waiting lounge. The hospital was anxious as everyone started to watch the match. Even the Omani ladies working behind the desks were glued to the screen and shouting at the Omani players to shoot everytime they got near the box. They did manage to get my x-ray done and my foot is making progress. I have another cast on and am not supposed to put ay weight on it for 3 more weeks. I will probably have the cast on for five more weeks. This is a bit of a bummer as we were looking forward to both being off work with some nice weather to take advantage of everything Oman has to offer. Now it looks like the cast will be off just in time for us to go. That is the bright side! Oman has just beaten Qatar 1-0 so we are in for a noisy night and an even bigger finals night on Sat.

Alex took his first steps tonight towards being a proper little boy as well as an artist. We have friends from Australia coming in later tonight to visit. Emma's best friend from Australia with her husband and kids. We will be venturing out onto the roads in the midst of football mania to pick them up from the airport. Alex took his purple marker and drew a huge mural all across one of the white walls in the guest room to help welcome our friends.