thehorseandrider: voyeurism is for the birds

adam (and Loverboy) put it best when he (they) wrote, "everybody's working for the weekend."

that's what we are *ALL* doing right now (minus tara because she's a school teacher and the last bell rings at 2:45pm...oh, and macchio's not doing it either because his "weekend" is thursday and friday). so aside from those mute points, what i wanted to say was:

i'm sooooooooooooo bored of sitting in this airport and typing about what's going on in terminals a-f. i'm at the point now where i can actually tell you the exact location and number of electrical outlets in each wing (b/c my laptop must be plugged in since its battery life blows).

speaking of boring, that brings me to the country i chose for today:

i spent an hour researching it and had to scrape the bottom of the barrel for anything worth noting.

for one, it's small and bordered by other middle-east countries that, quite simply, just have alot more going on. even wikipedia mentioned that oman "has seldom been in the public eye other than for the use of its military bases by US forces in recent years."

oman's biggest city, in which 50% of the population lives, is muscat which brings up a mental image of river otter creatures for me and not much else.

MUSCAT

VS. MUSKRAT

the country doesn't even have its own motto!! (tara: when i get home later tonite, can we invent one for it? if you're on the same train of thought as i am right now it would be something like: 'oman: the country no one cares about' or 'oman: best to go elsewhere')

it does, however, have alot of muslims. they make up 75% of the population and many of them practice a very rare religion called Ibadhism which is considered "moderately" conservative and i beg to differ since i brought the point up. it's REALLY conservative! women must wear hijab and abaya, which cover up nearly every portion of their body.

maybe the "moderate" part has something to do with the fact that thje Sultan has forbidden the covering of faces inside public office. how leniant of him!

hospitality is a major tenet in an omani's life. there are lots of little traditions but my favourite one is that when you're invited as a guest to dinner, you are greeted with a bowl of dates, fruit and qahwa which is really weak coffee flavoured with cardamon.

don't forget to shake the coffee cup after three servings to signal that you are finished!

as far as topography is concerned, the country is covered mostly by a desert although the coastline along the arabian sea is known for having beautiful beaches.

the design of oman's flag is the only other interesting piece of information i uncovered (aside from the fact that the country is one of only a handful that does NOT have a national red cross).

the flag is white, green, and red and the top corner of it depicts their national emblem which features two crossed swords, a dagger called a khanjar and a belt. the khanjar is uniquely sharpened on both edges and curved, so it looks really gnarley and brutal. check it out: