First Day of School

It was very very long. School was from 8:30-11:00, then a meeting till 12:00, then our 30 minute tour took over an hour, then lunch, then class till 5:30. We got home about 6:00 and had 8 homework exercises to do, plus vocabulary. Ack! Luckily, there's a cheap coffee shop right next to the hotel. I got a chicken sandwich - chicken, parsley, tomato, hot sauce (I asked for no ketchup) on a piece of Arab bread. It's small, but it was 250 baisa - about 65 cents. A soda was 100 baisa. I bought a 24 pack of water (12 oz I think) at Lulu's for 1.2 baisa. That's good, because apparently we have to feed ourselves, except for breakfast. They said we'd have lunch at the university, but they meant that we would be buying our own. Luckily, their cafeteria is just as cheap as the coffee shop. It's also segregated, as is the computer lab I'm in. There's even 2 entrances to each complex. Each building is a walled villa, with lawn, etc. and has a big front gate, with an entrance on each side of the gate. And male and female guards at their respective entrance. That's one thing I will give the Omanis. The women do cover up, but they do everything the men do - just not always together. But the women do work regular jobs too. As cashiers, waitresses, teachers, etc. You don't really see that in places like the UAE. There, it's the Southeast Asians who do all the work. They're here too, but the Omanis still work.