Oman Hotel

We're staying at the Naseem hotel on the Corniche (photos to follow). I'm on the 3rd floor, and the elevator doesn't work. And 3rd floor means Ground floor plus 3 more flights of stairs. The room is small and I'm sharing it with 2 other grad students. There are 2 twin beds, and a mattress on the floor between them. The bathroom has a shower, with hand-held attachment, and no shower curtain. The toilet also has a hand-held attachment ;)

After we got in, we had to wait for our luggage to get to the hotel, so most of us went out to eat. We wandered down the Corniche to the neon lights. At this point, I want to explain how money works in Oman. In the Gulf, local money is usually tied to a fixed exchange rate with the American dollar. In many countries, $1 is about 3.67 dirhams (or whatever). In Oman, it's backwards. One Omani rial is approximately $2.60. My dinner cost 1.3 rials. It was 1 rial for the Pepsi, which I thought was expensive – but it did come in a fluted glass. And it was 0.3 rials for my small chicken shwarma. (It was late, so I ordered a small one.) It was about 6 inches long, and 1 inch in diameter. And at 0.3 rials, that's like 85 cents. It was also pretty good. The 0.3 rials is not in coin form, it's in bills. They have regular bills, and then some smaller-sized bills that are 100 biasa each (10 of those is 1 rial).

After eating, showering, we didn't get to bed till 1:45 am, local time. I called Frank to say I was alive and well, then crashed. Breakfast this morning is at 7:00 am, then at 8 am we go to orientation at a different hotel (we're staying here so we can get the experience).

Another interesting thing is that they don't have napkins here. They use Kleenex – pardon me, facial tissue. There are boxes on every restaurant table, and that's what you use.