Random Gucci Post

Good Morning and to all you Muscatees out there, greetings from 'rainy' Salalah! Yes it's raining! I'm starting to think all the Muscat bloggers have become puddles on the hot pavement since there seems to be no movement in the blogs I read regularly. Muscat Mutterings? Muscat Jet Driver? Other Oman? Dragon? Angry? Muscato?

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Regarding my 2-day visit to Dubai over the weekend all I can say is .... blah! As modern as it may seem, Dubai to me is a city with no personality. A city with no unique flavor of its own. A machine. A robot. It's fun to go for .... a day? And after that I'm citied out and sky-scraped out, and traffic-ed out, and most certainly shopped out. When I was living abroad, my college was in a very small town and I like the small-town feeling. No tall buildings, no skyscrapers and definintely NO metro or huge shopping malls.

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We accomplished a lot with the groom-to-be over those two days so that was successful. We bought all the furniture for his flat as well as gifts for the bride (and a few gifts for myself from the abaya mall! OH YES!). I didn't make it to Wild Wadi since it wasn't women's day on my only free afternoon). Ikea was a dream come true. I used to buy all my household things at Ikea when I lived abroad. I can't wait till they open one in Oman (and yes they will soon according to my sources). Fdayooh they were out of the peach shake at Macaroni Grill. So I didn't ed3eelak, more like إدعي عليك.

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I didn't make it to the observation deck at Burj Dubai/Khalifa. (a) we didn't have time and (b) the groom and myself are afraid of heights. Next time I'm in Dubai, I'll definitely schedule it around ladies night at Wild Wadi. DEFINITELY. And now that I've fallen in love with Ikea all over again, I want to get married immediately and have a home of my own. My passion in life is decorating homes and re-arranging furniture. I re-arrange the furniture in my office and room at least once every three or four months. I collect home design magazines and read them under the covers at night. This is why my dear relative asked me to come to Dubai. He knows it's my field of expertise and perhaps he's inspiring me to get married. Anyone looking for a wife?

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After my 72-hour escapade, I was GLAD to be home. God, Salalah is beautiful. Peaceful, quiet, ... REAL. With all the tourist projects going up all over the place, I hate to think what Salalah will be like in 20 or even 10 years. At the moment, it a safe little haven.

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Now that our groom is back with his furniture, the wedding is scheduled for July. In Dhofar this would be the right time to start panicking. My aunts almost fainted last weeks when I cheerfully informed them that my sisters and I still hadn't designed our velvet thobes (dresses) for the wedding nor had we booked a makeup artist to apply three tons of white paint to our faces on the wedding day. In our tribe, it's 'taboo' to wear the same thobes twice. Every wedding means a new one. Crappy traditions. A waste of time and effort and money in my opinion. If you're a new-ish reader, I suggest you read my post on Father of the Tail and Dish Detergent in order to understand the trials and tribulations of weddings in Salalah. Once you finish reading, get down on your knees and say a little prayer for Dhofari Gucci. I don't know how I'm going to survive yet another wedding. I've been to three already this year and they were beyond exhausting. My skin was raw for days due to the amount of time spent scrubbing it with dish detergent.

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Off I go to make myself a cup of tea. I'm still on leave (came back from Dubai yesterday) so I guess it's time to go and re-arrange my bedroom furniture. Have a great day everyone!

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