Saturday 17th Temp 36c

Had a message last night to say we were going for our blood tests this morning, had to be ready for 7:15am, everything starts early here to avoid the main heat of the day. The school bus picked us up and so we got to meet a few more people. Still no schedule for an induction or for any of the immigration things we need to do, can’t really do much until we have our residency card.
After talking to Lucy and India we are going to hire a car for the first few weeks between us, this is just until we get settled and all the paper work done then we may look to buy a car.
Again we went shopping to the hypermarket mainly to show Cirst where it is but still needed one or two things myself. We made arrangement for us all (myself India, Lucy and Cirst) to go out to Ruwi tonight. Ruwi is a district in Muscat where there is a souk (traditional market area) and lots of restaurants of different nationalities. Lucy didn’t make it again as she is still tired, but Cirst , India and myself had a good look round and went for a meal in an Arabic restaurant.
Very interesting cuisine! India ordered the Kebab, Cirst the Bar B Que and I ordered the ‘Aries’ (Aries=Ram? = Goats meat?) from the dinner menu. We were given a soup to start with, a bit like a chicken soup with a little pasta in it and a lump of unidentifiable bony meat, which tasted quite nice, a side salad (carrots, tomatoes, shredded cabbage and limes) and then our main course. India’s was like the Shami Kebabs you get at an Indian restaurant, The bar b que was just beef (flame grilled) and mine was like very thin pitta breads stuffed with a thin layer of minced and spiced lamb. We were each given a side dish of homous and the girls plain pitta breads so they could make there own kebabs. We only had water to drink as that’s all other people were drinking and to be truthful that’s all I really wanted at the time. And the bill for this gastronomic feast? 4 Rials 700 Baisa, less than £7!.
From Ruwi we decided to go to Mutrah Souk (where Lucy, India and I went on Thursday night) just for another look around and also to get another of them beautiful fruit drinks!
From there we decided to go back to the Intercontinental Hotel for a drink before calling it a night. This is where it all went wrong! I had been wearing shorts all day, they were down to my knees but I was not allowed into any of the bars as were not long enough! So beware if your buying shorts for when you come out here make sure they go past you knees or as I am going to do in future wear trousers or jeans if your going to the pubs/hotels etc.