Setting Up House - The Move

I can highly recommend moving with practically no possessions, our worldly goods fitted in the boot.  Of course that does mean that we are living in an large marble and concrete box box, with accompanying echo.  David has already revealed what was bought during the great shopping expedition (one of the shopping expeditions, I'm over shopping, I really am) so it is my turn to reveal the pictures.  Bwhahahahah!! Competitive? David and I?  Never.

Ir's not very hard to see where our priorities lie.  Let's just say that everything was supposed to come on Sunday.  Only one delivery happened.  Probably the most important one.  The bed.

The bed is made in India, solid wood, king-size and very, very yummy.  David and I saw it separately and fell in love with it just a little bit.  It has matching side cupboards and a dressing table with a huge mirror.  You can imagine how big the room is when you see how bare it looks with these gigantically heavy pieces in place.  The curtains are a little lush and frame the greenery in the window beautifully.  Apparently, when those plants flower, they are wonderfully perfumed.

The Bed.  

The Dressing table

I tried to get the study up and running as quickly as possible, with limited success.  I braved the wilds of an industrial area, right at the moment when all the trucks are let loose and during major roadworks, to pick it up from the warehouse.  When I unpacked it I discovered just how many pieces had to go together and how many different fastenings there are.  Of course, not having any tools is a novel situation too.  I'll just go and grab... No, maybe I'll..... Shopping list!

The desk in the study - round the study

You will notice that the chair (which is bright purple by the way) is together = yay me!  The desk comes with instructions - of a sort

A bit of a challenge.......

Lucky for me I have a lovely husband who has worked most of it out and it's almost together.  The main problem will be the window.  It has full sun in the afternoon.  Interesting at 32 degrees, but probably uninhabitable in 45 degrees.  Curtains are definitely on the agenda, unfortunately most of the curtains they sell are light.  I mean really light, even the ones we put in the  bedroom have light coming through them and they were the heaviest I could find.  It's early days though.  Our neighbour, the other part of the twin villa, has given me the name and number of her curtain man.  How bizarre is that?  A curtain man.  Only the other day I was scoffing about some ladies on an expat list talking about her curtain man.  The only other option is buying a sewing machine and making them.  That was lies dooooooooom.  So once things have settled down, the curtain man it is.

The lounge room and dining room are little interchangeable at the moment and they're both pretty much empty - except for the television and a little outdoor setting which will eventually end up on the roof.  David has his eye on a spectacularly OTT lounge suite with lots of pillow and even tassels.  Luckily we have lots of room.

The Dining room - well half of it at least

The Lounge room - again half of it

Just out of the window you can see our little car.  It's a Mazda 2, a little small for David, but it zips along quite nicely.  I'm sort of enjoying zapping around Muscat.  The drivers are "interesting," and , similar to New York, they use their horns to carry on conversations, they don't get grumpy about you doing stupid things (even like driving down the wrong side of the road - just a little bit, not for very long - really).  They even stop and let you turn when it might not be your turn.  The taxi's and buses, however, are evil.  Just evil.  You flag down both taxis and little 12 seater buses.  Well, I say "you" I really mean other people.  Crazy people who flag them down in the middle of  120km/hr freeways.  Eeeeeeek!!  

Anyway, the car.  We had been about to rent a car for a month when David looked at the expat classifieds and an d saw an ad from a lovely Scottish lassie who was leaving the country very soon and needed someone to take over the last four months of her six month lease.  It's cheaper than any of the hire options we'd come across and all we had to do was meet her at the lease company and sign things over.  Easy peesie.  That was another thing off our minds.

The worlds cutest refrigerator
Not in the kitchen at all.

Now for the kitchen.  This is the most organised of all, at least appliance wise.  Of course there's practically no food, but the worst is the lack of containers, the little bits and pieces that you use everyday but don't even think about until you don't have it.  Take this evening.  I cooked my first meal in Oman.  It was supposed to be David's favourite, but he deserted me for some work dinner and some posh restaurant.  So I had some Gorgonzola and walnut tortellini with fresh tomato, mushrooms, zucchini and olives.  I finished  cooking the pasta and went drain it.  Whoops, not colander.  They're slippery little buggers and I lost a few down the sink. The sink I had just scoured to within an inch of its life.  The previous tenant might have been some cool, French cook, but her sure as hell didn't know how to look after his plumbing.  Blerk.  The cupboards under the sink are a little pongy. I think there might be some damp in there that was painted over.  Well, I'll know soon.  Anyone with any bright ideas?

So here is one end of the kitchen with all the new shinies

The other end of the kitchen.

The laudry (and probably pantry once I'm organised)

So things are going swimmingly.  The weather is lovely, the dust is bad, the food is fantastic.  If you want a cheap takeaway eat Omani or Indian.  Last night David and I grabbed some dinner after shopping.  We ordered two serves of a meaty special at the Indian place in the food court at Muscat City Centre (it's a mall, not very large even by Australian standards.  It has a food court with McDonald's, KFC, another fried chicken place, a Chinese place, an Italian place and a couple of others. Very expensive.  A meal for one will cost you about 7 Rials ($A17).  The Indian, on the other hand, after he told us that it was supposed to be fore two, cost only 3.800 rials (about $A10) with drinks, and filled both of us up.

We've been here now for two weeks.  By golly they've been busy.  Tonight has been my first real downtime and I'm not crawling into bed unable to function and aching all over.  Let's see what the next week brings.