Getting away to Muscat

It takes about 2 hours to drive to Muscat from Ibra. I'm sure I have said this before when we first came here. They are still busy building the highway to Muscat, since 2010, and there are sections of the highway that has been completed. This is the nice area to drive on. There is a section of road, about 24km to be exact, that winds through the mountains. It's a beautiful drive and we really enjoy it, what we don't enjoy is the speeding from the other cars and the overtaking around blind corners.

We went to Muscat twice in one week. We went once to go get our liquor license. That sounds like we are trying to sell alcohol here when in fact, it means that we are allowed to buy alcohol here. It's a little blue book, that you take with you when you buy alcohol from the select shops that sell it. You first have to get permission from your employers before you get the license, you give them a form to sign.

We might as well stick a sign on our foreheads saying "HEY WE WANT TO GET OUR PARTY ON IN OMAN!"

Then you have to take that form and other documents to the police station, you pay the amount you would like to spend on alcohol per month(the more you send the more you look like an alcoholic) and then TA-DA you have the license (and also a few judgmental looks from the police officers)

You then have to find the select stores that sell the alcohol. We decided to do that rather on the weekend. The weekend came and we drove halfway to Muscat and realised that we had forgotten the alcohol license!!! We had to drive all the way back to fetch it. Desperate times!

We had a good time in Muscat. Not because we were buying alcohol, but because we ate good food, we relaxed and we could play Pokemon in a park that had more than one Poke-stop.

I bought some cupcakes, we had some pizza. Then on our way home, we went to the alcohol shop. We got lost trying to find the place because it's tiny and doesn't even look like a shop.  Think the size of our kitchen in Port Shepstone.  That's how big the whole shop is. We bought our 60 Rials worth of alcohol for the month, (which isn't much) Then we went to the mall. Which also for some reason doesn't look like the malls at home from the outside it looks like a warehouse. They have an H&M, Pandora, a huge hypermarket, a Tim Horton's and so much more.

We don't think we will go to Muscat every weekend but it's a nice place to get away to. We had fun but Jurie says he likes the remote place, things are cheaper here and I suppose we will save more money because I won't spend it all on R160 cupcakes.

My very expensive cupcake but it was so worth it!

These horsies live at the park 

The famous liquor permit