The art of being an adult.

Adulting is hard! I mean I have to constantly think about what I do and say and deal with the resulting consequences.  Just lately, I have been scrutinizing every decision made or we are in the process of making.

First of all, who do I want to teach?

We have been teaching adults in college for a while now and I like it but when I look at college students and their behavior I think to myself…NO! You shouldn’t be behaving this way. You are an adult, I might be an adultier, adult than you are but you should not be behaving like you are in grade7.

“Teacher, he hit me.”

Seriously??? How old are you? 

We wanted to teach High school students but after teaching at a high school I doubt that is something I am cut out for.

Perhaps senior primary. I know the kids will be kids and I am ok with that. At least that is something I expect from the beginning. 

Decision number 2, where do I want to live?

Curse my complicated personality! I like to travel, yet I hate change. How is that even possible?!

I want my own house when I say that I don’t mean that I want to buy a house. Yes, we have rented flats and they were ours for a period of time but I want to decorate my flat with things I have accumulated over the years.

When Jurie and I got married, I didn’t have a Hope Chest because we lived in Korea and I knew it wasn’t permanent. So why invest time in decorating your place if you are only going to leave it in the future? 

I want to settle down but I also want to travel. UGH!

And lastly, do I want to have children?

YES	NO
I don’t want my time to run out	I don’t like babies
I don’t want the van Deventer name to end	I like my own time
It seems like the natural progression	I don’t like noise
	I’m terrified of the responsibility

When I look at those reasons I feel like an idiot. Those reasons seem dumb. Not once did I say I love children or I think they’re great. I just don’t want time to run out and for me to think, at the age of, 45. “I want children.”  I don’t want to regret my decision when I am older, that’s my biggest fear.

So, those are the decisions that we are trying to make at the moment. Any advice from adultier, adults would be greatly appreciated. 

Driving to the UAE

If you ever consider driving to the UAE you need the following:

Your passport

A visa (if you are South African)

Travel insurance

Car insurance

Up-to-date car registration

The latter we didn't have, we found out from the car people that we were driving around with an expired registration (something they are supposed to let us know about before it happens!) In any case the car people said that they would give us a different car for our UAE trip and that on our way there we needed to stop by and pick up the car (something Jurie wasn't happy about because he just wanted to drive straight home from the UAE and not have to stop in Seeb)

That's beside the point. We are going to tell you the story of how we left the Oman border two times without getting our passports stamped.

We received a location pin from Chris and Tash and input it into the GPS. We followed said GPS 

co-ordinates, because it would take us to the border right?

Well, it did take us to the border but this border was no longer in use. No one was there, we drove right through the open boom gates, into no man's land and right to the backside of what must have been the UAE border.

In retrospect perhaps we should have known something was up with the open boom gates and also the fact that we were traveling on a gravel road.

Melissa: I think I saw a police station nearby why don't we ask them.

Jurie asked them and it turns out that border was closed (well then they should have a sign or a closed gate but there's no use in complaining about these types of things)

Ok, plan B. Type Hatta border into the GPS and go to the other border crossing.

Yet again when we arrived there were no signs and we drove right through the border into No man's land (at least this time it was tarred road) and right up to the UAE border crossing.

Jurie: We have to get an exit stamp before we can go into the UAE.

Melissa: You'd think someone would stop us somewhere along the line!

So we drive back to the Oman border crossing and are stopped by the customs officers.

Jurie: We want to go to the UAE but we didn't get our stamp.

Officer: Go back 7km to building.

He didn't check our car, he just took our word for it that we wanted to go to the UAE. We think this must have happened before.

Anyway, we go back to the window and get our exit stamp and drive all the way back to the UAE border crossing.

Seriously Oman, where are your signs???? 

We stayed with Tash and Chris in RAK (Ras Al Khaimah)

They stay in a lovely flat, close to the beach and have an awesome swimming pool.

On the first night, we spent time with Chris, Tash, Beth, Judith (the people we knew from Woosong) it was great fun.

Thursday we drove to Dubai.

The traffic in Dubai is insane. We witnessed an accident, it was only a fender bender but still. People drive right on your butt at crazy speeds. Dubai is a really impressive city! There is a lot of construction going on but it was great seeing all the buildings you see in movies like the Burj Khalifa

Thursday evening we were treated to a night out at the Hilton. Had loads of drinks (Tash really enjoyed herself- Hee hee)

Then Friday we just chilled and had a braai on the beach for supper.

We really had a great time. A long drive but totally worth it to see our lovely friends.

Burj Khalifa 

View from Chris & Tash's place 

A weekend of life lessons

Matrah Souq

This past weekend we decided to see something cultural and visit Matrah Souq (pronounced sook), which is an open air market. We decided to go in the afternoon, a silly thing to do.

The thing is everything shuts down around midday for prayer. We arrived and everything was closed. UGH! Ok, we’ll go watch Beauty and the Beast now and then we’ll go to the Souq tomorrow (Saturday).

Side note, we were Poke-walking before this and the little shops in the park closed. We finished our water and were both really thirsty. We thought we’d buy some water by the souq but alas, everything was closed.

Jurie: Don’t worry we’ll get something by the movies.

It’s a 10-minute drive to the movies and my mouth felt like the desert I could see outside!

At the movies, we quickly bought our tickets and didn’t buy popcorn (priorities!!) but we bought slushies.

Here comes problem number 2, it's ice and not liquid. Here I was sitting in the cinema sucking through a straw that would not give me anything. Finally, in frustration, I opened the top of the cup and shovelled the ice into my mouth using the straw.

So two lessons were learnt that day…

      1)      Always carry an extra bottle of water with you.

      2)      While slushies are awesome movie beverages, don’t buy it if you are dying of thirst.

Beauty and the Beast.

Oh wow! What a fantastic movie. Team van D give this movie five stars *****.  I don’t like to advertise this to just anyone but under this ice cold exterior beats the heart of a softy. I’m not a sentimental person but this movie just brought back so many childhood memories and I found my eyes leaking once or twice. So do yourself a favour and watch this movie.

The Souq again

So we looked up the times that the souq opens (which we should have done the day before) and found it opened at 7am – 11am then from 5pm -11pm. So we went at 8:30am to be on the safe side. Yet again everything was closed. What the hell google?! Some of the shops were opening but then we found a sign that said the Souq opens not at 7am but at 8am! Seriously?! But I guess that would basically explain this place, information is subjective. But still the sign said 8am and it was past that time and only 5 shops were opening. We did find a souvenir place and bought a few things. We also have some nice pictures of the promenade near the market.

Lessons learnt that day

1     1 )      Have patience because you won’t get all the information you need at once but it bits.

2     2)      Don't take everything too seriously and just go with the flow.

Changing plans

We had a great weekend! We went diving on Friday and then swimming on Saturday. But that wasn’t our original plan. I like having a plan before I do things. I like things to be just so…

These were the weekend plans.

Friday

Arrive in Muscat

Play Pokemon in the park

Eat lunch 

Check into the hotel

Relax and swim

Eat supper 

Anyone who knows me knows that I plan my life around my meals.

Saturday

Have breakfast

Go to the dive centre

2 Dives

Go back to Ibra

That was the plan but then the unexpected happened. The park was rented out for a private function. We weren’t allowed in.

Jurie: Why don’t we go watch a movie?

I check my phone for movie times.

Me: Movies only start at 2 pm

So we can’t go into the main part of the park where most of the Pokemon/Pokestops are. We can’t go to movies and we can’t check into the hotel. We stare at each other.

Me: Why don’t we cancel the 2 dives for tomorrow? Then do an afternoon dive today, we can come to the park tomorrow and do our Pokewalk.

Jurie phones the people and Plan B is a go.

New schedule aka Plan B

Friday

Short Pokewalk

Eat lunch

Check into the hotel

Dive

Swim

Eat supper

Saturday

Eat Breakfast

Go buy alcohol (Because it’s the start of a new month and we can)

Pokewalk

Swim

Go back to Ibra

I know the new plan was excellent, we thoroughly enjoyed our weekend but having to suddenly change plans causes me all sorts of anxiety.

On the plus side, we saw some camels while driving back to Ibra and we saw a father turn around and shout at his children in the car in front of us. It was quite comical. We tried to imagine what he was saying to his children.

Me: That’s enough! I’m going to stop this car and you’re going to walk home!

Jurie: We’re in a desert, I don’t think they can do stuff like that here. I think they would get sun stroke just standing outside for a minute.

Another thing I’m sure you are all going to get annoyed with is us telling you how hot it is here. But try and imagine it from our perspective. I just had a shower and had the water on cold but it came out scalding hot because the tank on our roof is in the sun all day! I seldom get hot. I never complain about the heat, I thrive in it. But this heat is beyond anything I have ever felt and it’s only going to get hotter. So Jurie usually knows, if I complain about the heat then it’s the depths of Mordor HOT! Just like I know when Jurie complains about the cold then it’s beyond the wall, COLD!

(If you don’t get the weather pop-culture references then you can’t be my friends anymore)

·         PS. Jurie tells me I can’t go disowning friends since I don’t have many of them to start off with. Mordor is a Lord of the Rings reference and beyond the wall is a Game of Thrones reference.