Hi readers! It's been a while, and lots has happened in the  month-ish since I last posted here. For starters, I took a trip to Denmark over the long weekend (October 3 is off because it's a national holiday) and spent time hanging out with my cousin, which was a lot of fun (also shoutout to his dog because fluffy things are hard to come by in Berlin). 

I also attended the Reunification Day festivities on October 3 after getting back from the airport. There was a big festival going on by the Brandenburg gate, complete with pop-up shops, restaurants, kids games, and an enormous ferris wheel from which you could pretty much see all of the city.

More recently (today), I ventured out in the rain to see the East Side Gallery exhibition before the weather completely turns. I'm so glad that I went, because it's a beautiful art gallery to take in. I'll upload some photos here for y'all to take a look -- I think part of what is most interesting about the murals you see on the wall is when you take them in with the context of the time in which they were created, it gives you a new outlook on the fall of the wall... Each time from a different perspective.

I actually just got back to my dorm after spending a few hours out in the city taking in the Festival of Lights  tonight -- which is a series of projections that are designed by an international collective of artists and then displayed on Berlin landmarks -- for example, the TV tower and the Berliner Dom. 

Anyway, that's the rundown from me. More soon, Inshallah!

🎶I Didn't Plan It - Sarah Bareilles🎶

Well, here we are again. T-10 days to hopping a plane out of the country, and I've once more begun to pack. At this point I think I can list stuffing suitcases as a skill on a résumé quite comfortably;  in the last twelve hours, I have succesfully managed to get myself about 50% of the way packed -- based mainly off of a collection of  lists I had pretyped over the summer.

As such, it seems to me that now is as good a time as any to offer up packing suggestions for those embarking on similar expeditions of their own -- be it a college study abroad or a full year (or more!) of immersion.

​Probably the most important suggestion I can give you is to pack light. As anyone who's seen my suitcases can tell you, that's one tip  I struggle to follow myself -- but something that I genuinely wish I was better at. At the very least, remember to leave yourself space in your luggage on the trip out. This way, you will have space in your bags for the multitude of assorted things you purchase for yourself over the course of your stay (because trust me, you will be buying things).

Another important thing to remember, especially when packing long-term, is to bring individual pieces rather than specific outfits. What this means is that instead of bringing a brightly patterned pair of pants that will only match with your one black t-shirt, you could bring a pair of solidly colored jeans which would be more versatile, and would provide a variety of outfit options. This strategy will help you keep your limited wardrobe fresh for the duration of your trip.

​My  third and final tip for travelers is to remember to pack for a well-rounded experience. Don't forget your passport and other security documentation while you're collecting your pumps and going-out clothes. On the same note, don't pack for only one type of weather. If you're staying for a month or more, chances are you will experience at least some mild variation in climate, and you'll want to be prepared. Always pack a rain shell just in case.

​That's all I've got as far as general suggestions for packing -- but feel free to reach out to me if you have further questions (or need ideas for things like host family gifts if you're doing a homestay). Other than that, the next time you'll be hearing from me is after I set up in Berlin!

Safe travels, all!

🎶Follow  Your Arrow - Kacey Musgraves🎶

Sri Lanka is possibly the most green country I have ever seen. Coming from Oman, a country whose scenery is comprised mainly of sand and palm trees (which are totally beautiful, but not exactly green), I thought I had landed in a little patch of heaven when we walked out of the airport to discover trees and plants of all varieties poking out of the grass (GRASS!!!) at our feet. 

Following an overlong stint at the airport caused by a sandstorm delaying and subsequently canceling our flights, we arrived in Sri Lanka and promptly boarded the bus to go to Kandy. The next day we took a tour of the city and visited a monastery (pictures here), after which we drove into the mountains to visit the school we were going to do some service work at. When we returned there in the morning, there was a long line of students waiting for us at the gate and presenting us with leaves. 

We spent our third and fourth days in Sri Lanka at the school painting (chairs, desks, and walls) and playing with the kids. On the day we left, there was a small assembly during which we sang them the Omani national anthem and they sang some traditional songs for us (and some of the kids danced). It was a really incredible experience because there is no feeling better than knowing that you have done something tangibly useful; that you have in some way made life a little better for someone else.

The day after we left the school we took a trip to Sigiriya, otherwise known as the lion rock. Sigiriya is about 200 meters high, with a total of 1,200 steps leading to the top. The view is incredible, and the history is interesting - it was once used as a palace that alternated between two kings as they fought for control of the area and sought to protect themselves through the unreachability of a palace on a rock.

Other assorted things we did during the trip included a visit to a tea plantation (anyone out there drink Ceylon tea? That's Sri Lankan), a batik factory, and the Pinnawala elephant orphanage. Overall, it was an amazing experience, and I highly recommend the country to anyone with a week or two to spare in travel. 

But for now I'm back in Oman, heading to school amidst the sun and the sand and so beyond grateful that this is the life I get to have.

🎶Good Life - OneRepublic🎶

When I got off the plane in Muscat almost 6 months ago, probably one of the most prominent thoughts I had was "the next time I'm on a plane, I will be going home". Turns out I was way off base. This weekend is my long awaited trip to Sri Lanka, and I'm both excited and very nervous for this incredible opportunity to travel in a unique setting (as a participant in a school trip). I'm saving details about that for the next post - when I get back, I'll be writing about everything that happened and uploading lots of visuals. But for now, more about this week.

Nothing particularly exciting had happened for a while (barring our trip to the Muscat festival together last week), and so tonight was completely perfect. The five of us YES girls were invited to a "jazz" concert at the house of the American ambassador to Oman (we have  now met her several times; she's really nice), and so we went straight from AMIDEAST after class (we watched a video during Arabic today called Amreeka). It turned out the "jazz" was more of a country-rock mashup, and we wound up dancing on the lawn with each other and ambassadors from various other countries in a crazy jumble of tangled hair and swaying limbs as the Mary McBride Band played in front of us (photos coming soon). 

This is, in a way, a pretty perfect analogy for my life in Oman. Nothing is ever really how I expect it to be, but it almost always turns out well and into a meaningful experience - this one was perhaps some of the most fun I've had in a very long time. I still can't believe that this is my life - hobnobbing (this is probably one of my favorite pieces of British terminology) with ambassadors and attending VIP concerts with four other girls I love dearly, but I can honestly say that even though it can be tricky to be an exchange student, it is completely worth it for the moments like these.

As my dad is so fond of saying, "when the going gets tough, the tough get going". That's what exchange is about. It's about keeping yourself going to enjoy the beautiful little moments when everything pays off and you capture for yourself a memory to keep with you for the rest of your life. But I don't want to get sentimental, so I'll sign of with the promise of more news to come next week when I return from Sri Lanka; in the mean time, here's a song to tide you (and me) and over until then.

🎶Carry On - Fun.🎶

The sand will stay forever in my hair, my pores, the lining of my shoes. The desert is like nothing I have ever seen before. To someone from the Northeast of America, famous for snowy winters and chilly summers, it's one of the strangest feelings in the world to be standing in the middle of February with your feet firmly planted in vast amounts of hot sand. It's incredible.

I don't think anything about it was how I imagined - the sand was finer, the sky was clearer, the dunes were taller, the night was freezing cold - but it was absolutely perfect. There's something really special about sitting down in the sand, watching handfuls of it fall through your fingers as you reconcile yourself with the fact that this sand has been around forever. This sand has been around for thousands of years, and will continue to exist for thousands more - watching the Earth change and morph and capturing within itself the memories of ancient pasts.

The desert never looks the same twice. The breeze shifts the dunes around, the goats crop up the scraggly shrubbery, and every so often a group of excited girls comes along and takes a bottle or two of sand home with them to keep forever. It's magical to know that in that moment, the moment you are there are looking around, you are seeing your surroundings in a unique way, and that no one will ever see it exactly the same way ever again.

But I digress. This past weekend we went as a group to Wahiba sands to explore the desert. We visited the home of a nice Bedouin woman, rode camels up and down the dunes, did some dune-bashing, and on the trip home made some stops to swim. Our first stop was at a wadi - essentially a valley that floods with water. It's very similar to an oasis, except it's far more beautiful than anything elicited by the pop-culture references to such a landmark as a perfectly circular blob of water with a neat cluster of trees in the corner. 

Following the wadi we drove to a sinkhole - otherwise referred to as the "House of the Devil". Here we all went swimming and spent some time admiring the incredible rock formations rising from the water up to the rim. 

Overall it was an incredible trip that I can't possibly accurately describe in this post - but since a picture is worth a thousand words, I'm uploading lots of photos to my gallery in the hopes of expressing better how amazing the desert truly is.

🎶100 Years - Five for Fighting🎶

This past Friday morning I was in my room with my host sister when my host aunt came in quickly and told me to get dressed to go. With no idea where we were going, I first put on an abaya before being sent up to change by my host uncle, who informed me that if I wore it out I would regret it and melt. 

The whole family piled into the car and, after dropping off the maid at the City Center, we drove seemingly at random with a few stops at gas stations to buy snack food. After an hour or so we stopped in a more remote town, where we walked to a hot spring that was set up to feed a system of baths (you can see a picture of it on my Photos page). It's super pretty, and after testing the water with my hands I discovered it was boiling hot. 

After we all explored a bit around the area we got back in the car and drove again, this time coming to a stop just outside of Al Hazm castle. Al Hazm is one of the most famous castles in Oman, and it's easy to see why. The views from the top are incredible, and the whole building is beautifully preserved. I had particular fun running around the top and taking pictures, as well as exploring a rather hidden portion of the castle (my host siblings and I found a passage under a flight of stairs and followed it, using my cell phone flashlight to show the way as the lights were broken). 

Before I came to this country I was as tightly wound as a coiled spring... Deadlines and planning ahead were my forte, and spontaneity was not something I was comfortable with. Now... Well, I'm certainly getting better about relaxing - when I first arrived the thought of a random road trip would have terrified me, and this last one turned one of the most fun things I've done in a while.

I'm glad I'm learning to relax, because I think that's a big part of Omani culture. Those of you who know me, of course, are probably scoffing at my statements about letting go of my planning urges. But I swear, it's happening. Slowly maybe, but often that's how change happens.

Sometimes all we have to do is let go, and enjoy the ride.

🎶Let It Go - Idina Menzel🎶

Literally translated, Jabal Shams means mountain of the sun. And it is to Jabal Shams that the six of us exchangers (and Katy, one of our AMIDEAST coordinators) sallied forth last Friday morning.

Now, this is where the story gets interesting. The night before we left, I decided against packing as the lights were already off and I was exhausted. So I went to bed. But of course, my careful and well-thought-out (note my sarcasm) thinking had a few tiny flaws. So at 7:30 am (30 minutes after I was supposed to be picked up and on the road), my host aunt came sprinting into my room calling my name and telling me that there was someone here to get me.

At which point I did the scramble over to my closet, followed by my bathroom, and on emerging I found myself staring at Kenzie, who was happily camped out on top of my bed. Fast forward a few minutes and we were driving towards AMIDEAST, laughing at my hastily packed backpack and harried appearance. But that's not what this weekend was about.

To sum it all up:

Friday... we went to Nizwa, a relatively nearby and very historic  village. There we visited the fruit and vegetable souq briefly (where I tried a white chocolate covered date, as well as fresh helwa - a traditional Omani sweet) before we heading into Nizwa Fort. We saw lots of beautiful views and snapped way too many pictures before being turned loose (in pairs, they don't trust us that much) into the main souq. Here I made some purchases, including gifts for my grandmother and parents. In the parking lot we bought a communal crate of pomegranates, and over the course of the weekend their numbers diminished rapidly as we ate them. After leaving Nizwa we made a visit to a beautiful mountain village that sprawls up and down the mountain-side, and once again our cameras appeared to capture the natural beauty of the rare greenery. Our next stop was Jabal Shams, the mountain we spent the night on, and the first things we did when we got there were take some photos beside a stunning canyon and take a hike along a trail that skirted its edges. That night we built a fire outside our "tents" (I use quotes because they were more like fancy hotel rooms covered in tarps... They even had keys) and sang songs like Wagon Wheel as the stars came out.

Saturday... we left the place we had spent the night (I'm honestly not sure what to call it; campground doesn't seem accurate) and headed to a pottery studio in a nearby town. We watched the skilled potters make their vases and cups rapidly before each taking a painful turn at the wheel and turning out six nutbowls of varying lumpiness and curvature. But it was all very fun, so I'm excited to get mine back. After pottery it was time for lunch, and before long we found ourselves heading home to our host families.

I realize that my descriptions are a bit hasty... But if I truly took the time to tell every minute detail this post would take well over a week to write - something I cannot even begin to fathom. But in short, it was a truly amazing weekend that really served to impress upon me, yet again, how amazing this country is.

To cap it all off, on Sunday night we had a very special opportunity. The Assistant Secretary of the Educational and Cultural Affairs Bureau of the United States, Evan Ryan, was in Muscat, and we were invited to a dinner with her and some others (Fulbright scholars studying in Muscat, people working at the local U.S. Embassy, etc.). I really enjoyed talking to everyone, and I think it's amazing that Ms. Ryan took the time to come and meet with us all during her time here in Oman. 

Here's to adventure, and excitement, and all the things that make life worthwhile. 

🎶Wagon Wheel - Darius Rucker🎶

August 25, 6:00 am.

I woke up early in the morning, and rummaged through my things, praying I wouldn't wind up forgetting anything crucial. I changed, brushed my teeth, snuggled my cats, and waited for the sound of the door chime to signal to me that my dad had come home. Fast forward a few hours and I was saying goodbye to my parents as I walked through security and away from my home.

A few more and I was at Dulles international airport with the other girls and our group leader, waiting for our flight to Frankfurt. As far as flights go, this one wasn't too bad. 8 hours long, there was food and movies, and it was a fancy new 747 with *gasp* two levels. At the very least, it was a bit of a novelty.

By our arrival in Germany the six of us were exhausted, hungry, and über dehydrated. So we stopped at a nap terminal (crazy, right? They have little cots and it's super quiet) before loading up onto our next flight, this one to Oman.

Fighting growing weariness and the general urge to pass out atop my tray table (Linden...), I stayed awake through the flight to Abu Dhabi and all the way to Muscat. Disembarking the plane felt like stepping into a bath (literally, it's crazy humid) of hot air. Reminder: the sun had already gone down. This was just residual heat.

We received our visas and went to pass into the country, but where everyone else went in easily I was left standing with my passport as confusion unfolded. It turned out my visa had been prepared using my old passport, but after the officials worked this out it was simple to get in and collect my bags.

In the following few days, we had AMIDEAST orientations, a city tour, and I spent some time getting to know and integrating with my incredible host family.

My school starts on Wednesday, so until then I'm hanging out at home with my host family and trying to de-jetlag in preparation for the year ahead. 

I still have trouble believing I am actually here, and sometimes I need to pinch myself to make sure this is not a dream. But it is not.

This fabulous, hot, beautiful, friendly, amazing country is not a dream, my wonderful host family is not a dream, and I feel incredibly blessed to be able to spend a full 10 months exploring and growing to better understand Oman.


🎶Remember The Name (feat. Styles of Beyond) - Fort Minor🎶