تم تعطيل الجافا سكربت. للحصول على تجربة أفضل، الرجاء تمكين الجافا سكربت في المتصفح الخاص بك قبل المتابعة.

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الرسالة: <blockquote data-quote="أ“أ‡أ،أ£ أ‡أ،أˆأ‡أڈأ" data-source="post: 1434894">Posted on <a href="http://omaneric.wordpress.com/2011/09/25/10-month-expiration/">September 25, 2011</a>by <a href="http://omaneric.wordpress.com/author/echiang1/">echiang1</a> Well, my last post.My 10 month experience has ended. It ended a month ago and now I am back home. It’s been a strange and unique journey. I certainly didn’t expect to go to some of the places I went and do some of the things I did.It was a timeline that was mostly a flowing busy, many times a frustrating ineffectiveness but also many times engagingly creative and fruitfully productive. It dipped into lulls of extreme boredom and near surrender and there were periodic spikes of pure wonder and exploration.In 10 months, I wallowed in social isolation, watching sandstorms whip past my plot of sand. There were days when the only thing I did was wake up and then go back to sleep. I kicked a rooster out of my apartment. I hiked up to the Monasteries of Meteora, shrouded in mist and surreally perched on smoothly shaped mountain spires. I stood in front of the Acropolis of Athens and looked down on the deep green olive valley of Delphi. I stared up at the masterpiece of Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel. I walked through the ancient Nabataean capital of Petra, carved into the rose-red sandstone mountains. I applied to four fellowships and was rejected by all of them. I floated on the surface of the Dead Sea. On New Years Eve I saw fireworks explode from the tallest building in the world and was caught in a stampede of people. I saw the baptism site of Jesus Christ along the Jordan River and swam in the jacuzzi warm waters of the Gulf of Oman. I stumbled across processionary caterpillars. I ascended to the summit of Africa and watched the sun illuminate the glaciers of Kilimanjaro. I camped in the Serengeti, witnessing the fiery spectrum of a sunset framed by the complex branching of acacia trees. When the sun rose I witnessed hyenas crunching on zebra bones and a lion tearing apart the carcass of a buffalo. I ate a lunch buffet at Dubai’s “7-star” hotel. I plunged thirty feet into the ocean and scuba dove among the diversity of undersea life. I snorkeled on the surface and saw eagle rays glide below. I woke up before dawn to glimpse the beauty of the green sea turtle circle of life, a reptilian bulk crawling onto shore to dig and lay eggs while babies emerged from the sand to face foxes, crabs, gulls, and the unsympathetic sea. I suffered the sniffling effect of wafting tear gas from protests in Greece, only to return to Oman to witness a protest of the Arab Spring in my very own Buraimi. I shared the road with armored tanks. I got my car stuck in the sand. I hiked up a Sahara Desert sand dune and saw Algeria from Morocco. I got lost in the medieval maze of Fes, dined at Rick’s Café in Casablanca, and watched a furious Atlantic thrash along the shores of Tangier. I entered Spain without leaving Africa. I got food poisoning twice, the second time sending me to a hospital with an IV from dehydration. I visited the sinking city of Venice, climbed the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and strolled around the Florentine birthplace of the Renaissance. I entered the Colosseum of Rome and in Istanbul, was caught between the dueling architectural marvels of the Hagia Sophia and the Sultan Ahmed Mosque. I rode a bus across the bridge between Asia and Europe. I ate more gelato in a two week period than I had in the past 23 years. I saw man sized storks strolling the sidewalks of Nairobi. I saw rare black rhinos and a vast wildebeest migration in the cradle of Ngorogoro. On the desolate roads to Buraimi I eased up to 120 miles per hour and was spoiled by one dollar a gallon gas. I ate some of the best meals of my life in Paris and filled up on the art of the Louvre. I experienced the extravagance of Versailles and the stark expanse of white crosses at the American cemetery in Normandy. I taught myself how to drive a manual transmission in France and eventually arrived at the tidal island of Mont St. Michel. I went on “the least memorable journey in the world” to the coastal fog desert of Salalah, dodged wild camels on the road, and stood at the edge of the Oman Yemen border. I finally wore a dishdasha and a kuma and eventually had multiple ones tailored. I drove to another country and back just to buy groceries. I discovered the surprising deliciousness of avocado juice. I became the object of student obsessions. I rode a dhow through the fjords of Musandam with dolphins alongside the boat, got propositioned by a Filipino prostitute, and caught sight of Iranian smugglers on the Strait of Hormuz. I descended under Paris into the Catacombs, navigating through maze walls of stacked human skulls and bones. I was surrounded by the festive excesses of Marrakech and I walked into the charred remains of a fallen Lulus. I stopped meters away from a herd of elephants and saw baboons trying to take over a delivery truck. Also I taught English.That last one is probably important to mention. Most of my time was spent teaching English.This has been my first experience blogging and it’s been an interesting project. I have a record of these 10 months to share and look back on and writing has helped ferry me though some bewildering, uncomfortable, and frustrating moments to reach the destination of stories I can laugh about.I do feel extremely fortunate to have been given the opportunity to have these experiences in Oman (and other places) and hopefully my recollections have been a somewhat enjoyable and informative read.</blockquote>

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