Mingling

The last couple of days have been a bit of an emotional roller-coaster. I was feeling quite homesick on Saturday and poor Oli had to put up with me and my tearfulness all day long. However, I had to pull myself together Saturday evening for an Art Exhibition I went to with Jane. We were invited along by a lady who has been in Oman for around 20 years; she is one of those people who seems to know everyone. The art on exhibition was that of Kathryn Wilson, a young Dubai based artist whose work is inspired by the geography of Oman and the UAE. Her work is very abstract and brightly coloured and although I wouldn't necessarily place it on my living room wall I did quite like it > http://www.kathrynwilsonme.com/. Aside from the art, I was also introduced to the owner of a local art gallery (Al Madina Art Gallery), a friendly English man, and the owner of a beautiful Jewellery shop. The store was very pretty and upmarket; in the private viewing room we were shown a handmade diamond encrusted khanja not too dissimilar to this one:

(http://www.turtlesoman.com/index.php?page=product&catID=3&subCat=22)

and a gorgeous eagle made from ruby...it was so pretty! There were also two fairly large leopard cubs made from china with diamonds in their mouths and a collection of historic traditional Omani jewellery (it must all be worth a fortune!) For those of you who know me best you'd be right in thinking that I was actually quite excited about seeing all this (and all feelings of homesickness subsided somewhat)...to this day I still half regret not doing art at uni! 

Yesterday evening was a little scary! Oli, Jane, Kevin and I went to the British Business Forum at the British Embassy which takes place once a month. It is basically a networking event for British business people with canapés and drinks. The evening usually has a small presentation, this time by a lady from a Cypriot company called Aphrodite Sun Properties who was trying to tempt people to invest in property out there, but the rest of the time is spent chatting. It was slightly intimidating at first, especially when the average age was about 30 years older than Oli and myself, but eventually I felt more settled (the wine helped with that!) and it was actually a pleasant evening and we met some interesting people from a wide variety of industries. 

I am still getting used to everything out here and seem to be learning something new about the country everyday. I can't wait to explore Oman and the Middle East further and fly down to Salalah in the south, and up north to the UAE. 

xXx