Khanjars and more!

It takes a lot longer to blog my rambling adventures than it does to do these quick updates, but I hope they are interesting none-the-less. 

The Omani Flag

The Omani Flag has three colors and the national emblem of Oman in the top left corner. This emblem is made up of the Khanjar, the traditional Omani curved dagger, and two crossed swords. Here is how a Khanjar is worn, across the waist on a belt:

They are normally ornamented in silver, something that Oman seems to have quite a bit of (if the tourist guys are to be believed). A nice Khanjar can set you back hundreds of dollars, or you can buy a cheap one for around $25. They seem to get worn when a guy is dressing up, probably trying to show off how tough he is. This guy is also carrying a traditional cane. You would see more guys carrying the cane than wearing the dagger, probably because daggers are dangerous. 

Here is a picture I took in front of the Sultan's palace, showing the symbol in gold at the front gate:

The Khanjar is also on their money, here's an example for a One Rial (Omani currency) Note:

Not to mention that his majesty, Sultan Qaboos, wears his all the time!

Here he is, strutting next to our former vice president. I can't tell if he's adjusting his dagger or his massive junk. It's too bad that his majesty didn't show Cheney the business end of his Khanjar, at least to get his blood pumping a little!

Majlis al Jinn

Majlis al Jinn, or Meeting Place of the Spirits, is an enormous cave located on the Selma Plateau in Oman. It's a hard trek up a rocky road with a 4WD - Toby, Steffen and I had a Hummer H3 and it was still a beast of a trip. We also had an Omani named Juma with us, he lived in a village nearby and was an acquaintance of Toby. Fortunately for all, Toby is a great off-road driver, meaning that I only felt nauseous on the bumpy trip instead of actually throwing up!

Steffen and our Arab friend Juma taking in the sights

From the outside the cave doesn't look like much, just a few holes in the rocky ground. But inside is one of the largest cave chambers in the world (large enough to hold the Pyramid of Giza). The only known ways in are by rappelling through one of the three holes in the roof of the chamber. Or you could jump in with a parachute, like this guy did:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Huzi60Q-vsc . 

Toby said that he was there when they filmed this, and that he's one of the figures sitting around the cave entrance at the beginning. 

This place is huge, just enormous. 

Please note that none of the cave pictures are my own, Oman has banned any more people entering the cave. That, and I'm a complete wuss. Steffen, Toby and I all stood at a few of the holes and threw rocks in, waiting to hear them crash at the bottom. It was amazing to throw something straight down and have to wait more than 5 or 6 seconds for it to hit the bottom. It was even more amazing to see pictures of what I was throwing rocks into...

Flying to Oman

Standing at one of the highest points in Oman.

Why Oman? That's a good question, and one that requires a little back story. It starts like this: my friend Steffen, a close buddy of mine since freshman year of college, is nearly fluent in the language of love and of the Arabic language. For this story we'll be focusing on his goal of becoming fluent in Arabic (I'll let him write the story of how he became fluent in the language of love, but I know that it's called "How Steffen got his groove back"). In order to become fluent in Arabic, Steffen has received grants to study abroad in Middle Eastern countries - in immersion settings. At least 6 months before we left, Steffen was trying to convince me to come along on his latest adventure, living in the small country that is the easternmost edge of the Arabian Peninsula. 

Long story short, I decided that it was too good of an opportunity to pass up. I was applying to law school in the fall anyway, so I decided that I might as well pull up stakes a little early and have possibly my last crazy adventure.  

In need of a crazy adventure.

To begin our adventure to Oman, Steffen and I were leaving the same day - January 6th, 2009. My parents dropped me off the night before, and I rode with Steffen and his parents to the airport the next morning. Unfortunately for me, Steffen's flight left about 4 hours before mine, so I knew that I had quite a wait in front of me.

After dropping Steffen off at his security area in the domestic terminals, I hopped aboard the O’Hare train to terminal 5 - the international terminal. British Airways is located there, and I was flying out on their first flight of the night. I was still a little early... meaning that I had to sit outside the check-in counter for close to 3 hours waiting for their representatives to show up. It was a slow wait, knowing that I had close to 20 hours of travel in front of me once I boarded the first plane, but Malcolm Gladwell’s new book kept me company. 

Good book, check it out!

Once the line opened up I was near the front, and was soon faced with my new best friend, Helen, the airline lady. I checked in and casually mentioned, “Is there anyway that you could get me a better seat?” This comment needs to be put into context. By ‘better seat’ I meant closer to the front of the plane. My biggest pet peeve is that I almost always sit near the back of the aircraft. It’s always behind the wing (or worse) and then while offloading the plane I have to sit and watch as people take their sweet ass time. Usually I have a long layover at the next airport anyway, so it’s not like I have to get off the plane quickly, but just having people make me wait really ticks me off for some reason. I can just picture some old dude fighting with his overly large carry-on bag, struggling to pull it out of the overhead compartment, while the aisle is empty all the way to the front of the plane.

Move it, Oldy!

So when I mentioned getting ‘a better seat’ I meant closer to the front of the Coach area. Or chattel, or poor people, or whatever you want to call that area of the plane. Helen took it to mean “Can you get me an upgrade out of the crappy cheap seats and into the lap of luxury?” And bless her soul, that’s just where I went! Apparently the expensive seats weren’t full, but the cheap seats were over booked. They needed a few ‘volunteers’ to be moved to nicer seats. By asking (and flirting) I guess I was put on that list. The last thing that Helen said to me was, “Please don’t tell other people on this flight that you’ve been upgraded for free, this is a $3000 seat.”

My response was, "No Problem!"

It was beautiful. I was in the first group to board the plane, not the last. Instead of walking through the nice part of the plane to my cheap seat I got to sit and watch the ‘commoners’ file past, each of them probably cursing me for being rich. But that’s the thing, I was as poor as them! I just happened to get Helen, the angelic flight lady, and they didn’t. Soon I realized what $3000 dollars buys you on a British Airways flight: Comfort.

Enough leg room!

My seat reclined. Not the little pittance that is just enough to piss the person off behind you, but all the way to flat if you wanted it to. That meant that I slept most of the way across the Atlantic. And not the crappy sleep that I usually get, the kind where you wake up more tired then you were before AND you have a huge crick in your neck, but real sleep, the refreshing kind.

I was provided a menu, not the traditional “Chicken or Fish?” question from the flight attendant. I was first given a starter of “Fresh Greens – marinated with lemon mosto olive oil”. That was followed by my choice of appetizer between Asian-Style braised beef short ribs, Seared mahi-mahi or grilled vegetable ravioli. (By the way the reason that I know what my options were is because I kept the menu – further proof that I didn’t belong in that section of the plane). I had my own personal TV screen with hundreds of movie titles to watch. And I had a number of video games that I could play with the controller tethered to my seat. There was a servant, I mean flight attendant, that was always hovering about asking me if I needed stuff.

I was almost the first one off of the plane. My knees and back felt great, I strutted off the plane like I was stepping out of a car after a 20 minute ride instead of my normal "80 year old with a bad back" shuffle that I normally have after trans-Atlantic flights. Was flying in that type of luxury worth $3000 to me? No, but it was worth flirting with Helen!