You got to LOVE the weather here. You actually see the four seasons There is autumn, winter, spring and summer.

Green is a different colour over here. Wonderful flowers are blooming all over the place. Colourful bees flying. Insects that crawl all over the place. Even the fat flies. All bundled as an amazing experience.

My pictures aren’t doing any justice to what I’m seeing with my eyes. I’ll post more once I get some good ones.

Here’s a weird bug that stuck to my trainings. So many exciting new insects.

Of course a cloud has to pass by blocking the sun It is UK after all.

“اليوم الغدا عندي”

“لااااا مابي أتعبج … مالا داعي”

“عادي اشفيج … أنا بسوي بسوي و بحسب احسابج معاي”

“متاكده أخاف وايد عليج”

and it goes like this everytime.

Here’s how when she invites me over.

“اليوم الغدا عندي”

“OK”

Unless I ate or am tired, I accept invitations Madree, maybe the social thing is to say NO at first.

Today I bought meat. Here’s moi multitasking

• Many book stores available, I go in and loose myself
• Amazon UK, my basket always has items in them. It is hard to resist the click to order and have your items delivered within one week.
• Again my life style, when waiting for the bus, I can be waiting for upto 30 minutes and so I sit or lean against the wall and read. Since I’m not driving and I’m the passenger, I read while in the bus or train until I get dizzy
• Everyone around you is reading, it really helps and is an open source for book recommendations and a good conversation starter. “ohhh, I read this book, it is very interesting and a good read”.

I’ve read a lot of light books lately, when I’ve got so much going on, I need to ease and relax my mind a bit or it’ll explode. The three books were:

• His other lover by Lucy Dawson.”A crazy woman fighting for her sorry excuse of a man“. This novel proves that women are crazy when it comes to their man! They do not acknowledge common sense and they loose grip of reality.
• Getting rid of Matthew by Jane Fallon. I liked “Foursome” more, it was so much funnier.
• My best friend’s girl by Dorothy Koomson. I enjoyed this book very much, it was light and entertaining. I didn’t know how it’ll end till I finished reading the book.

And the last book was “Precious” by Sapphire, I just felt really appreciative of my life and the circumstances I live in. You’ll feel so blessed while reading this book.

On my to read list.

I picked this Stieg Larsson because of all the hype about the brilliance of his novels and I chose his first one. The second book by Kathryn Stockett, I just stumbled upon while Amazon-ing

So one of my neighbours are a Chinese couple or that’s what I thought! I actually didn’t put things together until later, I see her with a guy that I thought was the one living next door, turns out it is a different guy. So maybe they are not a couple, maybe they’re just brother and sister

You can never understand Chinese couple they aren’t as intimate as their English counterparts! They don’t hold hands for example. My colleague has a picture of himself posing next to his girlfriend, it seems like they were forced under gunpoint!! Standing straight, looking into the camera direct, no smiles, eshda3wa

Now I can recognize my pre-couple now-siblings duo, they do not sit next to each other in class that is in the times I’ve seen them. In the cafeteria, I see her eating with a group and then as I’m heading out I see him eating with another group! They come after me in the bus, infront of me, he sits right of the aisle and she left of the aisle, why not together ???

As I’m cleaning my room, I see them walking outside, hand-in-hand, hmmmm, that doesn’t seem like a brother and sister Ohhh, well maybe they are a couple who are sick of each other, they do not have to sit together in uni, eat together, walk together … still not sure, are they a couple or not ???

Maybe they’re just living together ??? Is he gay 3ad she is a beautiful girl, he’s grumpy and always smoking outside hehehehe

Today I see her in the bus and we talk, I’m think should I ask the question, “Is that your boyfriend, friend, or brother ?” But didn’t

Later I head out again and as I was going up to the bus stop, they were coming down, his hands around her, I smile ready to say HI, as soon as she sees me, she elbows him and shrugs off his hands and they seperate, I walk by and we exchange “Hello’s”.

Did they do that because they’ve seen me “Basich leqafa” But life is putting them in my way, I’m not seeking it, it just happens infront of me and then I think “OK, where did we last left off, YUP them sitting apart”, or as my latest update, them springing away from of each other when they saw me, or maybe it’s just my imagination hehehehe I feel wicked when I’m piecing and noticing things that are not of my god damn business

The dilemma is not Isha prayer, it is Isha + Fajer! Ishar is after 11 PM and Fajer around 2:30 AM.

It is physically difficult for me to pray at 11:15 PM and by the time I get around to sleep, wake up for the Fajer! Sometimes I turn off the alarm without even having a recollection of that action!

I put the alarm at the far end, far beyond my hand reach, I have to get out of bed to turn the alarm off, I used to do that sometimes back home, when I’m exhausted and know there is a high chance of me unconsciously turning the alarm off. I set it to 3:30 AM, for realistic terms, by the time I sleep around 12 midnight, 3:30 AM sounds doable.

You experience the extremes here from Fajer being after 6 AM, Dhuhur at 12 PM, 3asir after 1 PM, Magrib around 4 PM and Isha around 6 PM to summer prayer times. Interesting experience

Anyway so the train was 9:28 AM and 3alama we walked to the bus station ella tawa mashee el em3afan so we waited for the next bus and we barely arrived at the train station and got our pre-booked tickets from the machine and ran to the platform. All the way the girls with me were afraid we won’t make it on time, so what ?? We’ll take the next one … no biggie … there is another train in the same off-peak time slot, our tickets cover that. What they didn’t know is that I wasn’t sure hehehehe but I assumed who in the right mind schedules a single train in a weekend.

We roamed Manchester, sightseeing, went in Manchester cathedral, did some minor shopping, girls are packing stuff to take back home, there is an Omani girl maskeeena she has to buy for the whole fereeej too,  are you kidding me! laa oo fereejhom 3ooood!!!

We decided to head to Trafford Centre, qilna yamdeee, secretly knowing NOT It is humoungous, there are many activities to do, skiing, lego-land, movies, and it is filled with Halal restaurants. We ended up having lunch/dinner at a place called “RICE”, it was very tasty but my order was a thai dish and it was HOT! My eyes teared up and nose started running and my face flushed, I had to get ice-cream afterwards.

For the trip back we took the same bus, number 100, to the city and were planning to take one of the free buses, 1, 2 or 3, to Piccadilly station only to discover they aren’t running after 7 PM It was pass 7 PM and we already missed our train. We decided to walk we have a map and we did, it took us a while and some were complaining that we are lost, we aren’t going to make, we won’t find a train … so what … kilish kilish we’ll stay the night oo catch a morning train. As soon as we found the train station we congratulated each other and headed to the board to see the departures schedule, one girl took off to buy coffee, I saw it, the next train departs in a few minutes and of course platform 13 is at the other end. I called her, wait get coffee on the train and I ran and the rest followed LOL, we stopped mid run because they were screaming we aren’t going to make it, I can see platform 13 and the big clock and it says we can, YES WE CAN … RUN and we did, one minute ahead of time ba3ad. While running a girl’s mobile flew and some of her things and she just picked up her mobile because the empty bottle of water didn’t matter. We made fun and laughed the whole journey back

While on board, drunk people we all over, one couple actually started a slow dance and then another started singing. It was a sad scene really, they were hopping from one town to another, getting drunk and then heading to the next one! I was glad they didn’t come near us. Ma kan lee khilqhom.

Took the bus back to my dorm and called it a day

From Oman, India, Pakistan, UAE, UK, Libya …

Young chemist extracting substances from palm trees.

English students studying methods to enhance how English is taught back home in their schools.

Computer scientists congratulaing and hugging each other because they just submitted their 6 months long project.

A computer scientist who’s married to a network engineer. That just cracked me up!!!

A 40 year old woman with two kids searching a cure to a disease that I can not even remember its name, it affects malnourished poor parts of the world, India, Iraq, Egypt, it enlarges internal organs leading to death. Not only does she have a PhD but also is supervising 5 PhD students in HER lab. That’s what she calls it, “My Lab”.

One just gave birth … Another looking for a job … Just failed a job interview …

A colourful bunch, talking about Africa, cannibals, food, guessing ages, shoes, badminton, volleyball, football, insects, progress, past …

All that over a barbecue on a sunny/windy day

I’ve noticed that the insects here are weird, I know I am in a different climate, but the variety and diversity of crawling and flying things is astonishing.

I thought about Kuwait, what do we have, “ذبان”, that’s it! It’s like the community of insects decided to migrate and the flies decided to stick around, because that’s their thing, heat, where things rot faster and it’s more funny flying and annoying the already annoyed people because of the heat! Crazy little maniacs!

I saw a black bumble bee with a red bum! Seriously it looked like a black ops recruit Walking in the open, so many green little flying things attach themselves to my clothes!

Being it summer and all with no air conditioning, I have to open the windows, and usually I clean up things that fly in with a towel, smacking around! The other day, I hear a loud buzz and this what came in!

OMG sooo huge! Bees are wonderful creatures. They are sophisticated living beings and it’s very hard to just smack them. I waited for it to stand still, it looked confused, seeing the outside world through the glass and not being able to get there, as soon it was still, I covered it with a small towel and set it free through the tiny crack of the window, while screaming “eeeeee, صبراي صبراي” and quickly closed the windows.

I just wonder with all the space out there, why would they fly in through the tiniest crack!

What I’m missing here is my A/C. There is cool wind outside but there is a problem opening the windows, weird insects will fly in and HUGE mosquitoes!! Weirdly huge, I’ll try to snap a shot of  them. But what can I do to fight off the heat, I have to leave the windows open!

Sun sets late, and I am enjoying it, I like how the sun is still up at 7 PM, the only problem is prayer time, especially Al-Esha, I sometimes stay in bed waiting for the athan.

I checked the prayer’s time in the future just to see how far late it will get, the below is in July and then it’ll pick up again.

So when it is Ramadan time in August, breaking the fast will be starting from 9 PM and inching towards 8 PM, that’ll be interesting

Summer sun is hot especially if it is direct “3ala el-ras”, so if you are in the bus, nausea is guaranteed! I’d given up trying to get used to the bus, it takes more than months to get used to be cramped in an airless, heated, full of breathing people, rotating and stopping often, as a way of transportation But I’m not giving up, hehehehehe

People are now out more often, like we need that! More festivals in town, singing competition this weekend, that was fun to watch. Flowers blossoming everywhere. There other day, I woke up to cheesy music and in the haze of my sleep trying to decipher the sounds, it was actually of birds singing outside my window, how lame and cliché is that!! I smiled and tried to go back to sleep … summer is kicking in …

]]> http://www.bloggylife.com/2010/04/18/uk-summer/feed/ 3 http://www.bloggylife.com/2010/04/17/uk-hover/ http://www.bloggylife.com/2010/04/17/uk-hover/#comments Sat, 17 Apr 2010 21:28:56 +0000 Bloggylife http://www.bloggylife.com/?p=4446 I don’t know what the deal with this hover is???

Seriously I’ve began this question when I noticed it everywhere! First in my dorm I thought it was cute somehow personalised, then in shops and departmental stores, in hotels, then in a UK show, Whenever I see anyone vacuuming anywhere, they are using that model, what is the deal with this hover? Is it a national symbol? Aren’t any other hovers out there in the UK ?

Are you in the UK? Do you notice this around much ????