En route: via Riyadh to Oman
Our family took the Thanksgiving holiday to leave Saudi Arabia and visit Oman right after their #national-day. This post has #travel-info on getting in and around and also contrasts our impressions of #Saudi Arabia to #Oman.
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Started off great, our 11 am flight from Jeddah to riyadh was cancelled (only 10 passengers?), switched to the next one at 12:30. But the gate guy only told us we were getting new seats, not a new flight. The new flight was pretty full, and it looked like the flight crew from our cancelled flight was getting a ride back to riyadh.
#riyadh
Impressions of Riyadh Airport
Impression of Riyadh airport: Looks nice (international style), dysfunctional. You Can tell where Saudis spend money (v jeddah).Arrived at domestic terminal, no signs clarifying transfer v international flt, or how to get to oth terminals. Blue bus from t5 to t2. drove through a whole disused terminal...expansion? After swiping our boarding passes, we Found domino's, but staff had trouble putting orders to customers. No open tables, just lazy dudes not eating at them. I saw our medium pepperoni come out of the oven and sit on the rack for 10 minutes before we demanded they give it to us.
Our gate for Muscat was 24B. So, we found 24 and 25 , but there was no sign for 24B. Asked around, we were told it's the right gate. Barely understood the announcement, but we saw men with Omani headgear getting in line, so we knew we were going the right way. Turns out, the "B" in 24B was for "Bus" or "Below" or something else requiring us to go down stairs. the bus drove around for a bit, then it seemed like the driver was asking for directions or something just before he pulled forward about 5 feet to open the doors between some concrete barriers separating the apron from the service road. Only about 30 people on the flight.
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#oman
Oman lacks the pretentiousness of Saudi Arabia. Visa were easy (online link). Also visa requirements (one of our passports was just inside the 6 month mark, so know your dates). Rented a car from budget, gas is relatively cheap and public transit is rare (traffic is light, people follow traffic rules, signs in English).
Omani national day was xx Nov 16. Everything decked out in red, white and green (flag) felt like Christmas. Even saw trees lit up!
Stayed at shangri-la AL barr. Super kid friendly - link to tomorrow and the lazy river.
#travel-info
Travel Info
Omani Visa Applications On-line
Standardized link box on summary page to
1) state.gov info
2) national visa pages?
3) electrical plug info
4) currency converter
5) time zone converter
6) national holidays
7) trip advisor things to do
8) big bus?
Each section should be hash-tagged appropriately before the header and linked from the intro paragraph. The format for links is: http://www.bollrud.com/2014/08/webpagename.html#anchor. Anchor tags should be formatted like this: href="http://www.bollrud.com/2014/08/webpagename.html" id="anchor"
You can use a 40% HR for breaking up sections, to include summary days (which are condensed sectionsAST PARAGRAPH What ever is here should end with a well rounded summary that encourages reading other posts. Definitely link to next day's link if part of a trip. Set a location if warranted.
for reference, label links are in this format:
http://www.bollrud.com/search/label/Saudi%20 Arabia for labels.
Try to have one from the country, one for the governing summary page, any related specialty pages.
http://www.bollrud.com/p/foreign-service-specialist.html for pages.
More posts from this trip:
Yesterday Tomorrow
Related Posts:
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pic
Started off great, our 11 am flight from Jeddah to riyadh was cancelled (only 10 passengers?), switched to the next one at 12:30. But the gate guy only told us we were getting new seats, not a new flight. The new flight was pretty full, and it looked like the flight crew from our cancelled flight was getting a ride back to riyadh.
#riyadh
Impressions of Riyadh Airport
Impression of Riyadh airport: Looks nice (international style), dysfunctional. You Can tell where Saudis spend money (v jeddah).Arrived at domestic terminal, no signs clarifying transfer v international flt, or how to get to oth terminals. Blue bus from t5 to t2. drove through a whole disused terminal...expansion? After swiping our boarding passes, we Found domino's, but staff had trouble putting orders to customers. No open tables, just lazy dudes not eating at them. I saw our medium pepperoni come out of the oven and sit on the rack for 10 minutes before we demanded they give it to us.
Our gate for Muscat was 24B. So, we found 24 and 25 , but there was no sign for 24B. Asked around, we were told it's the right gate. Barely understood the announcement, but we saw men with Omani headgear getting in line, so we knew we were going the right way. Turns out, the "B" in 24B was for "Bus" or "Below" or something else requiring us to go down stairs. the bus drove around for a bit, then it seemed like the driver was asking for directions or something just before he pulled forward about 5 feet to open the doors between some concrete barriers separating the apron from the service road. Only about 30 people on the flight.
AD1-START (ex-pat lifestyle overseas and travel)
A
#oman
Oman lacks the pretentiousness of Saudi Arabia. Visa were easy (online link). Also visa requirements (one of our passports was just inside the 6 month mark, so know your dates). Rented a car from budget, gas is relatively cheap and public transit is rare (traffic is light, people follow traffic rules, signs in English).
Omani national day was xx Nov 16. Everything decked out in red, white and green (flag) felt like Christmas. Even saw trees lit up!
Stayed at shangri-la AL barr. Super kid friendly - link to tomorrow and the lazy river.
#travel-info
Travel Info
Omani Visa Applications On-line
Standardized link box on summary page to
1) state.gov info
2) national visa pages?
3) electrical plug info
4) currency converter
5) time zone converter
6) national holidays
7) trip advisor things to do
8) big bus?
Each section should be hash-tagged appropriately before the header and linked from the intro paragraph. The format for links is: http://www.bollrud.com/2014/08/webpagename.html#anchor. Anchor tags should be formatted like this: href="http://www.bollrud.com/2014/08/webpagename.html" id="anchor"
You can use a 40% HR for breaking up sections, to include summary days (which are condensed sectionsAST PARAGRAPH What ever is here should end with a well rounded summary that encourages reading other posts. Definitely link to next day's link if part of a trip. Set a location if warranted.
for reference, label links are in this format:
http://www.bollrud.com/search/label/Saudi%20 Arabia for labels.
Try to have one from the country, one for the governing summary page, any related specialty pages.
http://www.bollrud.com/p/foreign-service-specialist.html for pages.
More posts from this trip:
Yesterday Tomorrow
- See more posts from our TripName Trip Summary Page
- More Travel Summaries
- More posts from: Country Of interest
- More posts from: Saudi Arabia
- Our Foreign Service Experience
- On the Job as a Foreign Service Construction Engineer
- More posts about Architecture and Construction
- More posts about sports
- More posts from festivals
- More posts about art & museums
- More posts from city tours
- More posts about variousWonders of the World
- More posts travel trinkets
- More posts featuring RRR (#travelRRR)
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