We all are to some extent because it's just easier for our small, overloaded brains. You would think I would know better by now since I grew up in Texas where I never once got to ride a horse to school and I currently live in Georgia where my house looks nothing like a cotton plantation. I do sometimes declare that tomorrow is another day, though, and BU has instilled in me that nobody loves Scarlett more than Rhett. (Terrier shout out!!)
Even so, I will still stereotype a place and it has become a great way to prove my own self wrong. I did just that when we arrived in Muscat, Oman, today. I was pretty much assuming all the middle eastern countries would look basically the same. "Yeah, yeah, sand, hot, maybe a palm tree, I get it." It was a pleasant surprise to land and see mountains in the near distance and beach resorts lining the coast. 
Yes, it's still a dry desert (they get 2-3 days of rain a year!), but I think you could like it here! We did mostly obligatory tourist things around the city today. You know the drill by now: a mosque, 
a fort, 
a palace. 
We also got some good info about life in Oman and the sultanate. My favorite facts all seem to be about the sultan. He is beloved and united Oman in the 1970's to the country we have today. Very little is known about his personal life. Our guide explained it as, "his life is so rich and glamorous compared to ours that there is no need for us to know about it because we could not understand." Whoa. One could argue that the same is true about George Clooney but I seem to know an awful lot about him without even really trying.*
Also fascinating to me is that he is quite old and has not named a successor. He has no sons (that the guide knew of but, who knows! We can't understand this life!) and before he dies he will write the name of his successor down on a sheet of paper to be read after he has passed. Again, whoa. In America we have demanded copies of our own president's birth certificate. What if we just knew nothing about him or who would be next in line? Riots.
And finally, this is his yacht. (The big one.)
I know it is his yacht because we drove past it several times and it was just chilling there by the beach. I feel like if we had wanted to go on it we could have just talked to a couple of guys.
Then again, FaceTime and Skype are banned in this country because of potential misuse, so maybe it's a tighter run ship than it looks.
Those are my sultan facts for the day and my lesson to not judge a middle eastern country's landscape by roadrunner cartoons. We'll be spending the next two nights in the mountains? at a camp-type-place? where the big to-do is see the cattle show? I'll keep you posted on that. In the meantime, if I invite you to use Talkatone it's because it's free and works here and I get credits for inviting my poor sucker friends.
Sorry.
I'd explain more but you couldn't possibly understand the glamour of this life.
Sarcastically Yours,
KT
*How is America handling the Ben and Jen divorce, by the way?
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