I promise, we did not know about the birthday before we decided to stay another day. When we told Lina and Michael that we would stay one more day before heading for Muscat, they said that today was Eric’s birthday and we were already invited to come along if we were still around. We liked Eric, his wife Emily and the other teachers we have met so far, so we were cautiously looking forward to it.

Going to any kind of celebration of people we have just met is always a bit stressful for us. Nina decided to fight this by channeling her anxiety into baking. This time we were prepared, though, and the triple chocolate birthday and goodbye cake came out pretty good for a spontaneous bake.

The rest of the day was filled by active relaxing – a lot of TV on my part and sleeping for Nina. We also tried to tidy up the house a little (our mess, of course) to make it nice for our hosts when they come off work. Around 6.30 pm, they came home and everyone was ready to leave for the party.

The birthday was really nice. Our friends’ friends are pretty much all lovely, but probably the real kicker for us was that we had 80% introverts. I feel, that is just the right mix for any social gathering. Lorie Ann especially turned out to be blessed with a delightful sense of humor. The real star was the food, though. Eric’s wife Emily has outdone herself in my opinion with 27(!) different dips to go with the fresh fruit, veg, crackers and bread. It was a feast!

Nina’s comment: So.much.food. There was so much to try that by the time you were through once, there was barely enough room in the belly left to double up on your favourites. And there were dessert dips as well, including salted caramel, a key lime pie dip (my favourite!) and a whisky dip that had it in it. Our chocolate cake and Todd and Megan’s ice cream went well with everything else on offer, especially combined with the cookie dough dip…

Honorable mention needs to go out to their cat Solo. A rescued street urchin, he definitively provided ample entertainment for the night.

We also got to have a good chat with Jorge and his wife Abby. They aptly came to the gathering on Jorge’s KTM 950 Adventure (which he insists, he bought for his wife – to be pillion. His other bike is a single seat … 😉 ). He even was kind enough to bring and lend us one can of chain lube, which we forgot to buy in Dubai. Legend.

That was it then – our time in Sohar was almost up. Tomorrow, we will leave for Muscat.