OOTD: getting lost in Fujairah, UAE

Have I neglected to mention, that every OPNO girl's roadtrip is decided upon at the last minute? Badly planned road-trips, that is us. No time to choose a route, borrow back the GPS, convert currency... And that in our case, we hardly ever have an itinerary that everyone travelling in tow with us is aware of.... No idea which border station will ACTUALLY be closest to where we wanted to go?: Case in point was yesterday's debacle of Dubai. Now Dubai isn't actually Oman. The signage along Sultanate roadsides does make that immaculately clear, unlike signs for the Oman border in Emirates, that basically act like Oman is another Emirate. But Dubai was our destination nonetheless, in order to do some inanely dull browsing of Dubai mall because we have a wedding to plan. And I write about our trip now, because I consider anything you can make a day-trip out of from Oman, to be worth mentioning towards life in Oman.

So it was off to Dubai from Muscat. We drove up through Barka, Mussanah, Sohar...and I guess my husband took a wrong turn in Sohar, confused now as he was to the demise of the Globe Roundabout (a good PR move Oman, I suppose, due to internationally frowned upon images of the protests' outcome there). This ended up with us driving towards Al Fujairah in UAE through sand dunes (kind of cool) and through actual mountains with no gas stations in sight and not the kind of Emirati villa/mansion housing you'd expect for Emiratis. The road we went through snaked through Wadi Al Helo, if that gives anyone out there any kind of idea of how off from our target of Al Ain to Dubai route. Nonetheless, we made it to Dubai mall in the shadow of the Burj Calipha, and made fun of all the funny names of shops along the way:"Al Madame Police Station" "Baghdad Nuts" and the "sparkly light" cafeteria somewhere between Sohar and Barka. We were dead tired, and highly caffeinated, nigh starving, and thus, small things amused us.

As for the outfit of the day: It had to be something comfy, something clean, and not ten years out of date. I haven't been to UAE in a while, so I went with something disturbingly casual. What brand it was or where it came from I don't know: things just end up in my closet. The abaya is a cascade-front cut, with a denim insert in the cascade panel, with giant applique denim flowers on the shoulder and near the rib-cage. It looks messy because a. I don't actually like to wear cascade fronts but then, I don't like to plan to do laundry before a roadtrip either, b. I slouch, and c. I was running up sand dunes chasing my husband who was chasing a lizard, and was bored out of my mind from the time it was taking to get to our destination. Don't expect miracles. I wore platform sandals, and peel-off nailpolish to accommodate washing for prayer times. Thus my manicure (and pedicure) sucks. Because I re-did it about four times in 24 hours.

P.S, Dear shoes, I think shoes can look beautiful for the looking, but I hate you all for the wearing.