Renting in Muscat Part Three - Moving Day

Even though I am getting a bit sick of The Renting Saga, I may as well keep it going. It was an experience I do not wish to repeat here ever.

Cush and I had debated back and forth about how best to move our stuff. We had heard a lot of horror stories about how either moving companies charged retarded amounts of money and damaged items, or of cheap companies that damaged items and so we decided to ask some friends to help us and we also rented our friends cousins truck.

When moving day actually came around it turned out that our friends who had said they would help had been on the piss the night before and were no longer up for helping. We understood, but then found ourselves at a bit of a loss. One dear friend of ours said he would personally sponsor a laborer to help us, which gave Cush the genious idea of going to Ghubra roundabout with the 4x4 and loading it up with dudes and bringing them back to our house to help with the moving.

And that's what happened. He said he got to the roundabout, stopped the 4x4, called out the window something a bit gay like "I need some dudes!" and 6 guys jumped in. Sadly, he had to ask 2 of them to leave which they did not want to do.

He took the four dudes back to our house and gave them some instructions and told them how much he would pay and if nothing got broken, how much extra he would give them.

While most of them did not speak English, they got the gist, agreed on the money and proceeded to start loading up our friends cousins truck.

They were doing really, really well to be honest until I happened to notice that they were carrying Cush's desk down the stairs with his super amazing, custom handpicked parts dream computer on top.

I remember the agony Cush went through researching graphics cards and ram and motherboards, and whatnot and how much he agonized over how much it was going to cost, and in an instant I saw in my mind how it could all be gone.

I ran into the hallway and all that would come out of my mouth was the word no, like "nononononononononono!" and I was waving my hands in a "no-go" motion.

One of our friends who had showed up to help heard me and also ran into the hallway and started saying "nononono" and waving his hands.

The 2 men stopped and stood there just looking at us like we were crazy.

And right there, there was the divide. And how could they know how much that small metal box cost and meant to Cush? Other than his car it's probably his most prized possession.

Between me and our friend though I'd say most likely our friend had more influence because he's a man we talked the dudes into moving the table and the computer back into the apartment, all the while they looked at us like we were completely nuts. I took Cush's computer off the table and asked that they not touch it.

One of them said, "we move everything, yes?" Like he totally didn't get it and I don't blame him, so I just said, yes, just not this.

At another point in the day I noticed one of the dudes was blowing his nose and wiping sweat off his face with what looked suspiciously like the red towel from our guest toilet. I went and looked in the guest toilet and sure enough, the man had taken my towel without asking, and no I didn't ask for it back. It was all his at that point!

My job that day was packing things up and bringing things to the door that could go and after 3 truck loads we were mostly done with only a few small things like the Christmas tree and a few shelves that could wait for another day.

We had had enough.

Cush dropped the dudes back off to Ghubra roundabout and paid them. The man who spoke English the best said something heartbreaking like, "thank you sir, now we can eat for 2 weeks."

Cush asked how long it had been since they had work and the man confided that it had been awhile and they hadn't eaten anything in days.

***Advice time*** if you choose to get some dudes to help you move, feed them first! I wish I had known... I would have made everyone breakfast first. I don't trust hungry people carrying heavy stuff, it could make for a bad situation.

When I got to the house for the first time that day I was a bit stunned to see how much of a hodge podge things were. I mean it wasn't too bad but little things like the water cooler was upstairs in Cush's office, and all the book shelves were in the kitchen.

A few of things did get scratched and the walls got quite a bashing all the way up the stairs but over all it only cost us 20 OR for each labourer and 40 OR for the truck.

As is a bit of tradition we ordered pizza to a friends house (the one who gave us the idea to go to Ghubra roundabout to get some dudes) because we didn't know our address and he brought it over and we had a few beers and began shifting things into place.

There's 1 more part, I think it will be called Renting in Muscat Part Four - Explosion of Water and Faeces. Yeah for real...

Renting in Muscat - Part 2 Curtains and Crazies

Curtains.... never before did I ever place importance on curtains and blinds like I have here in Muscat. It's more important then it was back home simply because the sun is hotter, so good curtains and blinds help keep your home cool and dark. Man I feel like I really didn't need to spell that out but there you go :)

So Cush and I went to Ghubra roundabout where there are a few places on the North East side just by the hardware store.

We walked into the first place and the man working there said nothing, just looked at us, so we walked out and went to the next place which is bigger and we had used it before for our last place. We were greeted and told them what we wanted. Then a man came with us to our new place to measure the windows and get an idea of what we wanted.

No problems except on our way out a man who lives in the building next to us came out and started making bizarre gestures at us including drawing a finger across his throat, which was scary, to be honest.

We took the curtain man back to his shop and pondered how strange our new neighbour is and if he was an actual threat or just a looney.

A couple of weeks later and a friend of our helped us move some of our less used household items to our new place and both Cush and our friend nearly had 2 car accidents with the bizarre neighbour, at 2 seperate times.

In both cases the man was driving down the wrong side of the road and refused to get out of both Cush and our friends way. He kept gesturing for them to go around him. Since Cush was driving the Hardcore 4x4, a vehicle that is not much younger then I am, he just sat there and refused to move. Our friend did the same.

Back to the curtains, since Ramadan was just beginning we were told that it would be after Eid before we got our curtains, which is just stupid, really. After all we were only having 4 sets of curtains made, 1 horizontal blind for the kitchen and some curtains from our old house hemmed up and rehung.

We ended up saying that was fine so long as the curtains for our new bedroom were done first, as they are obviously top priority.

The curtians did end up getting done but I'll tell you I'm never using that curtain shop again.

The man who first did the measuring seems to have stopped working there halfway through Ramadan and so no one had any idea what we wanted.

The curtain in Cush's man cave/home office was particularly difficult for some reason. He has a bay window and so wanted the curtain to go inside the window so that he could put a tv on the window ledge and have the curtains closed at the same time.

Turns out this is impossible. Even though the guy who did the measurments said it was no problem. Of course he said it was no problem, right? Nothing in Muscat is ever a problem until it's a problem!

When we came to a solution, the curtain was then 3 inches too short.

Then for the grand finale, the miserable curtain man who I despised, it was mutual by the way, came to install the last curtains in our living room. Cush had gone out and just after he left the curtain man got down from his ladder and said, "money?" I said, yeah I'll pay you when you're done. He said, "boss money" and pointed at the door.

I said, yeah I have the money, just finish and I'll pay you. He grunted at me and went back to work.

He told me he was finished and I gave him the 50 OR that was remaining from our payment (300 OR in total) and he started trying to tell me that we owed him 15 OR more. I said no. He took a few steps towards me and said, "boss money. 15 Rials."

I knew we didn't owe him anymore so I said no and just stared at him until he left. I was probably eye balling him for a good 30 seconds. It was one of the most charged experiences of the year for me. Right up there with when I got into that fight with a man at Rock Bottom.

Just really wierd.

Anyway, Cush isn't allowed to go out and leave me with labourers anymore. It never ends well.

So back to the bizarre neighbour, one day as I was coming into our new house, I got out and opened the gate which we didn't have on the clicker yet because of all the people coming and going, I noticed the man who had given us the creepies coming up to his driveway.

He drove very slowly past me and started pointing and gesturing at me and so I said, "what are you pointing at me for?"

I just figured that it was possible that Cush or I had actually done something to make this man angry with us, like maybe we blocked his car somehow or turned in front of him in the neighbourhood and didn't notice and I wanted to know what it was and apologise if necessary just to move past it all.

He stopped his car and got in my face and said, "you speak to me?" and I said, "yeah why are you pointing at me?"

He said, "you leave here now!" and got in his car and drove to his parking space. Like oh fucking great, we just moved in, in fact we didn't even live there yet! When he told me to leave though, I got the feeling he meant Oman, not just the house. I bet he's one of those arseholes on Oman Forum who bitch about the expats.

I was completely shocked and a little shaken since I wasn't expecting such a high amount of aggression and hostility.

Luckily a nice man who was lost in the neighbourhood saw what happened and came over to me. He said I should call the police because what happened was completely bizarre and uncalled for.

I could barely dial my phone because my hands were shaking, but at least I didn't cry. The man gently took my phone from me and spoke to the police in Arabic.

Just then another man came from the building and asked me what was happening, I told him and he said please go to the police and that he was terrified for his wife and children to the point where he felt that he could not travel for work and leave them alone in the building for fear that the "crazy" man would do something.

The nice, lost man in his car said to me that I had to go to the police station. He gave me his phone number and told me to call him so that he could tell the police what he saw.

So off I went and I called Cush and he came too.

The whole ordeal of being in the police station was quite interesting. We recounted the events from the beginning when the man pulled his finger across his throat and pointed at us. The police laughed. LAUGHED. That pissed me off. I told them that this was serious. The man is obviously seriously demented. We told them about him driving on the wrong side of the road and the last event which had just happned to me alone at the house.

The police ran the mans license plate and then spoke to the other officer in Arabic. The only words I could understand were "Al Said". "Al Said?" I asked. The officer nodded and said but do not worry.

Cush said something like, "oh great, wasta" but the officer said no, royal or not it's not allowed for this man to treat us this way.

Just then a plastic bag full of needles and drugs got dumped on the desk in front of me along with 2 ID cards, in plain site of me by the way, and the officer with his bare hands started going through the bag.

Cush was horrified and asked me to offer the officer hand sanitizer which I always keep in my purse. He turned the offer down. Shocking.

About an hour and a half or so after we got there we went to the house with the police so they could speak to him.

As we pulled into the parking lot with the police, people kept coming out of the building and telling the police horrible things the man had done to them. He grabbed one man by the neck and told him to leave, he threatened to kill the man who looks after the building, he slams his doors at all hours of the day and night, he kicks over things that are left in the hallway, and on and on and on. In the end there were maybe 15 people who had come out with something to say about the man.

It was shocking. They all said that they thought the man was a drunk. I said I think he's just seriously mentally ill because he doesn't stumble when he walks or slur his words, but I suppose we'll never know.

I did point out though that if he is drunk, he's drunk driving all the time, because he's never home and when he is home he's always in this terrifying state.

Anyway he wasn't home so the police could do nothing. So they left. I even said to them that if he is a drunk, then he's driving his car drunk right now, because he's ALWAYS drunk (which is why I think he's just crazy) but they didn't send out an APB for his car or anything. They just left.

They didn't take anymore statements or written complaints, in fact no one took notes or anything.

It was such an anti-climax.

But we did find out that if you have a compaint against someone and they aren't home when the police come, they just issue a notice to summons which basically is a letter asking to the person to go to the police station.

If the person does not show up within 2 weeks, they get another notice to summons. Again if they don't show up in 2 weeks they get another notice. If again they don't show up it probably gets forgotten about to be honest and is probably up to the victim to chase it up.

In our case, the situation was re-directed to the Royal Office, because the man was a royal family member who appear to have dealt with it.

Everyone has these problems right????

Renting in Muscat

Right so it's been a long time since I've posted anything because as always I'm super busy. Last month was all about moving out and this month was all about moving in.

So I guess I'll start from the beginning which was last December. Cush and I had had enough after 4 years of our apartments general decay, things leaking (I never thought water would be so plentiful in the desert, for real), things breaking and our landlords general asshole-ishness and decided to say that we wanted to move out in 4 months and could we have proof of cancelled rent check for the last 6 months of our contract, or cash or whatever.

We knew our landlord wanted to raise the rent to 850 OR/month so we didn't see what he had to lose with us going.

And he said we could go so Cush and I started contacting agents and viewing properties.

I'll make a list of agencies and websites at the bottom of this post.

There are some real strange houses out there, and some real strange agents.

One experience with an agent that really stands out is when we met an agent from Taif Realty who took us to 4 properties, 3 of which had already been rented out and there was no point in going to see them. She was a real piece of work. I was following her in my car and she put her left indicater on and turned right, swerved all over the road while talking on her phone and she was 3 hours late to our appointment but called every hour to let me know that she would be even later, so I guess at least she was courteous.

We also met with 2 other agents, both were excellent but we didn't find anything that we wanted.

There really are a lot of strangely built homes in Muscat and oddly decorated too. I've seen kitchens without room or a plug for a fridge, guest toilets with a sink, then another sink when you come out of the toilet and then yet another sink outside backing onto the washroom. I've seen houses with stained glass windows with the characters of rabbits and mushrooms. Kitchens with tiled floors, then with the same tile on the walls and again on the cupboards with ox blood coloured cupboard fronts and ceiling. I've seen opulent and plain, and even one with an elevator in a single family home.

The whole process was indeed facinating.

A month or so went by and Cush pressed the landlord for some sort of proof that we were going to get our second rent payment back, afterall it was in his best interest to let us go. He could then raise the rent to whatever he wanted.

Instead of that our landlord then told us we could only get our money back if WE found new tennants. Well, I wouldn't wish that apartment on anyone, and as we finally moved out things got much worse. Another post for another day I suppose.

So flash forward to August and we started looking again. We contacted the agents we had used before and set up some viewings. I also contacted some new agents that I hadn't been in touch with before, but I left out Taif because even though they look like they have good listings, I wasn't about to waste another day driving around to other peoples houses and being given the run around and neither should you! (if you're reading this looking for advice that is)

The agents I contacted were Engel and Volkers, Savills, Better Homes, Cluttons,and Gulf Property World.

I went into the search that even while I had preferred one agent from the last time, because she was both professional and personable and Cush knows the guy who I think runs the office (but I'm not really sure what his job is) that there can only be one winner and I treated it as a contest...in my head, I didn't tell anyone else about this theory.

Here's how it went (click the company name to get to their website):

Cluttons: I filled out a few property inquiry forms from the website and was never contacted. How disappointing.

Savills: I went with an agent to see a property but it just wasn't the right one for us. The agent said she would then call me back later in the day but I never heard from her again.

Better Homes: I filled out a few property inquiries online and was emailed back and asked to provide more details, I was then told an agent would contact me but no one ever did.

Hampton's: This was actually a really good one. I had seen a few properties back in February with a really nice lady, who as it happened doesn't work there anymore but I met with another nice lady who took me to a house which was already leased (this seems to be common) but she called me often to see how the search was going and to let me know that she was still looking for me.

Gulf Property World: These guys got off to a really rocky start with me. I first set up an appointment to see a house with a man who left me waiting and eventually never actually showed up at all because he forgot about our appointment even though we had made it the previous afternon. I was pissed. We were then passed along to 2 more experienced agents who took us to a house but didn't have the key and then couldn't get a hold of the landlord so we couldn't see it. But then they took us to one of the most beautiful houses that I've seen and it came in under our budget. It had a beautiful tiled yard, huge kitchen, gigantic beautiful built in wardrobes and a jacuzzi tub in the master ensuite. It looked like The Chedi as a house. We decided to take it if the landlord could wait a month. He said yes and Cush and I told all our friends about it. Then we decided to go back at night and see what the neighbourhood was like and as we pulled into the driveway which was a bit of a slope we heard Cush's car ground out on the slope. Yes he has a sports car but it's not lowered or anything different from any other car. We thought if his car ground out mine would too and that would leave only the 4x4 to be parked in the drive way and that's no good. We thought about ways to work around it but then the landlord said he didn't want to wait a month so we nixed it.

Engel and Volkers: This was the winner! Our agent Alexandra was amazing. I can't say enough good things about her. She showed us lot of houses both in the first round and in the second, some of which were just not right for us and finally found us our home. She was very active in calling us to see houses, emailing and texting to confirm viewings which is awesome, especially with the experiences that we had thoughout this process. Even after we moved in and had a few outstanding items of work from our landlord she totally went to bat for us with him.

There are of course lots more agents out there and different ways to find places lo live. You can drive around looking for for rent or to let signs on houses in neighbourhoods that you like, check notice boards in grocery stores, classified in newspapers, ask your friends and then there's also the Facebook group Muscat-Property.

I guess that's Part 1 in the moving saga, stay tunned for Part 2, yes there is more.

Quick Update

Ok so I've had a couple of people sending me messages asking where I'm at and such....well I'm here, in Oman still, yes I survived Ramadan, yes I found a place to live and yes, I will be blogging about it.

But, in light of the fact that my landlord did not keep his end of the bargain on a few things, such as cleaning and painting the flat and my 30th (30th!!!! how did this happen?) birthday is this weekend I'm one busy biatch.

More to come soon, thanks for the notes of concern, it's always so nice when people you never met face to face care when you seem to have fallen off the edge of the earth :)

Ramadan...here we go!

It's that time of year again, Ramadan is expected to start this week, possibly even tomorrow if the moon is just right.

It's the time of year when, for some reason, and if you ask a Muslim, they are likely to say they don't know why they do it, but Muslims eat copious amounts of Custard, Creme Caramel, Whip topping and any other pre-packaged, just-add-milk dessert made by Foster Clark's.

In fact if you go into any grocery store, you will see something like this, a sort of monument to cheap powdered desserts.



I guess it is pretty easy, quick and affordable if you're trying to feed 20 or so people dessert.

So, if you're new to expat life and living in a Muslim country, you might not know what to expect, I sure didn't. I thought it would be business as usual with only Muslims having to pay attention to Ramadan. I was wrong!

Even if you are not Muslim you are expected to respect the fact that it's Ramadan and fast in public. Actually it's not even fasting, it's more extreme then that.

No gum, no mints, no smoking, no nail biting, no licking stamps at the post office, no eating and no drinking in public places. Nothing may pass the lips. Even if you have medical conditions, such a pregnancy or diabetes, you are still required to follow these rules.

Also, all the bars will be closed and so will the booze shops, so if you haven't bought up all your license, better go tonight. I bet the booze shops will look like Walmart on Christmas Eve tonight. Be on the lookout for Ramadan house parties, there's usually plenty every weekend, and yeah you can get your drink on.

Also, the roads get a little crazier. And how could they not? You've got people driving around with no food or water, or let's face it, in some cases medication in their systems all the while it's hot and these particular drivers have been up all night eating, and up very early, before sunrise to get breakfast in.

All this makes for a lethal combo, and no I'm not Muslim bashing, it's just how it is.

I think how I would be with no food, water or sleep and I think I may as well be drunk driving, and really that's how it looks casual observer, like everyone is drunk. Fishtailing up and down the roads, making delayed judgements about time and space, going too fast or too slow...please be safe out there. I suspect this year will be more difficult then last year because of the longer days and the hotter weather.

Shopping gets a little crazy as well. It seems like the entire population is in every shop at all times, except when it's Iftar time (which means breaking the fast time), so I always go shopping then. It's just easier.

I'm sure for Muslims it means a lot more, like testing themselves through faith, giving to the less fortunate and slacking off work and sleeping a lot but you know I'm not Muslim so I'm not really an expert, so this is just an expat take on things.

One of my most popular posts on Ramadan is my first one, it's way better then this one, you can find it here

I wrote about Ramadan again here

So yeah, best of luck everyone, happy Ramadan to all.

A most excellent servicing

Anyone who has read my blog in the last little while, or who knows me personally, knows that Cush and I have problems with our landlord and that we are so looking forward to finally moving out in September. *Look for my review of real estate agents and agencies in Muscat towards the end of September, it's going to be epic...like for real.*

Anyway, so for the last month and a half off and on I would be woken up by dripping water on my pillow and head from the airconditioner. Have you ever been woken up that way? It's horrible, like what I think Chinese water torture would be like only...you know, not so bad.

So I asked Cush to call the houseman/houseboy/maintanance guy (whatever we want to call him today) who said ok he would look into it, but then a week went by and we never heard anything so we chased it up and again we were brushed off.

I finally ran into him outside our building and asked if our AC's were going to be serviced or not.

He gave me some song and dance about how he's so tired and that he doesn't take care of the maintanance anymore (but he totally does!) and something about Bahwan that I didn't understand what he was saying and that the landlord had gone away on holiday and he couldn't get any money to pay for the service until the landlord came back sometime around the end of July.

Well....fuck that.

In the meantime I saw this sticker on our gate:

and decided to ask Cush to give Mr. Alex Joseph a call. But he didn't answer, so Cush tried again, and again and finally got him on the phone and he said he would come the next afternoon.

I thought for sure, yeah right, there's no way that guy is coming, but he did! He even found our house without having to call from a fixed location and have me go and get him.

I have to say that having lived in Oman for 4 years has kind of made me a bit ...I guess "battle ready" like everything is always hard or a struggle for whatever reason. Like my phone broke and I ended up fighting with the after service sales guy at Carrefour because on my life my phone did not come with a warrenty card, it just did not have one and of course they wouldn't fix the phone without it but the other Carrefour after sales service lady said they would totally have my warrenty card on file at the store where I bought it....it's a whole big story but this is what I've come to expect every time I have to deal with anyone anywhere here. I'm just always expecting the worst always. I had no reason to believe that my experience with Mr. Joseph would be any different...but it totally was!

So I showed Alex Joseph and his workmate around my house and told him that I wanted all the AC's serviced, I pointed out the dog and said that she would stay in her crate and not to worry, and he was totally fine about the dog, because some people are not fine about the dog at all, so that was good.

Then I pointed out the cats and said please don't let them out the front door, but when he saw McFluffin, he said, "oh your cat is pregnant!" I was so embaressed, because a) I'm a believer in the words of Bob Barker and b) McFluffin is a bit fat and I guess c) McFluffin is a boy.

I explained that because McFluffin is from Canada he has a winter coat that never really goes away because it's cool in the house in the summer and it's cool in the house in the winter here so he's just big because he's really, really furry. I might have lied a bit.

Mr. Joseph explained to me that he had 2 types of service, one a basic cleaning service that cost about 8 OR and another deluxe cleaning service that cost 15 OR per AC. I said that we were moving in September so the basic would be fine.

He went about his business and though we had a few hectic moments in the lounge with the AC above our mounted plasma tv under which rests a pretty well wired up tv bench thing with drawers and shelves that I said he could not move or put his ladder on, he was very patient and professional with me.

He went about his business through the house but when he got to the master bedroom he called me in. He said, "madam, I know you only want basic service but you must see this." I really didn't want to see how disgusting anything was and wasn't wearing my glasses but even I could see that the inside of the AC was sort of fluffy looking with puffy edges. It sucks having bad eyes.

Mr. Joseph said that we "have too much cats" and their fur clogged the filter and that he recommended the deluxe service for that AC. I asked what it entailed and he said that he would wash the AC with a pressure washer.

I had just assumed that he and his workmate would take the unit down and take it outside to be pressure washed but no! They attached the power washer to my bathroom sink and that's when I walked out of the room.

I had this horrible thought that something bad was going to happen, my matress would be soaked, or he would spray the paint off the walls, something, and I didn't want to see whatever was going to happen, happen but no. Nothing bad happened at all. They had a tarp that they attached to the wall and everything drained into a bucket, a bucket that they brought with them!

For real, they brought their own equipment. Outstanding! I've never had that happen before! I've had to lend repair men screwdrivers and screwa and hammers and nails before.

The pressure washer did leave a bit of water on the floor and Mr. Joseph asked for a mop to mop it with. And he did, and he did a good and thorough job.

I can't say enough good things about this man. He and his buddy were quick, thorough, polite, good with the animals and patient and best of all our AC's are blowing good and cold with no leaks.

So yeah, give him a call if you need your AC's serviced.

The art of saying goodbye

Being a "Western" expat isn't always good tax free salaries, cheap petrol, glamorous balls and fantastic bbq's, well...sometimes it is, but sometimes it's the hardest thing ever, especially when you have to say goodbye to your friends. I would honestly say it's the biggest downside to being an expat and something I didn't even consider before moving here.

Last August I said goodbye to one of the most awesome couples I knew and 2 of Cush and I's closet friends here in Oman.

I cried at The Chedi at their goodbye party and I'll tell you this, no one should ever cry at The Chedi. It just seems so wrong to be surrounded by beautifully landscaped water gardens and thoughtfully decorated, yet understated rooms with mascara running down one's face.

A few months later I said goodbye to another super awesome couple and cried at Costa Coffee in Shatti.

Then this last month with 2 farewell dinners looming I decided that I was not going to cry but instead get good and pissed and try to have a bit of a festive attitude to the whole thing.

At Pavo Real, 2 pina colada's had me giggling as I bade farewell to my friends, no tears in the parking lot as I hugged them goodbye.

And drinks at someones house party made us all a bit festive as we said see you later to S who will hopefully come back one day.

(this is just a small sampling, I've had to say goodbye to about 16 people in the last 3 and a half years and it sucked each and every time!)

The reason I can't do it sober anymore is because I will break down. I imagine that I will grab hold of my leaving friends ankles and beg them not to go, and that just makes things awkward, they already quit their job, sold their cars and furniture and have no place to live.

I think I hate goodbye's or even see you in awhile's so much because inevitably I always think I'll lose touch with the person and never hear from them again. It does happen.

The kind words and the promises to keep in touch break my heart every time, so much so that I end up just saying something super lame like, "ok" or "yep" in response to their heartfelt thank you for being my friend speeches and I end up feeling like a jerk.

If I could say what I wanted to say to my friends who have left but without all the tears and blubbering and snot and generally not being able to talk at all actually because of all the tears and blubbering and snot, I would say this:

Thank you for being my friend, thank you for hanging out with me and talking to me even when I'm so weird sometimes. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and hopes and plans with me, it's meant the world to me. I'm a better person for knowing you and having you in my life, for even just a short while, has made all the difference. I wish you nothing but the best and all the happiness the world can give you.

Maybe I should print this out and put it in a card and give it to them when they go.

So I guess if I had any advice to give for saying goodbye to a good friend, it would be the following:

-do go to the goodbye party/dinner/coffee/event because if you think it will be easier by not showing up, you will regret not going. Going and saying goodbye does offer a sort of closure which means you can move on and heal quicker.

-if you drink, have a drink to relax you, there's nothing like Dutch courage to be called upon in times of need. (if you don't drink, don't start, you don't want to have too much by accident and throw up on your friend when she hugs you for the last time!)

-be happy for your friend, moving on or going home is what most of us want to do at some point.

-don't play the guilt card, it isn't helpful and you do want the other person to remember you fondly, no?

-do send a last text message, it's just a nice thing to do when your friend is waiting around in Departures bored out of her mind.

-do not stop talking to people or trying to meet new people, it's not healthy.

-get in touch every so often, no one likes to be forgotten about and it's always nice to get a message back.

-make a plan to meet up in the future, go see where your friend lives or invite them to come see you, or meet up in some exotic location halfway.

And I guess that's it.


(To NC or NC's mom if either of you are reading this, first thanks NC's mom for reading and recommending, I appreciate it! and second I tried to email but it wouldn't go through, if you want to try emailing me at angryoman@gmail.com)