The Sultan's birthday/ Oman's National Day

Sultan Qaboos bin Said has been the ruler of Oman since 1970. He has instigated, facilitated, and overseen Oman's rise and rise in the Arab and Western world through the power of oil, and has been the one to transform it into a 21st century society. He even changed the country's name from Muscat and Oman to The Sultanate of Oman!

It is not that surprising, then, that his birthday is Oman's National Day - which is on November 18. As an aside, in greater Muscat there are two main roads. One is called 18th November Street and the other is the Sultan Qaboos Highway.

Anyway... Every year there is a massive to-do about it all, especially every 5 years, which was the case last year. There were red, white, and green decorations all along the Sultan Qaboos Highway; cars were bedecked in red, white, and green stickers/ stripes; his image was stickered on car doors; patriotic slogans (such as "My Sultan, My Hearo" [sic]) were stencilled on car sides; trees were lit up in red, white. and green; there were fireworks over two nights... basically everyone went nuts.

At Horizons Nursery the children were encouraged to come in traditional Omani dress or in red, white and green clothes, and there was a parade over two days (so all the part-time kids could join in) which parents could attend where the kids walked around in a circle class by class showing off their dress.