Hello Doha Qatar

We left NYC late Friday night, 27 June, had a 7.5 hour flight to Frankfurt, a 2 hour layover, then another almost 6 hours to Doha.  We arrived in Doha late Saturday night, 28 June.  

 Here is one of those really bad pictures from the plane.  It ended up being a great shot, because it shows Doha Bay.  See the larger round bay on the right?  We will end up living on the right side of that bay.  The lights out in the water on the left are the harbor.    

This is us arriving at our hotel via taxi.  All the buildings have their own light shows going on.  Oh yes, it's even hot and humid at night.  We will stay at this hotel until we find a permeant home, so about 3 weeks.

 Ben was settling into our hotel room, making sure the TV works and that it has some English channels.  Luckily it did!  We had several good news and movie channels.  

I was up at about 4:00am looking out at our view that first morning.  This is what I saw: A great sunrise, some white clouds in the sky, a haze of pollution across the gulf, lots of sand, and construction everywhere!  

When we finally got up and moving that morning, we headed downstairs for the breakfast buffet.  They had everything and more.  A chef making omelets to your liking, or any kind of eggs, breads and fruits galore, meats, cheeses, cereal, dim sum, potatoes, veggies....we had to get out of this hotel quick so Ben didn't make Captain Crunch with crunch berries a habit and I didn't want a homemade donut everyday!  

 We then went and checked out the weight room and pool.  The weight room had plenty of weight machines and cardio equipment to keep me in some sort of shape for my Spartan Race.  Ben wanted to start a workout routine too.

The pool was beautiful and not too crowded!  We used this almost every day too.  

The view from the pool and gym were spectacular since they were at the top floor of the hotel - 26th floor.  

 We had to get some local currency to go shopping!  It is very colorful.  It has English on one side and Arabic on the other side.  Each of denomination is a little different size too, with the 500 being the largest and the 1 being the smallest.  They have no 20's.  It is really difficult to get the 

smaller bills as change.  At Carrefour (a grocery store) they even round up the coin change and only give bills as change.  

I suppose when everyone is so rich, they don't need coin change?

The 1 Qatari Riyal (QR) is worth 0.27 USD, so if we get an extra 0.25QR back in change it doesn't make much difference in our pocket.  






Once we got a good amount money, off to the City Center Mall we went!  We were told it was something special, but we have concluded that it really isn't.  I guess neither of us are big mall fans.  It is a place to go when its too hot outside to do anything else.
They did have an ice rink on the bottom floor, with no one using it.  Maybe because its Ramadan? 

They had many fancy dress shops.  We did wonder why they had so many fancy, sexy dresses when 75% of the women shopping wore burkas.  I have no use of such a fancy dress...yet!

   

They had many fancy furniture stores.  I liked the fancy lamp! 

Carrefour is also in the mall.  So we have to go through the mall every time we want to grocery shop at Carrefour.  It can be interesting to look at all the Arabic items and wonder what they are:  Vegetable Ghee? Anyone guess what that is!?  It can be a frustrating hunt when you are looking for a particular item.

They also have all kinds of places to eat in the mall.  But, they are all closed if the sun is shinning during Ramadan.  
We did go to this Chinese Restaurant after the sun went down.  They had a nice buffet.  We had a dish that had little green peppers in it that were almost too hot for Ben...if you know Ben, that's really HOT!  

After getting adjusted to our surroundings for 3 days, it was time for Ben to start his first day of work in Doha.  

Ben is tying his tie for the first time in awhile.  It's like riding a bike, it comes back pretty easily.  Yes, he will be wearing a tie to work everyday.  Good thing he brought all his old ones, they are retro and back in style!  

Here he is getting a nice big breakfast at our buffet.  It is Ramadan, so no eating or drinking at work.  They are only required to work 6 hours during the holy month, then he can come home and eat and drink.  He was looking up how he to contact his ride to work.  While at the hotel, his work provided a driver to pick him up and take him to work, and back home of course.  

During the day I would plan a route to look at apartments.  After Ben came home, ate and drank something, we would walk, bus or taxi to various places.  It was hit or miss if we could actually view a place, since it was Ramadan.  

 This meant that some sales people would not be available to show the apartments if it was after 2:00 or 3:00. Sometimes a valet or security guard would be asked to show us a unit.  Because of the heat of the day and frustration at going somewhere, but not being able to see it, we would only see one or two places a day.  Our goal was to find something on the free bus line for Ben's commute to work.  That made my job easy, just follow the bus route and look at every building 1-2 blocks away from the route.   

Some apartments were too drab.

Some were too traditional, which means a closed in kitchen and no amenities like dishwasher and dryer.

 Some were too far from the bus line and everything else!

We have been very lucky to have John, a co-worker and friend of Ben's working here in Doha and also from Seattle, to show us around.  This is Ben and John at The Pearl.  The Pearl is a man-made island with condos, restaurants and shops.  It also has many marina's for all the huge yachts.  It is just off the West Bay Lagoon.  We looked into living here, but Ben thought it was too far from work for a decent commute.

This is a nice cafe at The Pearl, with outdoor seating.  We can picture after Ramadan and when the weather cools down a little it will be crowded.    

 I am hanging out by all the nice speed boats in the marina at The Pearl.  See the nice full moon in the background?

Inside a shopping area at The Pearl that is decorated for Ramadan.  It's the same idea as our malls being decorated for Christmas. 

 This is where the men wash their feet before entering the mosque to pray.  This was also at The Pearl. 













John also took us for a great tour around the Souk Waqif.  What is a Souk?  It is an open-air market place.  This souk is the social heart of Doha, it's a wonderful place to explore, shop, have dinner or simply idle time away in a cafe drinking tea and smoking a hooka.  There has been a souk on this site for centuries.  The Bedu would bring their sheep, goats and wool to trade for essentials.  It was run down and almost demolished at the beginning of the last century, until someone saw the value in tourism and rebuilt it.

 Here I am in one of the many fabric shops.

This is John walking down the outside of the not open shops.  There is a mosque lit up in the background

One of the many pathways through the shops and restaurants

This was the pet part of the souk.  All types of exotic birds for sale!

The smallest turtles I have ever seen!  I might look into getting a few for my Biology students.

The Falcon Souk.  Not only do they have falcons for sale, but all the paraphernalia needed to train your falcon.  A new falcon can cost only 2,000QR, but a well trained one can cost many times that.  We saw birds that came from all over the Middle East.  The salesman new the names of each birds and where they came from, Turkey, Egypt, Lebanon....

There was also a place to keep or sell your horse, and a place to ride them as well.  Here were five young men riding under the lights.

This was a beautiful carpet being loomed in a shop.  It will take 3-4 months to make this one carpet.  needles to say it would cost a small fortune.  











Last, but not least for this post, we went to a lovely dinner party at Angela and Sergio's home.  There was a group of PB folks that originated in Seattle, so it was fun to see us all together in Doha!

Eric, Carrie, John, Asvin, Mike, Angela, Sergio, Ben and Cindy

We have found our home in Doha and the next post will show you all our beautiful new home in the sky!