Life as we know it..

Some things I find worthy of note about Doha:

-The people here are very, very friendly. It's an interesting mix of people because the population is made up of mostly expats from all over the world - 85% of all the people here are non-Qatari. I notice it a lot when I go out in public with my kids especially. Just yesterday in the supermarket 1 person patted one of my kids, 2 people asked to pick up the baby, and 2 people smiled and waved at the kids. It's such a friendly atmosphere. And most people you interact with are from all over the world. The people at church and in the compound are likewise very friendly as well. Everyone is away from home, so they have become each others family.

-Communicating with others here is sometimes sort of difficult. Yes, pretty much everyone speaks English, but good luck understanding their accent! The very best episode so far was when we were asking a Filipino man where to find a bathroom. He was pointing in two separate directions and saying what sounded like "peel" and "peepee." Dan was so confused and looked at the man and asked, "Peepee??" the man laughed and repeated the word he had been saying about 5 times, each time more slowly until I finally figured out what he was saying: Male and Female. We about died laughing that Dan had said, "Peepee" to another grown man. We've had to decipher accents from Sri Lanka, India, Ethiopia, Bangledesh, Philippines, and even England (like when our tour guide told me I might need a "cardi" because they keep the air conditioning so cold... a cardi? It took me a minute to get cardigan out of that...)

-The culture is extremely service-oriented. You can get fast food delivered to your house. You can get your groceries delivered to your house. I hear "yes, ma'am" a hundred times a day.  You can't even fill up your own gas tank. EVERYONE has a maid or a live-in nanny. We went to a Haagen daas shop thinking we would just get a scoop of ice cream, but a waiter came and sat us down and gave us a menu and served us a fancy ice cream plate! (Pictures below)

-Qatar has one of the lowest crime rates in the world. They just don't tolerate anything here. You can only be here if you have a job and if you don't you get deported. You have to have a sponsor  even to be in the country. 

-People seem to be extremely trusting. Dan said he didn't have cash to buy his lunch yesterday and the cashier gave it to him anyway and said just to pay him next time he came. Dan said you can only pay in cash at the gas stations and it's the same way. Crazy, huh?

-It really is hot. People weren't exaggerating. I feel lucky that I made the decision a few years ago in Houston just to enjoy myself outside even if it was really hot and I was really sweaty, because now I need that attitude. We are still enjoying ourselves and we go on little walks every day, sometimes at night (you know, when it cools down to 95...), but overall, I'm fine with the heat.

-I kind of love that it never rains here. You can basically always plan to be able to go outside because it rains maybe 6 times a year.  

-Islam is the state religion of Qatar. They expect everyone here to respect that. When you go out in public, you are expected to dress modestly. Right now it is the holy month of Ramadan and Muslims fast from dawn to sunset. You are not supposed to eat, drink, or chew gum in public and a lot of businesses close during parts of the day. A lot of people told us that it is really hard to be here during the month of Ramadan. One sweet woman at church told me not to listen when people say Ramadan is hard. She said Ramadan is wonderful and you have to just find ways to enjoy it. You just enjoy your family during the day and enjoy the "nightlife."Dan and I think it's fun because the city kind of goes nocturnal. Everything, including grocery stores are open until midnight or 1am. And as I've already mentioned, since this place has one of the lowest crime rates in the world, you're not worried about being out late. We've still gone on outings in the day, I just have to make sure no one eats while we're out, which requires slightly more planning, but it's not prohibitive. I think it's fun to see "Ramadan Kareem" and "Ramadan Mubarak" (both essentially mean "happy Ramadan") on everything from store windows to food packages. Dan and I will also be going to an Iftar dinner through Dan's work (Iftar is the meal after sunset when the muslims break their fast). As an aside...It kind of makes me see what non-Christians would feel like in America around Christmas time. And honestly, I like it. It's fun. And it makes me extremely irritated at people in America who act like they're all offended when they see Christmas decorations, etc. when they're not Christian. But I digress....

-You get used to hearing the call to prayer. There are mosques everywhere and they play the call to prayer over a loud speaker from a tower on the grounds of the mosque. You'll even be walking along in the grocery store, or even in IKEA and the call to prayer will come over the PA system. There are also prayer rooms everywhere.

-I remember once Dan and I drove through Las Vegas on one of our road trips and we walked from the hotel to the car and both of us were covered in a layer of sand just from that little walk. We hated it and wondered how anyone could ever live there. Um, well, yeah. That's how it is here. There is just fine sand on everything. If the boys walk outside on our back porch, you can see their little footprints on the patio, perfectly outlined in super-fine sand. I feel like I need to wash my hands when I come back in from being outside, even if I never touched anything... my hands just feel dirty from being outside. It's a major chore to keep the floors in the house from feeling dirty as well. Some days are worse than others, but it's just kind of dirty here.

-It is singular in that everything is brand new and beautiful, with no expense spared. There is so much money here that if they can dream it, they build it. And a good deal of it has happened in the last 10 years or so. The downtown area looks like a scene from a Star Trek movie or something, the architecture is amazing. They also do things like build entire islands, just because they want to. 

Which leads me to my original reason for this post... :)

Dan and I went on a date last night to The Pearl-Qatar (interesting side note, if you tell people you went to "The Pearl" they have no idea what you are talking about, but if you say "The Pearl-Qatar" then they know what you are talking about.Weird.)

The Pearl-Qatar is a man made island. It has tons of extremely high end shops (we're talking real designers like Vera Wang and a million others I've never heard of but would have to mortgage my house to buy any of their stuff....You could also buy a Ferrari while you're there...). It's kind of amazing. Everything is intricate and beautiful and new.


I found this picture on the internet, just to give you an idea what it's like:

(Each one of those buildings is a large high-rise)

Here I am on the boardwalk area, this is right on the water.

Can you believe this tree?? We looked at it for several minutes, in disbelief that it was real!!

Inside the shops area:

The Pearl-Qatar is built out into the water in the shape of a circle, so the boardwalk is encircled by matching buildings all the way around, which then encircles a little island in the middle. There are huge yachts in the marina surrounding the little island, you can see some behind Dan in this picture.

We had a really hard time deciding which restaurant to eat at, and we finally settled on this one. It was called Pampano and it was a seafood restaurant with some South American influence. The food was incredible. Like everything else at the Pearl, it was kind of spendy, so we decided it was our anniversary dinner, since on our actual anniversary we ended up spending the whole evening working on the sale of one of our cars. We were the only people there. Apparently around that time in the evening (about 8pm) most people are at the mosque saying their nighttime prayers, then they head out for their big nighttime dinner.

The wall behind me was really interesting, it was all textured and wavy, hard to tell from the picture...

Just a floor to ceiling mirror with giant fish on it, of course...

Ok, one of my favorite parts about living here is that since you're not allowed to drink alcohol (not a problem for us :)) there are all sorts of amazing drinks. Dan and I are kind of crazy about fun drinks, so we were in heaven! I couldn't decide so I ordered a hibiscus water and an Arab Delight (pineapple, strawberry, and date drink) and Dan's was called a St. Kitts but I don't remember what was in it... but it was pineappley :). The hibiscus water was so very delicious, kind of fruity and flowery.

The humidity hit this week. It's as bad as everyone said. The Qataris are really good at air conditioning (they keep it FREEZING indoors) so when we walked outside after our meal, Dan couldn't see for a few minutes.

Now one of Dan's other passions is ice cream, so of course when he saw this we had to stop... and like I said above, they sat us down and served us like a restaurant.

Our ice cream menu....

Oh my goodness, yum.

So that was our date night. It was a really lovely evening. 

This week we will be attending an Iftar dinner and going to the beach this weekend. I'll be in touch.