Ramadan Kareem

I've run in to a backlog on my little blog.. Life is still as busy here as it was in Houston, where I never had time to write on here. But I'm trying to play a little catch up now :


Our family arrived in Doha slightly less than a week before the beginning of the holy month of Ramadan. Ramadan is based on a lunar calendar, so this year it fell in July-August. It's not always the same and changes year to year. When we got here everyone warned us that Ramadan was such a hard time of year here. I have to admit I was a little nervous that it was just going to be awful. If you're not familiar with Ramadan, it is when the Muslims fast during daylight hours. They have a dinner after sunset called Iftar and they also will have a meal before sunrise called Suhoor. One woman at church told me not to listen to what anyone had to say about it, and that Ramadan was a wonderful time. She told me just to enjoy your family during the day and go on outings at night. I wanted to believe her, so I just put it in my head that I would think of it that way. And that's what we did. The boys and I still went on outings, I just made sure to feed them a big meal before we left and not stay out too long so they wouldn't get hungry. Of course, outings were a little tricky because during Ramadan most places would close during the middle of the day and reopen later at night. But with careful planning it could be done. We also just fudged on bedtimes a little during that time. We would go on outings at sunset (right about 6:30) and just figure we would all survive if the boys were up late.

( The part about Ramadan that was hard was that all the permits and everything Dan and I need to be legit here were pretty much just put on hold. Dan got his residence permit right before Ramadan, and we literally got nothing else during the entire month. So right after it ended I was able to get all my paperwork and medical exams in order to get my residence permit. It should arrive any day now and I'll be legal! Then I can move on to getting my drivers license. But seriously people who arrived like two weeks ago are at the same point I am in the process. That is frustrating. But all in all I think we are all still happy that we decided to come together as a family instead of being separated all summer.)

We did, however, have a grand celebration to finish off Ramadan. Every night downtown the army sets off a cannon at sunset to mark the end of the day's fast. We kept meaning to take the boys down there, and on the last night of Ramadan we finally made it. The cannon was just sitting out in the open and kids were climbing all over it. They shoot off a little pistol before they shoot the cannon and they were passing that around to the kids, too. Our kids were pretty happy to get a turn holding "a real gun."

 Here is a little video (it's like 10 seconds long):

Ramadan Cannon

The baby you hear crying is Jack. The cannon was incredibly loud! Dan tried to hold Jack's ears, but wasn't successful.

After the cannon we headed to dinner. During Ramadan, most of the hotels put on a fancy Iftar dinner every night and they are pricey. At the Sheraton kids eat free (definitely got our money's worth on that one...) so that's where we headed! It was all decorated for Ramadan and the kids were pretty impressed.  It was really beautiful.

 People here are so accommodating to children. It is so refreshing. We asked for a high chair and they brought out a real high chair, like you might have at your house, with a tray and everything. They brought out a little cup with a sippy lid for Jack as well. Anyway, we got to try lots of local foods, most of which I will never remember the name for, but one we did remember was labanah balls. We all had fun trying those and watching each other grimace as we ate them. Not our favorite thing ever...But fun nonetheless.

Because they do not drink alcohol here, their selection of drinks is way more fun than anywhere in the states. Half of the fun of the evening was tasting all the different juices. Then there was the dessert table. I guess I should correct myself here and say the dessert TENT. Oh my goodness, my boys' little eyes bugged out when they saw it. We let them each get a plate full and we tried lots of interesting local desserts. Our favorite was called Awama. They were a lot like little donut holes coated in powdered sugar. Num num.

Pictures!


 Inside the Sheraton, a little model of the Dhow boats used for fishing and pearling back in the day.

The boys in a little tent set up inside the Sheraton.

 Dan has stayed at this hotel on previous visits to Qatar and he said those domes are always there, but the extra decorations are just for Ramadan.

 They had these pretty little fountains in the halls of the hotel, with blue lights lighting up the water.

I didn't take any pictures of the buffet. Dang it!! But I did get a picture of the all important:

dessert tent!! 

Yes, thank you...

 Just some pretty Ramadan decorations.

 

 View straight up from my chair.

 You an kind of see the different juices on either side of the musician. The boys wanted to know what he was playing so I went and asked him. It's called an Oud.

And of course our taxi couldn't pick us up until 9pm, so we explored the hotel a bit more until he got there... The boys thought these were the coolest stairs ever.

A bigger dome on the other side of the hotel.

Had to ride the glass elevators, of course...

Looking down from the elevator

Just a giant palm tree shaped chandelier, no big deal...

 Taxi finally arrived... time to go!

The boys were pretty excited about this car parked near the front door...Sam was running his hands down the side of it...

So we made it through Ramadan and summer, the two hardest times of the year, according to those who have lived here a while. And we made it through them both in one fell swoop! So we're pretty proud of ourselves :) and ready for what lies ahead.

Om Ali

When we found out we were moving to Qatar I had this image in my mind of "eating like an Arab:" finding out what the locals eat, and eating that way. I was really excited to try all sorts of different Arab foods. Well, it hasn't exactly panned out that way. First of all, they kind of eat like Americans! There are American fast food places all over here: Pizza Hut, Subway, McDonald's, KFC, Burger King, Papa Johns, to name a few. And the funny thing is most of those will even deliver to your house! (Even McDonald's!) When you go to the grocery store it really looks a lot like what you might see in America. Every time I go I try to pick out something that looks exotic or that I've gathered to be local fare, but since I can't drive and I'm getting really sick of calling a taxi, I haven't even actually been able to go grocery shopping very much. Most Americans that live here continue to eat like Americans. They might pay slightly higher prices for some of the American foods here, and some bring back suitcases and suitcases of food from home every time they visit the US (or "the states" as people call it here). On facebook groups I'm a part of here people are constantly asking each other things like, "Does anyone know where to find ranch dressing around here?" I guess I find it funny that people come all the way to the other side of the earth and try to keep eating like they're at home. Maybe it's not funny, but it's not what I had in mind for myself.

 I think another part of it is that there really isn't a lot of interaction between Qataris and expats here, so there isn't a lot of opportunity to see how they eat on a daily basis. I suppose I could just google a bunch of recipes, and I may end up doing that, but I guess in my head I imagined something different, so that seems kind of lame. Anyways, one night we went to an Iftar dinner at the Ritz Carlton Doha with some of Dan's coworkers. One of them is a Qatari woman and she was really the first Qatari I got to interact with.  The Iftar dinner was a huge buffet and she pointed out some things to us that were traditional fare. This was more like what I had imagined!  I was able to make one of the foods tonight for our family. It's called "Om Ali." It means "Mother of Ali" and it is a favorite dessert here in the middle east. It was also a big hit at our house tonight.

 Dan's coworker and me after dinner.

Our whole dinner group

When we had this dessert that night they had all the nuts and raisins on the side to put in. Dan's coworker said her family usually makes it without any of that. I added in just raisins and chopped pistachios tonight because that's what I had on hand. You don't really have to measure the add ins, just throw them in however you want.  I hope you enjoy this little piece of the middle east!:

This Recipe for Om Ali (a favourite Middle Eastern pudding) is based on a recipe by Claudia Roden. In Saudi Arabia and across the Middle East, Om Ali is probably one of the most popular desserts available. Usually made with layers of filo or puff pastry, both produce excellent results:

Om Ali Ingredients:

• 1 large sheet of puff pastry ( about 90g/3 oz) / (or 5 to 6 sheets of small filo pastry) 
• 120g (4oz) raisins (1/2c)
• 120g (4oz) flaked almonds and pistachios, a few chopped apricots, and dates. (1/2c)
• 1 litre milk (4 1/4c)
• 300 ml double cream (1 1/4c)
• 90 gr (3oz) sugar (scant 1/2c)
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 150C degrees (~300F)
• Lightly butter the puff pastry (optional).
• place the one large sheet of puff pastry sheet on an oven tray. and bake for 25 minutes or until crisp and brown. Remove from the oven and raise the oven temperature to 240C degrees. (465F)
• Butter the baking dish.
• Crumple the pastry into a baking dish, scatter the raisins, fruit and nuts in between layers
• In a saucepan on the top of the stove bring the milk , cream and sugar to the boil. Pour this over the pastry. Sprinkle with cinnamon, flaked almonds, and ground pistachios.
• Place dish in oven for 20 minutes or until the top is browned.
• Serve hot.

Homemade Doughnuts

First of all I have to give a little shout out to my brother. A couple Christmases ago he gave me a book called The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan. And can I tell you something? That book actually changed my life. I had always tried to feed my family well and make good choices about what I fed them, but that book opened up my world to a whole other way of looking at what I ate and how it was prepared. I began to do a more whole foods approach to what we ate and I began to make a most of our food from scratch instead of buying prepared or processed foods.

Like I said, that was a couple years ago, but now since we moved to Qatar I am SO GRATEFUL that we have been eating that way. There are a lot of processed foods available here, but they are very, very expensive. (For example, I saw they had my boys favorite brand of bagels at the store the other day, but they were 35 riyals, which is the equivalent of $10.) So the more you can make from scratch here, the better. The transition has been remarkably easy for us because I am constantly trying new foods and recipes and making things from scratch, so living here just feels like more of the same.

One of the recipes we have made several times since living here (because homebaked goods make everyone feel better) are these Homemade Doughnuts from chocolate covered Katie.

http://chocolatecoveredkatie.com/2013/02/22/homemade-krispy-kreme-doughnuts-the-healthy-version/


The funny thing is I didn't have a donut pan, so I was just drawing circles out of the batter on a cookie sheet. The boys didn't mind :) but they looked more like pancakes with a hole in them. This last week Dan went to his grandma's funeral and arranged a long layover in Houston. He was able to go home and get a few of the things we forgot. I also went a little nuts on Amazon while he was gone and sent a bunch of things to our house for him to pick up :). One of which was..... a donut pan!!! (It was about $7 on Amazon, in case you might want one, too....)

Now they actually look like donuts! And they are very tasty. (I have to insert here that Dan is the most impossible person in our house to please when it comes to desserts or foods that are prepared in a more healthy way. He's WAY worse than the kids. His response to these: "How are these so good?")

Glazed Homemade Donuts

• 1 tsp apple cider vinegar or white vinegar (5g)
• 2/3 cup milk of choice (160g)
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract (4g)
• 3 tbsp coconut or vegetable oil (30g)
• 1 cup spelt or all-purpose flour (130g) (A reader had success with gluten-free ap flour.)
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/3 cup xylitol or sugar (60g)
• 1/32 tsp pure stevia extract or 2 extra tbsp sugar (or 2 NuNaturals packets)
• 1/4 tsp salt

Combine first four ingredients in a small bowl, and whisk well. Preheat oven to 350 F and grease a doughnut pan if you have one. (If you don’t have a doughnut pan, you can cook in a mini muffin tin for doughnut holes.) In a large measuring bowl, combine all remaining ingredients and stir very well. Now pour wet into dry and immediately pour into the pan. Bake 15 minutes, then allow to cool before removing. Top these vegan doughnuts with jam, or chocolate frosting, or glaze. 

I actually ran out of white flour the first time I made these and had to use whole wheat flour. They were still delicious.  OH, and coconut oil here is amazingly inexpensive! I got a 16oz bottle for $2 at the grocery store. Score! 

Anyways, I hope you like them as much as we do!

Grumpy Smurf

Moving to Qatar has been quite an adventure in so many ways. Just getting here was a Herculean effort of wading through paperwork, procedures, and packing. And of course that didn't end once we got here... more paperwork, more procedures, un-packing... It's been challenging in a lot of ways. I have so much respect now for people who do these expat assignments. It's not all fun and adventures, it's a lot of drudgery.

Today I am not going to get out of my pajamas. I am in a bad mood. I am a firm believer that you can choose your attitude and make your situation better. But today I'm choosing to stay in my pajamas and be mad for a while. Tomorrow I'll change my attitude :)

But I'll tell you why I'm in a bad mood today, in no particular order.:

1. My husband left for a week to go to his grandma's funeral. I'm the one who told him to go because I missed my grandma's funeral and have always regretted it. But I wanted to go with him, I loved Grandma, too. Plus, I'm sad to be here in a foreign country for a week without him. We'll make the best of it like we always do when he's gone, but I am taking today to be grumpy about it.

2. I can't drive. Did you know that if you're from, say, Great Britain and you come to live in Qatar, you can walk right in to the drivers license office, show them your license and they will give you a Qatari license on the spot? Even though they drive on the other side of the road and everything? Not so if you're an American. The story goes that a Qatari sheikh visited America a couple years ago and was not allowed to drive on his Qatari drivers license and from that moment on Americans have to take a written driving test as well as an in-car driving test in order to get a license here. Factor in that I have to get my Qatari residence permit before I can take the test, it's Ramadan and most government offices are on scaled back hours so everything is really slow, and I have to wait for Dan to get all his paperwork and permits before I can even start mine, it's going to be a while. I am so sick of calling the taxi service and lugging around the boys car seats wherever we go. But I've never been good at just staying at home. It could be several more weeks before I get my license. And when you do go to get it, they always schedule your appointment at 5:30 in the morning, it always take about 5 hours total to do the tests (that includes the waiting and waiting and waiting in between the 4 parts of the test), you have to ride in a bus with 20 other people and follow the car as they do their test, and they will randomly fail people (sometimes whole busses) because they feel like it. So I'm taking today to be irritated about that.

3. Most of my stuff is somewhere over the Atlantic ocean, and some of it is sitting at the airport waiting to pass customs. Actually, not having most of my stuff is making me realize how much I don't need most of it. Part of me kind of hopes it just gets lost in the ocean :) but there are a couple things I am ready to have again. Like our baby crib and toddler bed and my sewing machine. To be honest the thing I am really ready to have is my pull up bar. I know it's silly, but I've missed it! So I'm taking today to be impatient about that.

4. My dear friend is home after a life changing month away from home, and I'm not there for her. It's driving me insane. I've been her first responder, she's been my therapist, we have brought each other dinners who knows how many times, we've spent hours watching each others children, and just being kindred spirits. I have full faith in all the sweet friends we have at home to help her out, but today I'm mad that I'm not one of them. So I'm taking today to be sad about that.

I feel like Toad from the "Frog and Toad" books today. BLAH!

Tomorrow I will be myself again.

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.

Dates

A little known fact about me is I minored in sociology at the University of Texas. I have always been very interested in people and the way they behave. I find it fascinating. From a sociological perspective, this move has been absolutely fascinating. I have enjoyed the people watching here more than I ever have before. I have loved watching the muslim women, with their fabulous accessories, the muslim men with their fancy shoes and sunglasses, and both sexes smoking their shisha (pronounced sheesha) out of fancy pipes as they dine at a restaurant.

 The thing that has surprised me is the expat culture. EVERYONE has a maid to clean their house, and everyone with kids has a live in nanny. It took me a long time to wrap my brain around having someone else come clean my house. In one way it's like a dream come true to kind of have an excuse to have someone else come clean my house, but in another way I find it very troubling. I have always kind of been "anti-maid" for myself... Maybe it's a pride thing, I don't know, but I have never wanted to have any sort of formal "help" with my house. In fact, one of my new years resolutions this year was to "bring housewife back": my idea was to take pride in keeping my own house and cooking all my own meals. Being that 1950s housewife that everyone so disdains these days. Keeping a house and cooking for a family is not in any way degrading, but something one can take pride in and it is a blessing to have a home and family to look after. I have actually gotten really angry reading news articles or blog posts that imply that when a woman is "reduced to domesticity" it is the lowest possible place for her. Not this girl. I am not perfect at it, but I try my best. And I think it's a very honorable place to be, and I keep thinking that despite what I hear from outside my home. And I'm awesome.

 So coming here has rocked my world a little. Some people I have talked to see having "help" as spreading the wealth. We are here making money off the natural resources of this area and these people need our help to make a living, so we help them. And of course they help us. I finally caved in and from a recommendation from another woman in the compound, got an Indian woman named Geena to come to my house once a week to clean for me. Can I admit something? It was really, really weird for me, and actually kind of sad. This lovely 60 something woman came in and cleaned my whole house. The house the company gave us is 4800 square feet (actually the main reason I conceded to get a maid... I raised up the white flag in defeat, it's too much for me) and she spent four solid hours cleaning and working so very hard. It kind of broke my heart. She had cleaned another house that morning and had to leave my house because she had to go cook dinner for someone else. I was tired just watching her. Meanwhile, she's fawning over my babies because they make her miss her grandbabies back in India. It stirred up all sorts of emotions in me, most of them I didn't like. I felt guilty, lazy, undeserving. It was such a strange day for me. While it was really nice to have so much of my house clean at the same time, I don't really think I'm looking forward to having her come back. It just made me so sad.

I have almost felt pressure to get a live-in nanny. It's just not something I'm interested in, but people who have them act like there is no other way to go. I just feel like the one thing I've chosen to do in this world is be a mom and I am not going to outsource that. I just can't. I have never even sent my kids to preschool because, well, they're mine! and I only have a finite amount of time with them. Every moment is so precious, I just can't send them off that early. (I have to insert here that these are just my thoughts about my own personal world... I am very much a live and let live type of person... you do what you want and I do what I want and I'm ok with that. I'm not trying to judge or comment on anyone else's choices). Dan has talked to people who say they felt like I did when they got here and then they "changed." Of course, if you know me, you know that makes me want one even less (if that's possible). I was surprised at how much it bothered me to even think about it.

Blah.


Moving on to why I actually started this post....

Soooo anways, the weekend here is Friday/Saturday. Friday is the sabbath. You go to work/school Sunday through Thursday. So Thursday night Dan and I were more than ready to go out on our first date here. The last couple of months have been extremely stressful with getting ready to move and all. So we finally had a moment to decompress. Geena came and babysat our kids for us and Dan and I went to Souq Waqif for the evening. It was such a cool place. Definitely the type of adventure I was imagining when we moved here. It's tons of tiny little twisty streets with little storefronts lining each side. There are souqs that sell spices, some sell traditional clothing, some sell gold, some sell pets, some sell shisha pipes, some sell home improvement items, cooking items, you name it. There are even art galleries and restaurants with cuisine from all over the world (Dan and I spotted several we want to go visit). And of course there are very touristy ones that just sell a bunch of junk. And the people watching is fantastic.

It struck me while we were there how very much in the minority Dan and I were. It was kind of a strange feeling. But I digress...

I wish we would have gotten more pictures of our night out, but the thing that the pictures don't convey is the SMELLS... the line from Sense and Sensibility kept coming into my head, when Margaret is asking Colonel Brandon what India is like and he answers: "The air is full of spices." That was really what it was like. Spices, incense, perfumes, shisha, street vendors cooking pastries while you wait... The smells alone were half of the fun. There was also an outdoor concert going on, so it was a full sensory experience. I felt like we needed to go back 10 more times, just to eat at all the different restaurants, and find all the alleyways. We especially loved the spice shops with mounds and mounds of spices, they were so fragrant. Other favorites were the nuts/sweets shops. One shop owner handed us fresh dates to eat, and insisted that we eat several. I didn't know if Dan would know to spit out the pit so I ate mine quickly and made sure to spit the pit out in front of him. He said he was glad I did that because he wouldn't have known, haha. I have never had a fresh date before, just dried ones, so that was a fun little first. In another shop we were looking at all the mounds of dried peas and nuts and the shopowner told us to sample them. When we both only took one he laughed at us and told us to dig in. It was so funny.

This is a little pastry called a dosa. It's similar to a crepe, but made with cheese and honey. There are groups of women, each sitting with their own little stove set up with a big round stone on top and they make these while you wait. We could have gotten one made with egg instead of honey, but we'll have that next time :)

 Just a big old incense burner outside a shop.

 My drink was a work of art! It was as delicious as it looked.

 There was an outdoor concert and they were rocking pretty hard. The music sounded like nothing we had ever heard before! Notice the men all in white and the women all in black.

This man is smoking his shisha and looking at his iphone... When we walked around the corner, there were 6 or 7 more men sitting in a row against the walls smoking their shisha. We were too chicken to take a picture of them, so we sneaked one of this guy...

 The bins of nuts and dried fruits.

 Shisha pipes right next to the candy.

 Candy and spices and roses. We bought some candy with those little roses crushed on top. It was surprisingly delicious!

 These bins had the dried, spiced peas and beans. These were the ones the shopowner told us to eat from. YUM.

These are probably 10 gallon bags. These are outside a lot of the shops.

The outdoor concert we happened upon.

Me in front of the islamic cultural center.

 One of our favorite shops of the evening. This was along a little alleyway with all hand made items. The men were sitting on the floor making all these little lamps, and carving them out of gypsum. There was another shop a few doors down where there were probably 8 men just sitting on the floor sewing clothes. I wanted a picture of them but of course, I didn't take one...

 The workbench in the nightlight shop.

 Some of the nightlights, up close...

Doha skyline on our way home from our date...

We had a lovely evening and can't wait to go back again. 

 Friday we got to go to church for the first time. It is a really interesting, loving group of people from all over the world.  It was so nice to go to the same church all the way across the globe. It was very comforting. I think we will be happy there.

This is our church building. It's a house, but it is only used as a church.

More adventures to come...

Adventures

Whenever I told anyone we were moving to Qatar, 90% of the time they would reply something containing the word "adventure." We have had a couple so far, some not necessarily the type I was expecting.


Our first Saturday here we took a driving tour of Doha. We went to a HUGE shopping mall with all sorts of indoor activities for the kids: a roller coaster, ferris wheel, bowling alley, go carts, a gondola ride, an ice skating rink, and more. It was kind of amazing. We will be spending a lot of time there, I think :) Our tour guide also drove us all over town and showed us all the major points of interest. I am most excited to visit the souqs and barter with the Arab vendors. So those will be adventures to come.


One of our unexpected adventures kept getting better and better as the night wore on. This house is huge and bare, and there are 3 keys to every single door in the house. It took me like 5 minutes to open the door for someone who stopped in to see us that morning because I had to sift through 50 keys to find the one that would open the front door. So Dan decided that to make it easier on us, we should just leave a key in the lock on the inside of the doors to our house. That night we decided to go to IKEA to try to make our house more homey and since we don't have a car we have to hire a driver to take us anywhere we want to go. Aaand since we have so many little beasties we have to take 2 cars wherever we go. We loaded up the car with 4 carseats and a stroller and I shut the door to the house behind us. I tried to lock the door behind us and I couldn't turn the key. I had Dan come over to see if he could and he couldn't either. We were locked out. We decided to just deal with it when we got home since we had everyone all loaded up already and the drivers ready to go. So off to IKEA we went.


When we arrived we unloaded the kids and then the drivers started unloading the car seats. When Dan made the reservation they asked if we wanted to have the drivers wait for us or leave us and Dan said for them to leave us! He hadn't realized we would have 4 carseats with us. Siiiiigh. So we walked into IKEA with our 5 kids and 4 carseats and asked the security guard where we might stash the seats. They were actually really nice about it and opened a little secret passage where they keep wheelchairs and let us leave them there. We let the big boys play in the play area while we went shopping, and they give you one hour of childcare. IKEA in one hour?? Ready, set, go!!! If you have ever been shopping with Dan you know that he can spend an hour on one ITEM, much less a giant monster store like IKEA. But he felt the urgency and we were able to move at a pretty good clip. That hour went by pretty fast, then we went to pick up our boys and have dinner at the IKEA resturant. IKEA really does an excellent job of making their store family friendly, even down to having a specialized cart to carry three foods trays at a time. So I was able to go buy food for the family and actually bring it all back to the table in one trip!


I posted this on facebook, but for those of you who didn't see it: Cultural lesson of the day: I bought what I thought was a little bottle of milk for Jack and when I opened it, it looked and smelled rotten. I took it back to the counter and asked if I could switch it out. They let me and I got another bottle. It, too, looked and smelled rancid. So Dan took it back to get another one and the clerk realized what was going on... It was not milk that I had picked up, it was "fresh Laban" which is more like very runny plain yogurt. It's supposed to look/taste like that! Now we know.




Anyways, we needed to call our driver 30 minutes in advance to pick us up. So we called and finished up in the store and went out to the loading zone to wait. (Another cultural lesson: Qataris take the words "LOADING ZONE" to mean "Great Parking spot for my LANDCRUISER." (They seriously ALL drive Landcruisers)). So, we stood and waited and waited and waited with our 5 kids, 4 carseats, and 2 carts full of stuff waiting for our driver. When we finally found him (4 phone calls to the taxi company later...) it had been almost an hour. The driver had gone into the underground parking area instead of to the exit. We finally found the second driver and loaded up.
When we got home we unloaded everything and sent the drivers on their way. Dan had told the security guards at the front gate that we had locked ourselves out and they came with a key to the front door and one to the garage entry door. But since Dan had put keys on the inside of both of those doors, they couldn't get it in either one. It was almost 10pm by this time and the boys were getting restless, so I walked them down to the mini market to get a treat or something while they worked on getting us in the house. Even though the mini market says it's open until 11, it was closed when we got there. Grrr. On our way back the security guard passed me in his van and said he had gotten in. When I got home I asked Dan how they had done it (fully expecting to hear that they had broken a window or something..) and Dan said they had just gone to one of our kitchen windows and shaken it up and down to loosen the lock and got right in. Good to know our home is nice and secure! Oh well, we got in and could finally put our beasties in bed. WHAT A NIGHT!