Merry Christmas and Happy New Year (Belated)!!
Well, 2008 has certainly been memorable and eventful. I quit my job in February, moved to Texas in March, went on a few vacations and several weekend trips, got a temporary job, drove back to Virginia in September, moved to Qatar and started a new job in October! In fact, it has been so action-packed that I have made very little time for blogging about all of our activities and travels since my move to the Middle East. Even worse, I haven’t been very good about keeping up with friends (New Year’s Resolution #1)…So, let me begin by summarizing our activities.
Let’s start with my favorite four-letter word…FOOD! One of my very favorite things about my current life in the Mideast is all of the good, cheap cuisine. The first several weeks were a little tough as my stomach was not ready to succumb to the different flavors, preparations, and ingredients. But, not being a picky eater (there is no food that isn’t worth trying), I kept on pursuing my “dream”: a perfect harmony of happy taste buds and intestinal bliss. Now I am enjoying the fabulous life of a Middle Eastern food critic (without getting paid, unfortunately). Although I have had food from this region on several occasions, I have never been exposed to it in this quantity (and quality!). We have eaten at some delicious Lebanese, Persian, Turkish, and Yemeni places. Nick has developed a bit of an obsession for shawarma—lamb or chicken (usually) from a huge round of meat on a rotisserie, similar to a Greek gyro. It can be served plain, on a pita, or with flatbread. Speaking of bread, or Naan, it is served with just about everything and is unbelievably delicious. Rather than eat with a knife or a spoon, you can choose the option of scooping everything up with flatbread and multiplying your calorie intake. We all know that I am a bit of a “Carbovore”, so this is my version of heaven. I am also discovering a true love for Indian food—there are a couple of great restaurants that we frequent, one catering to vegetarian cuisine, the other with more meat options. We also have a friend here that has made some wonderful, homemade Indian dishes for us at his home.
For more Indian culture, we were honored with an invitation to the associate dean’s home for a Diwali celebration at the end of October. The holiday is known as the “Festival of Lights” and their beautiful home was illuminated with candles. They had a monstrous spread of delicious food and desserts catered by a local Indian restaurant. The best part, however, was when the dean’s wife opened her closet to all of the female guests and we were able to choose from her collection of over one-hundred saris. She wrapped us each in the extremely long pieces of fabric—the wrapping alone was practically an art form—and even gave us each a red dot to stick on our foreheads!
Thanksgiving in Doha was actually much better than expected, although never the same as spending it at home with family. We celebrated with faculty, staff, and some students—over 200 people!—by having a pot-luck at the university. It was really quite nice; the Ritz Carleton catered the turkey, stuffing, and mashed potatoes and all the guests contributed side dishes and desserts.
Another excursion, albeit completely unrelated, was an afternoon spent at the Doha Zoo. Nick and I had heard that it was a bit “sad”, but didn’t quite know what was meant by this statement, so we went to investigate for ourselves. We quickly discovered that the diminutive size of the animals’ accommodations was the implication, not the variety of animals available for viewing. I must say, despite the depressing amount of space allotted to each animal, they were the most active and entertaining I’ve seen in a zoo. This place would be PETA’s nightmare—people feeding the animals, ill-behaved children and parents tapping loudly on cages and glass, and animals within an arms’ length of human contact. I literally found people feeding ostriches, which I find to be pretty frightening and are known for their aggression, and monkeys were reaching their arms through the bars begging for food. The big cats were pacing just a couple feet away in their cages which, unfortunately, did not appear as sturdy as we would have liked. I truly believe the tigers, panthers, and lions were preying on the extremely annoying children that taunted them incessantly, an attack would probably have been well-deserved (sorry to say). I’m afraid I did join the debacle when I fed the giraffes and attempted to feed the elephant…When in Rome…right?
One of our fairly regular activities is venturing to the souks (i.e. markets). This will possibly be one of the most memorable parts of Doha that I take with me. It is really what I imagined a Middle Eastern marketplace to be—wandering alleys, persistent shop-keepers, beautiful and random wares, and buildings straight out of Aladdin. We love to aimlessly peruse the shops, people watch, listen to the local music, and visit with friends over sheesha, tea, or gelato. Even Nick doesn’t mind shopping here! It is truly a cultural experience and one that we certainly will expand upon later.
Lastly, our entire month of December has been spent traveling. Nick and I spontaneously decided to spend some vacation time we received for the Muslim Eid holiday in Istanbul, Turkey. What a beautiful and unique European city! We loved every minute of our five day stay there and will definitely be sharing our stories soon. In addition, our Christmas holiday was just recently spent in Greece with Nick’s family. We had a fantastic time spending seven days exploring Athens and some surrounding areas. It was festive and cold for Christmas and we truly enjoyed each others’ company as we toured the impressive ancient ruins (or “ru-eens” as Stewie would say) and spent time in tavernas eating delicious Greek food and drinking wine. But this is all for another blog…
Hope everyone had a happy, healthy holiday. Take care and best wishes for 2009!

National Ride-on-the-Roof-of-a-Moving-Car Day

What is Qatar National Day? Most of the expats here aren’t exactly sure. Part of the problem stems from the fact that Qatar’s actual independence day (from the Ottomans? from another tribe? from the st
rictures of polite driving?) is in April, and part stems from the fact that this is only the second year that QND has been celebrated on December 18. Back in 2007, lucky Qatar fanatics got to celebrate on the original day in April as well.

True Qatar fanatics aren’t going to let silly questions like this stop them from celebrating like it’s 1399, so they throw a big party. Have I mentioned that Qatar is the largest supplier of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) in the world? Yeah, it’s a BIG party. The government installed monster light shows up and down the 5km of the Corniche, which is the boardwalk that runs along the water downtown. Big projection screens and water displays were set up every 500 meters or so and displayed plenty of Sheikh Emir Khomeini Yassin Rich Guy types praising the glory of Qatar (well, it was in Arabic, so they may have been saying “Death to the infidels” for all I know). Massive speakers played some kind of “Arabian Nights” theme, which actually made a pretty cool soundtrack to run to. It was honestly very impressive.

Several of us gathered later that night for a fireworks display that would supposedly rival the grandest spectacles ever heretofore seen. After sitting there for an hour after the start time without so much of a fizzle, the “Doha time” jokes started to roll. (“Mohammed, you were supposed to bring the matches!” “No, that was the other Mohammed’s job!”) Man, that sentence will probably get me thrown in jail. Anyway, just as we were starting to pack up, the fireworks finally went off.

And man, what a show it was. Four shut up into the air at the same time, and then they kept going steadily for about 40 minutes. There were four barges out in the bay, which I’m pretty sure is more than even DC uses for its celebrations. They did not skimp; it was pretty damn impressive. I’ve posted a couple of photos which frankly don’t do it any justice. But the fireworks definitely weren’t the most enduring images I’ll take away from QND.

As I’m sure you’re aware, the Wahabbi Muslims that run this place aren’t particularly fond of liquor. Well, officially at least. Single men and single women aren’t allowed to communicate with each other. There’s just not a whole lot of opportunity for wild partying, so the young ‘uns here have to look for alternative ways to spend their time. So they do the same things that we did back in the days before alcohol when we weren’t cool enough to score a date but we DID have a car...they cruise the strip. All of them. For hours upon endless hours. They honk. They burn the rubber of their tires. They force their $75,000 Land Cruisers to backfire unmercifully while waving plastic AK-47s from their sunroofs (which is better than the real AK-47s they waved five or so years ago…) Frankly, I’m glad this wasn’t the first thing I saw when I got here; it literally looked like an 80s terrorist movie. And they do stuff like this…

These guys were insane. Three Land Cruisers would drive side-by-side at 10kph blocking traffic while guys would hang out the doors, sprawl across the hoods, and even stand on the car roofs. Guys would jump out and wave a massive Qatar flag in the middle of traffic. It was the most incredible chaos I think I’ve ever seen – and it was pretty cool too. They love their country here, and on this day they loved everyone else too. Every single car would mug for anybody they saw with a camera. I actually stopped taking pictures because I was pretty sure I was going to be responsible for someone’s death; it was the Qatari equivalent of “Here, hold my beer and watch me do this!” People covered their cars with Qatar flag stickers, which I’m sure seemed like a good idea at the time. And while it certainly wasn’t the most intelligent way to celebrate (a Land Cruiser dealer need never worry about job security here…), it was definitely a friendly atmosphere and a lot of fun. Even if no one is sure exactly what they’re celebrating…