at the airport!!

so i'm at the airport, and i have 8 min to type a post before the computer shuts down on me!

so....i haven't written in about a couple of days now, more than that, since thursday i believe. Well, i'm at the airport now, my flight's in an hour and 10 min, so i'm really early, and then i arrive in london at 5:30 their time, and then again in toronto at 11:30pm toronto time. so i'm just wandering around the airport here, reflecting on my time spent in doha. i didn't get a chance to go to dubai, but i had a great time here anyway.

i got to see tiesto!! i gave up the chance to see him in montreal when he was there, so it was amazing i got to make it up here! even duncan enjoyed it, and he's hip-hop, jayz, kanye king. however, tiesto went on at 11pm and played till 2am, and then it was over, so it wasn't your standard 6am show, but it was great cuz it was on the beach!
oh, and i got to go to the al jazeera forum at the sheraton, which was really interesting and cool...makes me want to be a journalist now....but not gonna happen. but i learned a lot about politics and what's going on in the world, and the difference between the media here in the middle east, in the UK, and in North America.

k, i'm gonna go now b4 i get booted out, there is a line up for the free comps too....so if i get another chance to get on, i will continue!

...to be continued...

Beach on a Cloudy day

Today is Wed March 11th. It is 3:10pm here, and I am eating a homemade poutine, gravy courtesy of Mere! I just spoke to my mom an hour ago, when it was 7am in Toronto, and she cut the conversation short because she had to go to the washroom. lol. ah, my mom.

Well, so today i got up early! Duncan came and woke me up as promised at 8:40am, and then I slept in till about 9:20am. I was supposed to spend the afternoon with mere's friend Tarek yesterday, but he had to work, so we rescheduled for this morning. So tarek showed up at the apartment just before 10am, and off we went to get brunch. apparently there aren't a lot of good breakfast places here, so we went to one of 2 that tarek knew of, a lebanese restaurant in the Sooq. the Sooq Waqif.

Last night actually, we went to a restaurant in the Sooq Waqif, with Mere, Duncan and Duncan's parents, it was a late birthday dinner for Caroline (duncan's mom). It was really cool there. they had actually built it 2 yrs ago, but they made it look old, so that you still have the Sooq charm (Sooq is Market, from my understanding...again correct me if i'm wrong!) But it was a cute restaurant, i say cute because of the decor, but in fact, it was pretty big! It was good times, i have more pics up on facebook.

Ok, so back to today. We went to the lebanese restaurant in the Sooq, and it was quite different to see it during the day. it was still hard to find parking, but it wasn't as busy as last night was. last night it was like a street party like on st laurent in the summer in montreal. it was crazy. it was more relaxed during the day, also cuz most would be working. i had eggs and beef bacon. man ever since i came here i have been wanting bacon...i think more so because you can't have it here. one of those forbidden desires! (christina-eat my bacon that's in the fridge plz!)

It was really cloudy this morning, so we went to eat more so to gauge the weather. when we finished, it was still cloudy, but we went anyway. so there aren't many beaches here, the good ones are 45min to an hour away (some further), and most of them u need an suv or an atv to get there. so we didn't really have a lot of time since tarek needed to get to work for 2pm. so we went to a "beach" by the pearl. in order to get there tho, u have to go off-road a bit. meaning, u have to drive on the sand and rocks. so we got there, it was really small, the water was like an in-land cove of sorts, not right at the sea, and the sand was red, which was cool, but really, it was as big as the pond in high park. so we scratched that idea and went to a beach near the intercontinental, which is the pic above.

the water was cooold!! but it was ok once you're in it. oh, and i scrached up my legs, foot, ad hand!! i'm the worst at getting cuts and bruises!! heehee...i have to put up at pic of what my leg looks like...

but when we got out of the water, it was actually pretty warm, so we just hung out, sitting on concrete blocks that they have there to prevent cars from driving in. the sand was very rocky, so not comfy to sit on! (so ya, that's my leg, pretty gross huh? heehee....)

So, we then had some time to kill b4 tarek had to go back to work, so we went to the restaurant that i've driven past probably every day and never went. when robert and i went for the walk the other day, we were supposed to walk the restaurant but turned around just before. i've heard great things about it, and it's one of the "restaurants of the world" (not sure if that's the correct saying). Anyway, i thought we'd go over there and have a coffee...it was really pretty sitting by the water, and when we got the menu, it said minimum 75riyals per person....for coffee?? eepers...so we were gonna jet, but they said it was ok. i suppose when it's busy, this is how they ensure they make there money if ppl are hogging the tables. they also had an eating area above the restaurant, on the roof if you will. it was really nice!

(this is us sitting at the restaurant. we got the table closest to the water....)

...And that was my day! it's nice to get up a little earlier and actually do all this touristy stuff, and now i have an evening to fill of events! yay!

i think we're gonna go to the villagio, do some shopping, eat dinner there, and see if they still have tiesto tickets for tomorrow night....

Tuesday!

It is Tuesday March 10th.

And these are the top headlines in the local paper, the Peninsula:

"Tackle causes of crisis: Emir - Qatar kee to implement strategy promoting sustainable development"

"Patients who stay put after discharge cause bed shortage at HMC"

HMC is Hamad Medical Corporation, essentially, most have to pay for beds, and when they do, they don't want to leave, because they paid for the bed. This is what was told to me by Robert (Duncan's dad). But ths article talks about how people who are in the ICU unit or a specialized department, won't move to a regular bed once treatment is over. most times it's because they aren't any regular private rooms available, so they rather stay put.

"Vodaphone cells start ringing"

there's competition in the mobile industry here now! previously there was only one provider here, QTel, but Vodaphone is currently testing it's network.

"School students do their bit for Gaza"

Duncan would like to know about this article...he was out yesterday by the mall, and saw school students quietly walking by, and was wondering why.

Well, in Qatar, they support Palestine. So yesterday, around 500 students and teachers walked 8kms to show their support and fundraise to help rebuild schools in the Gaza Strip. They have also fundraised to provide funds to Gaza victims in the past.

...and the front headline of the business section:

"Attiyah opens Doha Natural Gas Exhibition: 110 exhibitors from 30 countries take part"

this opened yesterday, here in Doha. The objective of this year's conference is "to find the solutions required to eep up with an accelerating technology race, ad understand the demands of a changing industry committed to ensuring security of supply in a increasingly complex world"

and that's the paper.

well yesterday was a pretty chill day. i sat by the pool for a bit, went food shopping, went for a walk on the Corniche with Robert. The Corniche is a boardwalk-like walk, which is right by the water, and people walk along it or just sit and talk. it's pretty far...i'd say from scarborough to mississauga? (someone correct me if i'm wrong!)

anyway, then i made sushi for dinner, kind of a tester for friday's dinner...it was good i suppose...i have a picture!

the pot has miso soup in it, i found soybean paste, but it wasn't quite the same...i enjoyed it, Robert had most of it, but i don't think anyone else really liked it..... :)

....and that was all really. today i'm going to go for a tour of the city with one of mere's friends, tarek. hopefully i'll be able to see the beaches here, apparently there aren't many, but i'd like to see them anyway!

Chicken Turkey Pesto

So it is now day 5, but I haven't blogged about day 4 yet...i am behind! There is a cleaning lady in the apartment right now, cleaning Duncan's washroom and doing the laundry...I've never eally had a cleaning lady before, so I don't know what you're supposed to do. So i'm just gonna sit here and write of yesterday!!

oh, but first i'll put up the pics from Four Seasons that I said that I would.

(outside the four seasons, they had red carpet out, probably for tht guy)

(the inside lobby....it's so pretty! and those pants really fit Duncan....lol)

So Day 4, Sunday. It felt like a Monday cuz everyone went to work and I was all alone!

So i got up around noonish, i couldn't sleep the whole night again, i woke up at 1am, and couldn't go back to sleep till around 2....this is really getting annoying. I made breakfast and went to the pool for a bit. i brought my books and was being productive, reading about 5 pages while i was down there, and then giving up and resorting to....closing my eyes! the sun was right above me, but there was a draft, so it didn't feel hot at all. i got a good base tan, but i didn't bring any water or food or anything, so i got bored and went back upstairs.

I've been having vivid dreams too, every night that i have been here. that night, i dreamt of making pesto sauce. so i was determined to walk over to the nearest mall which had a Carrefour, and hoping to find the ingredients for pesto sauce.

Walking here is dangerous (not sure if i've already mentioned this), where there are probably 3 pedestrian crossings in the city, and cars drive like they don't care. there re many roundabouts here too, much like in montreal and quebec. but here, they speed right through them and speed onwards. let's just say there's a lot of speeding going on here. the only speed limit sign that i can remember at the moment is 80km/hr. and everyone, my dad, duncan, his parents, are all warning me to be very careful crossing the streets. so no pressure. so to get to the nearest mall, city centre, i decide to take small streets. and my gosh, there are soooo many construction workers here! every corner, every street, all over the place. there were more construction workers than cars! and it was awkward. i mean, i read up on what to wear when i go into public areas, no knees, no cleavage (i've got no problem there!), no shoulders, etc., so i wore jeans and a t-shirt. wow, i felt awkward, walking around with a wierd awkward smile the entire time i was walking to the mall. eepers, jeepers!

i finally got to the mall....as i got closer to the mall, i saw more pedestrians, so i just followed them when crossing the street ;)

looking for fresh basil was like looking for waldo. it was impossible! i finally finally found fresh basil, but one problem...it was in a pot. it was 15riyals, so $5, and i wasn't sure if i needed more than the pot, and the leaves didn't look too fresh....but i had no choice, so i found the best pot that i could. garlic butter was the next mission, for garlic bread. i stood at the butter section for like 10minutes, trying to translate the lebanese and arabic labels on the containers. i figured they wouldn't have garlic butter, but garlic is all over arabic food, i couldn't see why not! i asked a random man standing next to me if a green tub i found was butter (i figured green = garlic?), and he pointed to a tub of yoghurt and told me it was very good. so i picked up the tub, looked at it, and put it back down when he left. lol

so after wandering around the grocery store for half a hour, i finally had everything i needed for my chicken turkey pesto linguine dinner! i saw chicken turkey cuz we had leftover turkey from the night b4, but it wasn't enough for 5 ppl to eat, so i got chicken to add to it. it's not what Duncan was thinking, a cross-breed of chicken and turkey!

on my way out of the mall, all of these men were standing outside. i figured they were waiting for taxis, but in fact, they were the "illegal taxis" that i've heard so much about. one man started going up to me saying, "taxi? taxi?", i just pretended i didn't hear, saying, "i'm sorry? i'm sorry?". finally i said ok, and he walked me to his car in the parking lot. it felt sketchy, but he offered to hold my bags...i'm easy to lure! but luckily we weren't going far.

he asked for 20riyals, and i paid him 30riyals, cuz i just felt like it, and thought, well, $10 is not bad for a 7 minute ride, right? well duncan later informed me that the real taxis charge 6 riyals to go from the city centre to the apartment. oh well....the guy gave me his number in case i would need a taxi in the future...hmm...

so i made the dinner, it was all ready by 6pm, but robert (duncan's dad) just got home, and duncan right after, but we had to pick up mere, and caroline (duncan's mom) wasn't home yet. mere was out near the villagio (coolest mall ever) in a building shaped like a boat. so imagine duncan and i pointing at different buildings wondering if mere would think that it looked like a boat. we just went into the mall instead....i'll put up pics on my facebook, cuz it takes years to load em up here. or perhaps i'll put em later....but the villagio was cool! it had a skating rink inside, which city centre had too, but this one seemed bigger. it looked like Aladdin from Vegas, where the ceiling looked like the sky, and it just looked like u were in an arabian fortress....u should probably look at the pictures...

finally, we found mere, and traffic going home was horrendous...i'll save that for a later post. (this is getting long) but we had dinner, and i think the pesto was good...robert asked if i put pepper in it, pesto normally doesn't have pepper, but i prefer just a splash, i probably put 2 splashes...but mere told me that if robert asks what was in it, he likes it...??? oh well, he didn't have a look of disgust on his face...so i peg that as...success!!

we hit up the four seasons afterwards for martinis and cocktails....i really like it there....

and that ends day 4! (oh and after dinner we had some of duncan's chocolate covered ganaches for dessert from the food convention in dubai, but they were melted cuz they were in his car for the past week....haha)

Turkey Dinner!! Day 3

So Day 3 is Saturday March 7 2009.

I woke up 5:30am this day, wide awake! So i sat out on the balcony for a bit, watching the sunrise

This is a photo of the view from my room right at 5:30 am. It was a little windy, i suppose that's from being on the 8th floor.

This is a view from my room at about 6am

and this is the view just after 6am. it got bright pretty quick! I didn't stay up until the sun actually came up, i just went back to bed :)

Got up at noon, when mere came to let me know breakfast (lunch really) was ready, and then duncan came right after to tell me the same thing. both of duncan's parents were already at work, so it was just us.

so the plans for the day was to go to the mall cuz mere needed to get new clothes for her new job sunday, and i wanted to check it out too. also, i wanted to stock up on junk food, as i will be studying for most of my stay, by the pool of course, so i needed brain food: chips and popcorn!!

after the mall, we had planned to go to the Museum of Islamic Arts, but we ended up spending 4 hours at the mall!! which is what i like....but man, duncan was a trooper! we went to Landmark mall, which isn't so far from the apartment, maybe a 10min drive, but it's a bit of a walk. i may check it out one day. walking is scary tho...

anwyay, the mall had almost everything. we went to almost every store. apparently, the mall has had 3 expansions in the past year and a half, so most stores were 1 yr old. Lacoste just recently opened there, we went to Zara, Mango, H&M (they had a buy 2 get one free sale! wow!), we went to a chocolate store that had pretty expensive chocolates, about $2 a piece! we got a box of 8 for our turkey dinner party that night.

(pic of Landmark Mall)

(the Nine West...Sale!)

Also, Duncan told me that Virgin just moved in, which was the est thing since sliced bread about 3 months ago!

they had so many cute bakeries too, we saw a place called Opera, which had the most amazing cakes (we bought a chocolate chocolate cake for the dinner) and also mini cakes!! Duncan and his parents explained that since alcohol and cigars weren't customary to bring to someone's house who's hosting a a party or dinner party, sweets were the alternative.

Apparently, Qatar has the most diabetic per capita in the world....when i thought of it, it made sense. You have to hve a license to buy alcohol, and you cannot have alcohol in your car unless you're going from the liquor store straight home. also, many devout muslims don't drink alcohol anyway. so chocolates and sweets are the norm.

Wow, so i got a dress, a tshirt, a long cardigan that doesn't actually do up, mere and i got bras part of a 2 for 140 riyals sale (and duncan wasn't allowed into the store, cuz mere said so :)

but man, we went buckwild at Carrefour, Doha's version of Walmart. You can get practically anything there. the thing is, most of the food is imported, from europe, lebanon, and saudi. so you didn't really see the same brands here as you would at home. duh i suppose...

well, i wanted to make poutine!! so we found mccain fries (yum yum), shredded mozzarella, which ranged from 7.5riyals to 30 riyals, depending on the brand. you need to be careful and not grab the wrong bag, cuz depending where it came from it could be twice as much! the only thing missing was gravy....we scoured the entire store, the 3 of us, and we couldn't find gravy. the closest thing was meat gravy, which is not as thick as gravy for fries....more liquidy. but we got it anyway. i'll let u know how it turns out....

by the time we were done, it was almost 5pm, so it was time to go home and get ready for dinner, we had to leave by 6pm.

so we went to the education city, which is this huge community made up of 6 universities (branches of the original US schools...i can't think of the names, i'll let u know later), hospitals, and also the new science centre, which microsoft and virgin is a part of (the opening is march 18th i think, ad Bill Gates and Richard Branson will be there). It's called Qatar Science and Technology Pavillion, i think. all i remember is that the acronym is QSTP, which reminds me of Quebec Sales tax, but noone really got the joke...i suppose it's not much of a joke!

duncan's mom works at education city, and we were going to one of her collegue's flat, who's originally from New York. So we had a turkey dinner which was a late "new year's dinner". It was yummy. But i just can't hold my alcohol here, i had one corona, and one glass of white wine, and then i was out....i was falling asleep. i feel like a douche, where duncan and mere are like, oh we have to get Anny home!!

Well so after a power nap in the car on the way home, we went out to the Four Seasons lounge for drinks to celebrate mere's new job...it was an amazing place, there was a pianist there and we were in couches...it was really cool. I'll put up the pics from that night later...it's still on my camera!!

Days 1-2

Hello!! So it is Saturday March 7th 2009, and it is now my official 3rd day here. I arrived Thursday evening, at 5:30pm, after a whole day of travelling. Which was a loooong trip!

First, my flight was delayed 45min in Toronto because as they were loading the baggage underneath, they found blood, apparently animal blood, and they needed to find the source (the bag) and remove it from the plane, otherwise we would've been quarantined in London, which was my connecting flight. I only had 1.5hrs in between flights in London, so I was scared that I would miss my connecting flight. So after frantically texting and emailling Duncan to let him know I may miss my flight to Qatar, and then I had to sit tight and wait until I got to London.

Once I got to London, luckily, the plane ended up on time. But I still had to run to catch my connecting flight because apparently the flight closed once I got to the counter. Oh man....so when I actually made it to the gate and got on the plane, we waited for maybe 30 min b4 taking off. So I rushed for nothing. argh.

And the flight to Qatar was only 5% full, and the lady at the counter put me beside another person. wheras there were many other rows that were empty. Oh well, the guy moved, so I had the two seats to myself.

Finally...I got to Qatar!! and Duncan and Mere came to pick me up. and we went straight to the apartment, which is really nice. It's beside the Four Seasons, it's on the 8th floor, and has a beautiful view of the water.

(the view from my room)

And so we had some dinner, we ordered in from a Arab restaurant. Which was good....rice and chicken. NO Pork :(

Later on that night we went out to a new lounge set up at the Four Seasons called "Hip India Lounge". Of course, once I got into the apartment tho, we broke out the drinks, I had 2 Red Bull Vodkas before we went out. and then another when we got to the lounge. It was cool, interesting, and fun, cuz it was outside and had couches and an elephant (statue).

(me, duncan, and mere)

(me, sandra, duncan, mere, and jenny)

A couple of girls from Duncan's work came by too, Sandra and Jenny, they're from Germany, they're in PR, are always full of energy, and fun. Well Duncan was having a ball, surrounded by all of these girls....lol

We stayed at the lounge for a couple of drinks and then we turned in, I was exhausted, so I was ready for bed....we went back to the apartment and we had a couple of beers and watched some tv. Finally I went to bed at 3am.

...and then I woke up at 6am. Just like that! This has been happening to me every single night! The sun was sooo bright, it was shining right into my room, and it felt like it was noon, based on the brightness of the sun. But when I checked my phone, I saw that it was only 6am. Oh my....I had to draw the curtains and passed out again, only to wake up at 8am. Then I woke up again at 10am, at that point, I just told myself "Forget it", and got out of bed.

So it was Friday. Here, the weekend is Friday and Saturday. So party nights are generally Thursday and Friday, maybe Saturday too. The work-week starts on a Sunday. So Sunday is the western Monday. Hope that made sense :-)

So again, it was Friday...we had plans to go the beach at the InterContinental with Sandra and Jenny. Duncan coaches a youth baseball game Fridays, and I was interested in going Friday to check it out...but after breakfast I was so exhausted I went back to bed and took a nap. So I missed Duncan's game (they won tho!). So I took a nap till around 2pm, when I got up because Sandra was coming by to pick up me and Mere.

When we got there it was full of people! It was a Corona event. We had to buy drink tickets to purchase drinks (and food). There was also a human foosball tournament, which we may or may not join next week...we'll see.

(the beach)

(the human foosball court)

And so the exchange rate is 3 to 1 Canadian to Qatar Riyals. So they were charging us 35 Riyals for one Corona, which is $7! Nuts huh? Well we bought em anyway....actually Mere was nice enough to get them for me, I didn't have Riyals yet.

Then Duncan came by cuz his game was over, and we were sitting next to a Sumo Wrestling match, where you get into a costume and wrestle with another. So Duncan and his friend, Samer (Sam) went at it. It was pretty funny, Duncan kept getting his ass kicked, Sam would pick up his costume and flip him over. He did that twice. Apparently, the costume was 9 pounds too. But it was fun. and the winner won ping pong paddles.

We were supposed to go out for dinner that night with Duncan's parents, but when we got back to the apartment, I was so exhausted, I had to take a nap. I'v been napping a lot here....and so I passed out, and then got up again around 10pm, and we were supposed to go out and meet up with Sandra, but mere was tired, so it didn't happen. We just watched the Wire, and Little Britain until around 1am and then we all passed out!!

And that concludes Day 2.....I put up pics on my facebook profile, cuz it just takes toooo long to load onto this blog!