Le Mirage Suite Doha

... are Turkish, Iranian and Moroccan restaurants serving dishes like hummus, baba ghanoush, and similarly paste-y dishes eaten with flat bread.

Then, of course, you have the North American contribution. "The Doha 20” is what we expats fondly call to the 20 pounds one inevitably gains in their first couple of months here. I never had a scale back home and, though I often complained about my growing belly, was never ...

Okay, now I have my work visa, but still can not do much until I get my RP - Residancey Permit and associated Qatar ID. Without this you technically can not do much as far as housing, cars, utilities, cell phones, etc.. Luckily up to know who you know (what they will do for you) and how much your pay can get you by. My landlord currently has electric, water, and internet in his name until I get my ID ...

... close by to walk for food. In order to get some food, we would have to go to a mall, one of the big malls, and none were in walking distance...or we'd have to wait and eat expensively at the hotel... We took a chance and started walking outside hoping to find a taxi. We got very very lucky. We took the taxi to the Villagio mall, a swanky new mall on the outskirts of town that the concierge told us was really great because of the ceiling....(?) When ...

... it was five floors high and each floor was a mall in itself. I also got to slide down sand dunes, drive a golf buggy, go to all you can eat buffets, kayak at the beach club, visit the park, play tennis, swim in the sea, ate at five star hotels, went off-roading on the sand dunes, watch films, visit a ferrari showroom, drink beer, visit the pearl and sunbath. It was a good three and a half weeks.

... from the start of the dunes to the beach to an hour and a half. Nonetheless it was definitely a fun experience. We finally got there and set up the small bbq's (manghal) and they began to cook while we set up our chairs and dipped into the lukewarm salt water. The weather was perfect; not scorching hot but a beautiful strong sun fully visible with no clouds in sight. I think it was 29 degrees. I put some heavy spf because I knew my pasty white skin ...

... on their heads. The stench on the plane was unbelievable. Picture the lav on the ATR after two roundtrips to Panama City on a hot day after it had already been fermenting overnight. Now you have a feel for my 20 minutes in the air. No one listened to the instructions to buckle up, turn off cellphones, etc. It was just chaos. People pushed and shoved to get on and off the plane and it was like I was just pushed down the aisle to board ...

07 June If I overlook yesterday's plunge in the stock market, this trip is off to a very auspicious start: Normally I walk up to the main road to catch a bus or taxi to the airport, but this time I took a motorcycle taxi. Just as I reached the end of the road, the airport express bus was rounding the bend! I had to hurridly run across the road to catch it but even that wasn't a problem as the traffic light was green for me. If I had walked as I usually do, I would have ...

We were booked to do onstage fire-dance highlights as part of the opening of the Doha Cultural Festival. It was a large-scale collaborative show that took over a section of the corniche, and besides world-class gymnasts, singers and aerial acrobats on and above the stage (not to mention fire-dancers!) there were ultra-light planes and boats shooting out pyrotechnics as well as artists that absailed ...

... bewildered. So there are people with a stranger sense of humour than the Germans... Is it hot? No, it's bloody freezing! They're damned proud of their airconditioning and rows of 3 meter high units at 5 meter intervals blow an icy typhoon through the terminal. Just for a cosmic laugh, a shivu kick in the nuts, our bags don't come out on the belt until all other bags have long been picked up and we've started compiling mental shopping lists to cover our losses. We're in India.

... come out of the terminal. Just makes me feel special. I think the stars were in line for this trip. Never have I ever had that much ease when getting out of an airport. The cars got Troy, Scott and myself to our hotel within an hour. We are staying at the Al Sultan Beach Resort in Al Khor (Al Khawr on the map). It is an OK hotel, not as nice as others in the area so my guess is we wouldn't stay here for more than 10 days. I guess we will see.