Ritz Carlton Doha

... or "Good time for a white wedding." Now I saw a family in which the man wore a Von Dutch t-shirt tucked into ratty jeans. The kids, three beautiful girls, were wearing puffy almost tutu like dresses with stockings. Their mother had nothing showing but her two eyes. They walked near a Victoria's Secret store. There was a store for the high end fashionable Muslim robes worn by so many of the women called My Fair Lady. I took a picture of the robes ...

... on the bus towards the aircraft knowing I wasn't going to hear "ding, ding, this is an announcement for mr x. would mr x please go to gate x for immediate boarding for flight number xxx to x." Heard it so many times I could have jumped onto the tannoy and done it for them. Knew all the scripts off by heart. Not the best 6 hours of my trip to date, that's for su

... and video's of this but will post them at another time. Some cars we found out did not deflate their tires. In order for the tires to avoid conflicting with the sand you must deflate the tires significantly so that its easy and soft on the sand. After a few hurdles of cars getting stuck and having to be pulled out we finally got to our destination. There were a lot of new Armenians who hadn't ever driven in the dunes which delayed a 30 minute ...

... and AC on, etc.). Anyway, once the sun has set we went out into the city and we admired the spectacular Al Corniche, a promenade that goes along the bayshore for 7 km (5 miles). The view of the skyline from the sea level was indeed breathtaking. Then, we decided we would go to see the Doha Souk, have dinner there and browse the shops. Of course, this undertaking that was supposed to take 10 minutes, took us an hour due again to roads closed, poorly marked ...

... lot more than just lay by the pool and the beach and enjoyed the resort facilities. I did manage to go out on one of the afternoons to the sand dunes in the deserts which was lovely. Did some 4WDing in the sand dunes where there was a huge supply of cars everywhere. The views and the changing horizon was great. Going sideways along a sand dune was also great - felt like a roller coaster ride of sorts. At one point we were ...

... for my purposes, I then proceeded to the so-called "Quiet Room". Ha! It was a semi-dark room with reclining chairs that might have been usable for sleeping - had the room been anywhere near quiet. Not wanting to be the cause of sleeping passengers missing their flights, this room was bombarded with a constant barrage of flight announcements - one after the other - non-stop - until about 2:30 a.m. Unable to sleep in the chairs provided, I pulled my sleeping bag out of ...

... another night in DC, and after another super comfortable night, I got on the last flight...next stop SF! I love Virgin America...live TV, good food, and empty planes...had an entire row to myself. Getting home was pretty surreal, but the 3 days of travel kind of tempered any culture shock I think. Driving home on 101 was weird, especially because I hadn't expected to be back for another year. But it was soooo nice to see family, and stop ...

... tight with only 2 hours stay at Dubai but fianlly I decided to help her. After landing, I found that the emirates flight has docked at the edge of the tarminal building so to get to the immigration we need to walk almost 1 KM. It took me almost 30 munites to guide her to immegration and return to the gate where the check in for Doha begins. We started from Dubai at 2:30 AM and arrived in Doha at 2:30 AM :). (One hour fight time is offset by one hour time ...

... our hotel/car/plane tickets to Bahrain with no fees! Thats another funny thing. I have never in my life bought refundable plane tickets. I was online at my apartment using my pre-paid internet card. The card is for dial-up which goes at 40.6 KB speed (very very slow). I was having issues buying the tickets, every time i got to the check out page it kicked me off. So on my 4th attempt to buy plane tickets ...

... gusting through our spirits, uplifting us with its force. Then we ran for cover. The show was postponed and carried out without a hitch on the next evening, but the delay was an organisational head-ache for artist's flights as tickets were cancelled and had to be rebooked. Some artists were stranded there for up to a week with out knowing when they'd return. ... Phoenix Productions ∼ www.phoenixfiredancers.com