Eid Mubarak!

Qatar is celebrating Eid Al Adha, the Muslim holiday that marks the end of the Hajj – the annual pilgrimage to Mecca. The University is closed until December 6th and many UCQ staff are on vacations to wonderful places. Quite a few others, however, are staying in town, so there are plenty of people still in town with whom to explore Qatar. The holiday started Wednesday after work, with a party at the apartment of woman named Gaylene who teaches at the College of the North Atlantic-Qatar. Most of the staff members at the College are from the Maritimes and, they sure know how to have a good time - lots of great food, drink, games and laughter. Gaylene is heading back to PEI for a month, so she threw this as a Christmas party, and had her apartment decorated for Christmas. We played a few Christmas-related party games, and although I’m not often keen on party games, these were a lot of fun and generated lots of giggles!

Thursday started at the clinic where I took care of getting some immunizations in anticipation of my trip to Sri Lanka. I probably should have taken care of it before I left Canada, but it was one of those things that I overlooked in the rush. I went to the clinic with a woman named Cathy who is a nursing instructor, as she needed to get some prescriptions refilled. She was very helpful in determining which innoculations I should get. This trip to the clinic was a way better experience than last week, so perhaps I’m feeling a bit more comfortable and confident in dealing with the language gymnastics I go through here?

The rest of the day included a couple of hours at the Museum of Islamic Art. The building itself is amazing, and the exhibits I saw were so beautiful and interesting. Cathy and I only got through about three or four of the rooms and plan to go back – probably several times. After a couple of hours in the museum we went for about a long walk along the Corniche before heading home.

Museum of Islamic Arts

View from bridge to the entrance to the Museum

These are water filters that were crafted inside water jugs so when the water jugs were whole, they were not visible, but each one is a different design and they were really beautiful.

This is a leather book cover that is about 15 x 24 inches. The design was branded into the leather and then each line was painted in with gold. It was very painstaking and intricate work.

See? I really am here! That's me in front of a fountain at the Museum. In the background you can see some of the buildings in Doha.

I had an appointment with a dentist that evening – if you can believe it, the appointment was for 8:00 PM, and I wasn’t the last appointment of the day/evening. The office location was odd – I am pretty surprised I actually found it! When you turn off the main road to get to the office, it looks like you are driving through a huge empty lot to nowhere. But eventually you come across some newer looking buildings and suddenly there it is! And Curves is right next door. Interestingly, the dentist I saw was from Montreal!

A group of us went to use the pool at the Ezdan Hotel on Friday. It was a really warm day so it was great to be able to cool off in the pool. It wasn’t as nice a setting as the InterContinental Hotel we went to a few weeks ago, but it was waaay less expensive ($20 CDN vs. $80 CDN). The InterContinental as Ladies Day on Wednesday when access to the gym and fitness facilities is free, so of course, we have a group heading down there on Wednesday!

I must be starting to feel that this is my home because Saturday when I was grocery shopping at Carrefour, I saw a small patio set – table and 2 chairs that I bought for my balcony. I have the tiniest little balcony with a view of a rooftop full of satellite dishes and air conditioning units – not exactly the most attractive view, so I didn’t think at first that I would actually want to spend much time out there, especially when it was so hot. But now that it has cooled off, I think it would be nice to sit out there and read with my cup of tea on weekend mornings. So I was pleased to find the table and chairs. Now I just want to add some plants or potted flowers. The balcony is on the north side of the building so it doesn’t get direct sun and I won’t fry out there – at least not until the intense heat returns. Here's a photo of what it looks like; just needs a few plants/pots of flowers to perk it up:

Saturday night one of the English for Academic Purposes instructors (Virginia) who lives in my building hosted a potluck dinner at her apartment. One of the good things about this building is that all the apartments on each floor have different floor plans. Her apartment is larger than mine and really lends itself well to entertaining as she has two sitting areas. Virginia is now known affectionately as “Martha Stewart” because she has really thrown herself into making her apartment her “home”. She has removed all the ugly paintings that came with the apartment and put up lots of art and wall hangings, etc., added plants and decorative accessories. It is beautiful, and so comfortable. I have to remember that I’ve only been here 5 weeks so am likely not yet ready to settle in quite so completely. I realize that this is my home for the next 3 years, so I suspect I will slowly start to add things to make the apartment my own.

The rest of the week off of work stretches ahead of me with plans to do either a desert trip or go see the camel jockeys train the camels at the camel race track, or perhaps attend the camel races. Some have said watching the training is more interesting than the races. I hope to get to the Gold Souk as well. What I find interesting here is that the same sort of businesses will group in an area. For example, there a whole area of auto supply and repair places, or whole streets of just phone stores. I was looking at glasses and in one block there were four optical shops. Sure saves on running around to compare! So at the Gold Souk you find tons of shops just selling gold jewelry and I can’t yet even imagine what other gold items I will find. Historically, Qatar was a trade and pearling center due to its proximity to huge oyster banks, so pearls here are reknown. I will be looking for those too!