I have always felt that we actually have three opportunities each year to ‘wipe the slate clean’ and start anew. The first of these is the new calendar year – January 1st, the second is spring time (spring cleaning) and third is the new school year – you know, when you got your new pencils, notebooks, etc. and swore you’d keep them neat and you’d do your homework faithfully. Here it is, another September, and we are off and running with a new school year at UCQ and we have a new group of students starting our new Foundation Program (that’s a lot of ‘news’). In the Muslim world our school year started in the middle of the holy month of Ramadan which meant students and some staff were fasting during the daylight hours. We non-Muslims, out of respect, did not eat or drink anything in public view. I was terrified I would forget and offend someone by carrying a glass of water to my desk or something. But I managed to make it through the month without getting deported. It’s actually illegal to eat, drink or smoke in public during Ramadan.
Following Ramadan is the Eid holiday which meant we had a week off of work when the University closed for the holiday. I took advantage of that time and went to Florence, Italy with 3 friends/colleagues and had a simply wonderful time! It was my first time in Europe – although Istanbul is technically in Europe, Turkey is a Muslim country, so it wasn’t exactly how I imagined Europe would be . . . Italy was more what my imagination envisioned. As anyone who has been to Florence can attest, it is a city where history and art meet you at every turn. The highlight for me was Michaelangelo’s “David”, which was just too astonishing for words. How in the world did he DO that? I ate pasta (my favorite) every day and must have had at least 2 gelato cones every day too. Three of us took a pasta-making class that was a lot of fun and we met some interesting people.
My boss, Alice, making home made pasta
A day trip through the Tuscan country side took us to Siena, San Gimignano and Pisa where there was a double rainbow over the leaning tower. That day we had lunch at an organic farm and had some of the most delicious tomatoes, wine, pasta, and fruit I’ve ever had.
That's me keeping the Leaning Tower from tipping over
We stayed in an apartment (Vacation Rentals by Owner- VRBO.com- great way to go) that was in a building built in the 15th century. It was lovely and cozy – but was a 4 flight walk up the stairs – part of our fitness plan to work off all the pasta and gelato!
The view from my room in Florence
Florence is a very walk-able city and we exhausted ourselves every day seeing the sights. We were wise enough to get advanced tickets to the museums so we didn’t have to stand in line, and we saw enough Renaissance art to last a very long time.
One day we decided we would do the Hop on-Hop off bus tour of the city. A guidebook told us we could find a stop at the Duomo, but we couldn’t find it there. A man at a souvenir kiosk told us we could catch it at the bus stop at San Marco, about a 4-block walk. When we got there we found no Hop on-Hop off bus, but the transit dude there told us we could take the city bus #14 to the train station where we would find the Hop on-Hop off bus. What he didn’t tell us was that the #14 bus was going to take us on about a 45-minute ride through the city before it deposited us at the train station which was really only about 5 blocks away from where we started! Too funny! The positive side is that we got a tour of the city outside of the major tourist part and Cheryle, one of my friends, had an “Italian experience” - got her bum pinched by a really hot Italian guy. Well, not really very hot at all, but she likes the story told that way better than the truth which is he was a kind of paunchy middle-aged guy.
All too soon our time in Italy was over and we headed back to Doha. It was the first time I had flown into Doha during daylight. I now see the wisdom of the University making sure we arrive for the first time at night. Doha is rather magical looking at night with all the lights. In the daytime it is desolate and barren and looks more like a war zone than anything. If that had been my first glimpse of Doha, I’m not sure I would have wanted to stay!
Had an interesting experience yesterday. Many of the expat workers who come to Doha are from Kerala, India. It is a beautiful part of India that is now on my list of places I want to visit. Mr. Nanda, our procurement officer at UCQ (who is from Kerala) invited a group of us Canadians to attend an event held by the Kerala Social Club. It was held at a farm outside of the city and was an amazing event indeed. It started at 9:00 a.m. and we thought it would be like a fair where you came and went and would have food booths, displays, things to buy. We couldn’t have been more mistaken – and ended up being slightly embarrassed. It turns out it was a scheduled program that began at 9:30 and since we didn’t arrive until shortly after 11:00, we missed most of it. However, Mr. Nanda, escorted us to the front of the seating area where we were seated like royalty in these lovely upholstered chairs. When the program of singing, etc. was over (not long after we arrived because we were so late), we were escorted ahead of everyone back to the tables that had been set up for lunch. And what an amazing lunch it was! Each place had been set with a banana leaf for a plate (smart people, no dishes to wash) and a bit of several different types of curries were put on the “plate”. Then they served us red rice and we started to eat with our fingers. They came around with more things that were put on our plates and we ate and ate. The pumpkin curry was my favorite, and the desserts were so good! Interestingly enough, all the serving of food and clearing of tables, in fact all the organization was done by the men. The women were able to enjoy the day without doing any of the work. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera so I have no photos to share of this fun event.
Last night I went to a ‘Tacky Tourist’ party. It was actually a birthday party and celebration of the birthday girl’s one year of being cancer free. Most of the guests work at the College of the North Atlantic – Qatar and are originally from the Maritimes. These people know how to have a good time. I’m not one for party games, but these people are and the games were actually fun and quite hilarious. Of course, the costumes people came up with were pretty funny, too. One girl was in head-to-toe black with her bikini over top – like an abaya-bikini. I know I’m not explaining it very well, but it was really clever. There were many of us (me included) wearing black sock with sandals – the quintessential tacky tourist garb.
So we are back in the swing of things, it is actually starting to cool off a bit and I am coming up to my one year anniversary of being in Doha. How quickly the time has gone!
