The Where Do I Start Blog
With the tour of the Mosque in Education City? The Sunday Brunch at W Hotel? Our first visit to Souq Waqif? The ongoing saga of Glenn Against the Dust (coming to a theatre near you soon!)? How about our upcoming trip to Canada for a visit? Okay, let's start there and work backward.
A week from today, Glenn and I are heading back to Canada for a short visit. Shorter for me (August 11-30) and a bit longer for Glenn (August 11-September 30) as he is taking his mom to Newfoundland in September (hi, Norma, we'll be there soon!). We are so looking forward to spending time with friends and family and getting out and walking and biking on the trails. A special thank you to Terry and Darrel, who are picking us up at the airport when we arrive and hosting us for a day (or maybe two?) while we recover from the jet lag. Another shout out to Carlen, who is allowing us to stay at her house while she's in Ottawa. Thank you guys, and thanks to others, like Trish and Sheila, who also offered their homes to us. We really appreciate your generosity. Now, could someone please arrange some good weather for our visit? We'd like temperatures in the mid-to-high 20s please, with some rain (but not when we're planning a bike ride). We are so looking forward to reasonable temperatures (and I know that hasn't been necessarily the case for our friends in BC) and a relatively dust-free environment.
Which brings me to Glenn's soon-to-be-a-major-blockbuster saga. One man vs all the dust that the Doha desert can dish! Since arriving here, as you know, Glenn has taken over most of the household chores while I slave away at the college. But just keeping up with the dusting of furniture became an all-consuming task. Between the desert sand and the ongoing construction that keeps kicking it up every day, our furniture became constantly coated with dust, and there seemed no end to it. To keep my work clothes from becoming dusty, I had to avoid sitting on furniture in them when I came home. There seemed to be no way to keep up with it. Except...(and I could see the wheels turning in Glenn's head)...sealing off the house! You see, while our home is very comfy, it is not very well constructed. There are huge gaps in the doors and windows that you simply couldn't have in Canada, or you'd freeze in the winter. So Glenn bought a caulking gun a couple of weeks ago, and he's been working to seal off every crack in the house. We live in a two-storey home with about a dozen windows and two doors. Needless to say, he's been very busy. It used to be I'd come home from work to find Glenn cooking; now I come home to find him caulking! But at least we're no longer eating dust every day, and the house is much easier to keep cool in the mid 40s temperatures. Way to go, Glenn! (But I do look forward to the return to cooking...) What has also been a big help is that friends of ours, when they left the country recently, left us two screen doors. Of course, they don't quite fit the frames, but Glenn will be tacking that job before he leaves as well. (Sequel? Glenn Installs the Doors?)
The Souq Waqif. I can't believe it took us 4 months to get there. This is an amazing market right in the heart of Doha. Between work, dragon boating, dusting, cooking, and just generally tending to our everyday needs, we just had not made the effort to get there. Now we're talking about going back next week, before we leave for Canada. It's such an amazing place! We wandered around this Tuesday night until my hips hurt (okay, my hips hurt a lot these days). We ate at a wonderful Iraqi restaurant, and we met the "Pearl Diver." This is an elderly Qatari gentleman who once dove for pearls off the coast of Qatar. The industry is defunct now, I think, but he runs a small tourist shop at the Souq. Our friend, Geoff, who accompanied us to the Souq, introduced us to him, and the Pearl Diver gave me a bracelet to commemorate my first visit (I think Geoff's wife may have spent a considerable amount of money there in the past). We've been told by people who came to Doha 15 years ago that the Souq is just not the same as it was before it was rebuilt (see Wiki article), but it suits us just fine. We're looking forward to going back. I've posted some pictures.
A few weeks before the Souq came the brunch at W Hotel, which I won't go into except to say that Friday brunches are a big deal here and they come with a very high price tag: about $100 each, and that's without the liquor package. We couldn't see ourselves paying the extra $50 each for the "all you can drink" option, especially since these events last from noon until late into the afternoon. The food was amazing, as it should have been for the price. We won't be doing this too often! Enough about that--haven't we moved on from food-related topics by now?
The Mosque! I learned of the Mosque tour through my dragon boating group. This is a newly built mosque at a site called Education City. Education City should be the topic of an entire blog, and it may yet turn out to be. Education City houses major international post-secondary institutions, such as Weill Cornell Medical, Northwestern University, Texas A&M, Carnegie Mellon, Georgetown, HEC Paris, etc.). It's also the home of Qatar National Library, which I've mentioned before and will likely write about again (some of the pictures in this blog are from the Library). The mosque itself is an impressive building, but the tour focused mostly on conveying information about Islam. Our tour guide was knowledgeable and open to questions. I wore an abaya and head scarf for the first time (probably not the last, as we will visit more mosques, such as the Spiral Mosque near the Souq, which is also in one of the pictures). Glenn and I were impressed with the Education City Mosque, although the guide emphasized that the design of mosques is secondary to their function. Again, I've posted some pictures, so you can judge for yourselves. There are also some pictures from the Library, just because I can't resist--love QNL!
Enough for now! Soon we'll see many of you, and I'm sure we'll repeat some of these stories, ad nauseum. Do feel free to tell us that you'd rather wait to see the movie...or read the book, which is what this blog is turning into. Besides, most of you haven't been blogging, so we need to catch up with your news!
One person we won't catch up with on this trip home is grandson Caleb, who is venturing off to Copenhagen on a year-long Rotary exchange, leaving just a couple of days before we arrive. Good luck, Caleb! Can't imagine where you get the travelling gene!
A week from today, Glenn and I are heading back to Canada for a short visit. Shorter for me (August 11-30) and a bit longer for Glenn (August 11-September 30) as he is taking his mom to Newfoundland in September (hi, Norma, we'll be there soon!). We are so looking forward to spending time with friends and family and getting out and walking and biking on the trails. A special thank you to Terry and Darrel, who are picking us up at the airport when we arrive and hosting us for a day (or maybe two?) while we recover from the jet lag. Another shout out to Carlen, who is allowing us to stay at her house while she's in Ottawa. Thank you guys, and thanks to others, like Trish and Sheila, who also offered their homes to us. We really appreciate your generosity. Now, could someone please arrange some good weather for our visit? We'd like temperatures in the mid-to-high 20s please, with some rain (but not when we're planning a bike ride). We are so looking forward to reasonable temperatures (and I know that hasn't been necessarily the case for our friends in BC) and a relatively dust-free environment.
Which brings me to Glenn's soon-to-be-a-major-blockbuster saga. One man vs all the dust that the Doha desert can dish! Since arriving here, as you know, Glenn has taken over most of the household chores while I slave away at the college. But just keeping up with the dusting of furniture became an all-consuming task. Between the desert sand and the ongoing construction that keeps kicking it up every day, our furniture became constantly coated with dust, and there seemed no end to it. To keep my work clothes from becoming dusty, I had to avoid sitting on furniture in them when I came home. There seemed to be no way to keep up with it. Except...(and I could see the wheels turning in Glenn's head)...sealing off the house! You see, while our home is very comfy, it is not very well constructed. There are huge gaps in the doors and windows that you simply couldn't have in Canada, or you'd freeze in the winter. So Glenn bought a caulking gun a couple of weeks ago, and he's been working to seal off every crack in the house. We live in a two-storey home with about a dozen windows and two doors. Needless to say, he's been very busy. It used to be I'd come home from work to find Glenn cooking; now I come home to find him caulking! But at least we're no longer eating dust every day, and the house is much easier to keep cool in the mid 40s temperatures. Way to go, Glenn! (But I do look forward to the return to cooking...) What has also been a big help is that friends of ours, when they left the country recently, left us two screen doors. Of course, they don't quite fit the frames, but Glenn will be tacking that job before he leaves as well. (Sequel? Glenn Installs the Doors?)
The Souq Waqif. I can't believe it took us 4 months to get there. This is an amazing market right in the heart of Doha. Between work, dragon boating, dusting, cooking, and just generally tending to our everyday needs, we just had not made the effort to get there. Now we're talking about going back next week, before we leave for Canada. It's such an amazing place! We wandered around this Tuesday night until my hips hurt (okay, my hips hurt a lot these days). We ate at a wonderful Iraqi restaurant, and we met the "Pearl Diver." This is an elderly Qatari gentleman who once dove for pearls off the coast of Qatar. The industry is defunct now, I think, but he runs a small tourist shop at the Souq. Our friend, Geoff, who accompanied us to the Souq, introduced us to him, and the Pearl Diver gave me a bracelet to commemorate my first visit (I think Geoff's wife may have spent a considerable amount of money there in the past). We've been told by people who came to Doha 15 years ago that the Souq is just not the same as it was before it was rebuilt (see Wiki article), but it suits us just fine. We're looking forward to going back. I've posted some pictures.
A few weeks before the Souq came the brunch at W Hotel, which I won't go into except to say that Friday brunches are a big deal here and they come with a very high price tag: about $100 each, and that's without the liquor package. We couldn't see ourselves paying the extra $50 each for the "all you can drink" option, especially since these events last from noon until late into the afternoon. The food was amazing, as it should have been for the price. We won't be doing this too often! Enough about that--haven't we moved on from food-related topics by now?
The Mosque! I learned of the Mosque tour through my dragon boating group. This is a newly built mosque at a site called Education City. Education City should be the topic of an entire blog, and it may yet turn out to be. Education City houses major international post-secondary institutions, such as Weill Cornell Medical, Northwestern University, Texas A&M, Carnegie Mellon, Georgetown, HEC Paris, etc.). It's also the home of Qatar National Library, which I've mentioned before and will likely write about again (some of the pictures in this blog are from the Library). The mosque itself is an impressive building, but the tour focused mostly on conveying information about Islam. Our tour guide was knowledgeable and open to questions. I wore an abaya and head scarf for the first time (probably not the last, as we will visit more mosques, such as the Spiral Mosque near the Souq, which is also in one of the pictures). Glenn and I were impressed with the Education City Mosque, although the guide emphasized that the design of mosques is secondary to their function. Again, I've posted some pictures, so you can judge for yourselves. There are also some pictures from the Library, just because I can't resist--love QNL!
Enough for now! Soon we'll see many of you, and I'm sure we'll repeat some of these stories, ad nauseum. Do feel free to tell us that you'd rather wait to see the movie...or read the book, which is what this blog is turning into. Besides, most of you haven't been blogging, so we need to catch up with your news!
One person we won't catch up with on this trip home is grandson Caleb, who is venturing off to Copenhagen on a year-long Rotary exchange, leaving just a couple of days before we arrive. Good luck, Caleb! Can't imagine where you get the travelling gene!
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