Christmas Letter from Doha 2018

Greetings, friends! Although not much has happened to us this year, Glenn and I thought we would try our hand at a holiday newsletter. Please bear with us—there’s not much to report.

2018 began like any other year. The day to day in Red Deer--work for Nancy at RDC, work for Glenn at Peavey Mart. Getting over the holiday fuss. Planning a 3-week trip to Spain at the end of January. You know—the usual stuff.

Nancy’s interview on January 3 with a college in Qatar, a country in the Persian Gulf, was the first hint that our lives were going to become a little more interesting in 2018. The conditional job offer a week later ramped up the urgency of decision-making, and the upcoming trip to Spain began to take on a different meaning. Turned out that, if Nancy was going to accept the offer in Qatar and live there legally with Glenn, she was going to have to make an honest man out of him.  We also realized that we would have to do that before leaving for Spain on January 26.

So, amid acquiring criminal record checks, chest x-rays, blood tests, and transcripts; packing for our trip; and fulfilling our obligations at the aforementioned jobs, we got our marriage license and tied the knot before leaving for Spain. It was a drive-by, shotgun wedding in our living room, with a total of six people, including the JP (whose husband sat out in the car waiting for her, engine running—that’s the drive-by part). Three days later, we were on the plane for what turned out to be our honeymoon in Spain.

That was January. You will be pleased to know that the rest of the year was slightly less exciting.

February was mostly Spain—Barcelona, Cordoba, Seville, Torremolinos, Grenada, Gibraltar, and Madrid. Would have been kind of the trip of a lifetime, if it wasn’t a bit overshadowed by the likelihood of another, even more adventurous, trip in the near future. We somehow managed to enjoy ourselves in Spain, and southern Spain, in particular, gave us a foretaste of Islamic culture. Okay, let us admit it—we had an amazing honeymoon, start to finish, and we fell in love with the country! We also made some good friends there. This is a selfie we took in front of one of Gaudi's famous buildings in Barcelona.

March was interesting and quite fast paced. The final job offer came, and we had to get ready to leave for Doha. That meant quitting our jobs, finding tenants, packing up, and saying good-bye for a while. The month went by pretty quickly. Somehow, with quite a bit of support from friends and family, we managed to accomplish everything, and even had a lovely going away/wedding celebration party to boot! We are eternally grateful to all of you who came to the party, particularly those who traveled from out of town to get there and those who helped to host.

We won’t bore you with all of the details of our relocation to Qatar in April—they are pretty well documented in Nancy’s blog. In summary, we have been having a blast, relishing every moment of our interlude in this country, and some of the countries surrounding us. Glenn made his first trip to India this June, and Nancy has been back once more since then. We plan another trip to India in later January. We both took a quick trip home to Alberta in August. Quicker for Nancy (3 weeks) and a little more leisurely for Glenn, who added another three weeks so that he could accompany his mother to Newfoundland. They had a wonderful time reconnecting with family and friends and touring some beautiful spots in that great province. Again, thank you to all our friends and family in Alberta and Newfoundland who provided hospitality!

The Fall has gone by quickly. Temperatures are steadily dropping here (some days the temperature dips below the mid-20s). We’re getting used to winter in the gulf, though, and have really enjoyed biking on the paths and in the desert. And then there is dragon boating and the dragon boating festival, at which Nancy was bitten by the “racing” bug (there is talk of the Wireless Warriors going to Tbilisi in Georgia in May—Nancy is very tempted). But enough said about that—you must all be sick of hearing about Nancy’s dragon boating.

The Christmas season in Qatar is, understandably, very different than it is at home. No Christmas songs blaring on the mall speakers (Glenn in particular appreciates this, after working retail over the season for the past few years) and no Christmas decorations, except for at a few villas in our compound. Meanwhile, "Baby It's Cold Outside" has been banned in Qatar because, well, it's not that cold in Qatar, and so the song was deemed inappropriate. We have baked and shared some ginger cookies, but, aside from that, we have not partaken much in Xmas-related festivities. Today is Qatar’s National Holiday, and we spent last night at Katara beach enjoying the most spectacular drone show (put on by the military) that we’ve ever seen. This link gives you the full picture; we saw only part of this show, but it was amazing:

https://www.iloveqatar.net/videos/qatarEvents/qatar-national-day-2018-drone-air-show

A picture of Nancy's favorite statue at Katara Beach, lit up by spotlights for National Day:

We will be celebrating Christmas Day in Jordan. We’ll be about 8 days in total there, touring the country and spending time in Petra, Aqaba, Wadi Rum, and a resort on the Dead Sea. It will be a pretty interesting ending to what has been a not uneventful year. I would call it the trip of a lifetime, but that's getting to be a worn phrase.

Love and best wishes to all of you. Thank you for sending us your news for the year. Please continue to keep in touch, wherever this finds you.