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Last night Jen and I had a date night. We got a call at about 4 pm that our kids were having a blast at friends place and that they wouldn’t be joining us for dinner that evening. then, about an hour later, we got another call saying that they were not really interested in coming home at all. NO KIDS!

Jen and I quickly changed and got ready for a night out on the town. Most things in Doha are closed till 6 because of ramadan, so we had some time to plan. We decided on Dean and Deluca and then off to a movie. Jen and I shared a goat cheese and pear panini sandwich and we each had a salad (very weight watcher friendly I might add) I had an americano and she had her tea.

Dinner was great. reasonable service, good conversation, great food. for those who are wondering, Villagio has awesome bathrooms too. hey… it’s important.

following dinner we went over to the cinema and watched the new Leonardo DiCaprio movie – Inception. Everybody and their brother have already seen it so the cinema was fairly empty. all in all, a great night.

Oh. one more thing, the kids are out again tonight! a prearranged sleep over means they are out 2 nights in a row and we are like teenagers again… Just waiting for the restaurants to open and we are taking in a sushi feast!

Hey Everyone… It’s been a while.

Jen and I planned a super cool birthday for our little man. Thomas has always loved Dinosaurs, animals and trucks. Anything bigger than Mom and Dad is cool. For his 5th birthday this year, we rented a stretched hummer and picked up all his friends and took them for a little tour of Doha.  I will get the video uploaded and post it separately. Take a look:

K. I really like this one:

It rained yesterday and today!  Thomas was out enjoying it (who knows when it will happen again).

Of course you need the camel pack when you are out for a 10 minute ride in the rain.  It’s important to keep hydrated when you live in the desert!!!

love

-jen

He didn’t take the mouth piece out of his mouth the whole time

Had to tie the straps up so he wouldn’t get then caught in the chain

Goof

Lovin’ the splashes.  Look at the speed….<grin>

So… Qatar’s national day is December 18th. it celebrates the day that the Emir fought off the otoman empire and the brits. it was established only a few years back, and they have been stepping up the celebrations in the past few years. Doha is a city that seems to be struggling like a teenager, trying to find itslef. Not being able to go back packing through europe, it is kinda left to it’s own devices.

This past national day had doha decorated tot he hilt. 80 story buildings were transformed into projection screens with animation and movies projected onto them. they had water screens spaced about every kilometer along the corniche also acting as movie screens showing diferent scenes from around doha.  They had the national anthem playing form a sound system that ran the length of the 7 kilometer stretch.

We got to the corniche at about 8, in preparations for a 9 pm start. we found a good spot and set up camp. the boys had their little video players and I spent the time chatting with Liezel and her girls(mainly about school girl shoes…)

9 came and went. then 9:30. at 10, we decided that we’d pack it in if things haddn’t gotten started by 10:30. at 10:10, the event began, and what an event it was. there was 20 minutes of sky fillign fireworks that were all diferent colours, adn diferent shapes. they had small ones that threw long trails of sparks and blossomed into flowers synchronized with the massive ones that shoot hundreds of feet into the sky. Thomas liked the fact that  these fireworks made clouds that were cool shapes, and daniel liked the big ones that when they boomed, it rumbled your stomach. there were points that the whole presentation area was filled with sparks. they had fireworks that blew up showing hearts, circles and other shapes.

it was incredible.

For the finale, they just let everyting else go… it was crazy. form the 5 (I think) fireworks platforms, there was a 10 minute barrage of explosions in the sky… anyone in our party over the age of 7 was speechless… thomas was amazed with those clouds. Daniel thought each one was beter than the last.

It was quite the evening. we didn’t get home till 12:20, and the boys had passed out in the car, but it was an amazing evening.

Well done Doha.

Hey… yah, it’s been a while. today marked the first day of ramadan… First of all, ramadan is a month in the islamic calendar. it’s like saying today is the first day of september, which it is, but that is besides the point… so, when people are celebrating ramadan, really they are celebrating september… Another thing I found out is that their year only has about 355 days(or something like that) there is never a leap year, and the only way you can tell if the month is gonna switch is by reading the moon… All the Muslim countries in the world look to saudi arabia to tell them when the month is changing. Saudi was chosen cause that is where Mohammad lived and died. K. nuff history

Ramadan… the work hours are cut back to only 5 hours a day… none of this working 8 or 10 hours a day stuff… 5 is good… then you are encouraged to go home and have a nap. So, today I did. I went grocery shopping after that, Had to get some burgers for dinner. Hopped in line, adn the one lady in front of me had 1200 Canadian in groceries, and she didn’t buy any meat. She had 8 carts of food… she brought a pick up truck to bring it all home in. it was incredible. I had my burgers and felt like I was not holding quite the same calibre party as she was…
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Anyways, I’ll see if I can get jen to write about the traffic, She and Kara went out tonight, I am home with the boys. I am interested to hear if the no eatign thnig all day makes people as agressive as I have heard they can be…

its getting warm here in doha. Today it is 27 and I started sweating while I was walkign over for my morning starbucks.
I am writing this cause I am a bit afraid for what we are in for! wikipedia says he average winer temperature is 28 ad the average winter is 38… Hummm 38 is a long way to go…
Jen has been sick for a long time… turns out she caught a bug. she is on a massive amount of antibiotics and in the past 3 days we have been noticing some improvements.
The experience with the hospital was absolutely great. Through QF, we are given benefits through QIC. we walked in, handed them the card and were given front of the line service.
The hospital itself was quite modern (much more modern looking than a lot of north american hospitals) Only it turns out it was all smoke and mirrors… although they have a huge modern facility with desktops everywhere, you are still shuffled about with a paper file and all the notes are entered on the form, not the computer… two steps forward, one step back.
But, like I said, it was over all a good experience. and, we got some medical attention…

Dunno if you’ve heard, but there were internet cables cut on Wednesday evening in the Mediterranean… this made for a very interesting Thursday for myself and the crew I work with. I just found out that a third cable has been snipped in the persian gulf but it is less of an issue as it had some redundancy build into the design… all this is an important into to today’s post of the weekend…

Today is friday here in the warm hazy city of Doha, Qatar. we started out the day going to church, then headed down to the wheels and heels festival put on by reach out to Asia and shell petroleum. this celebration is held during the las leg of the tour of qatar, here in qatar. the tour is put on by the same people that do a little bike ride in France called the tour of qatar, but it isn’t “quite” as well known.

anyways, we went down to it. It was amazing. They had huge inflatable park equipment that the kids could play on, vendors selling stuff, bbq’s going on, tons of security guards running around and so many kids. There must have been 400 volunteers there too… just an amazing city wide picnic on a Friday afternoon. Only think that made the day kinda rough was this sand storm that blew out of nowhere… Sandstorms for the uninitiated are like fog, only the fog hurts your eyes and tastes like garbage… not a terribly nice feeling. One interesting thing though, is after being outside for 5 minutes, it kinda gets better… then after 20 minutes, your nose starts to run like crazy… amazing how the body kicks into high gear…

Thomas and I sat down and watched the bike race for a bit. there was a motorcade in front that announced it’s arrival. Then there were 3 riders who had broken away from the poleton for a bit. We took some pictures of those guys… then you hear the wind and the gears… the whizzing of the riders as they approach. a blaze of colours approach as the riders bank to attack the round about that Thomas and I are stationed at… I take one last look at him and dive behind the shutter… about 4 seconds and the whole thing is over. it is absolutely amazingly fast. so fast, so close together. quite a sight.

I have lots of pictures to upload, and I will… but I am going to wait till the internet is at least limping and not bleeding out in this area…