April 3, 2008

    Went to the mall today in the hopes of finding something to wear in the new spring and summer clothes that are showing up in the stores (it’s 100° and they were still showing sweaters up until last week). As I was standing in one store trying to figure out UK sizing (apparently a size 12 UK = 8 US) a woman with a slight British accent leaned over and said “Can you believe how impossible it is to find clothes here?” Turns out she’s actually American but lived in London for 4 years and hasn’t quite been able to shake the accent because almost everyone who speaks English as a second language over here does so with a British accent. I wouldn’t be surprised if I am picking up some as well. Anyway, her name is Jacqueline, she’s a blonde Psychologist married to a Palestinian and she has lived here for 2 ½ years. We ended up having lunch and exchanging phone numbers. When she found out RD worked at the hospital she got all excited and wanted to know if he was a “physiotherapist”. I said no he’s just a wannabe but I am. Turns out she is in need of my services…isn’t it funny how people get connected.

April 4, 2008

    Today we went with a group of people (Aussies, Kiwi’s, Lebanese and American) up to the Northern tip of Qatar to a beach area called Furwairit. It was a nice sandy beach (imagine that…sand in the desert) and we all just backed our rigs up side by side and pulled out coolers and beach chairs and “chilled out” for a couple of hours. It was actually quite nice as there was a breeze blowing in off the water and whenever it got too hot we just went swimming. In close to shore it was a sandy bottom but about 100 meters out Jessie was snorkeling on a bit of coral collecting Sea Urchins and eating them raw on the beach…another one of those delicacies I decided to pass on.
    One of the “weird” things over here is the Qatari men driving up and down the beach ogling the women in bikini’s. They act like 14 year old boys sneaking a peak at something they shouldn’t. They keep their women covered from head to toe and are outraged if a foreigner gets “too” friendly with them. Somehow they don’t grasp how hypocritical this is.
    I did meet an Australian woman who rides horses every Tuesday night (with her 15 y.o. daughter). She wasn’t feeling well so I don’t know if she will go this coming Tuesday but she promised to call me and take me with her the next time she goes so I can see how to get there. It is really hard to find new places around here without a guide the first time. One of the other doc’s (from New Zealand) was there as well and said his 15 y.o. daughter is into horses. She will be arriving in 6 days so I offered to take her with me…I guess I have a riding partner!

April 10, 2008

    Today I started my jewelry class…I’m really glad I already took a silver-smithing class because she is going really fast. We went over how to use a jeweler’s saw, filing, texturing, annealing, drilling, shaping into a slight dome, oxidizing and making ear wires…all in three hours. I walked out wearing a new pair of earrings! These are the practice pair…done in copper, next week we have to come up with a design and make a pair out of sterling silver. The next two weeks after that are spent making a ring. 
    I stopped at Starbucks and got a coffee and a croissant on the way to class…that was 27QR, more than half of what it takes to fill up my tank in my SUV. Can you imagine? Two cups of coffee and two croissants are more expensive than a tank of gas!
    Tonight we went to the first night of the Global Champions Tour for showjumping. There are 8 stops on this tour starting here in Doha (for three nights) and ending in October in Brazil. The standing’s are based on time and points and the prize money totals 5 ½ million € but apparently even if you win it doesn’t cover the costs…this is truly a sport for the insanely rich. There was at least one Prince and one Sheik jumping tonight. 
    Again, as with all other major sporting events here in Doha it was totally free, however, we couldn’t figure out which gate to go in because they kept asking for a “pass” so we went inside (as they directed us to) and asked for a guest pass. They handed us two clip-on “guest” passes and directed us to the VIP door. I kept saying “I think we’re going the wrong way”, RD kept saying “keep walking”. We ended up in the area reserved for the owners and riders…and their guests. We sat in beautiful wing-back chairs, were given cardamom tea and chocolates…and generally acted like we belonged there hoping they wouldn’t realize their mistake and make us go sit in the regular seating (hard plastic bleachers).
    I don’t know anything about the scoring and penalty system but it was still fun to watch. Some horses looked like they were just floating in mid-stride while others did this rough “two-step” sort-of set up before they gathered themselves up and flung themselves over the jumps. As we walked out the horses were in a paddock out front so we could walk past them, most of them were about six feet tall at the withers. These horses were some of the most magnificent creatures I have ever seen (although I can’t even imagine trying to get on one without a ladder…the stirrups were about chin level).

April 13, 2008

    We booked our trip to Bali this afternoon. (We leave on May 4). Actually we are going to Lombok, an island just East of Bali and staying on an island off the Northwest coast called Gilli Trawangan. There are no motorized vehicles allowed so all travel is by horse drawn wagons. Fresh water has to be shipped in so all pools and showers are salt water. RD is going to get his Advanced Open Water Scuba diving certification (I already have mine) then we are both going to do the Emergency First Responder/Rescue Diver course. If all things work out I will stay an extra three weeks and get my Dive Master certification. ( Five weeks in Bali…oh, the sacrifices one must make….)

April 17, 2008

     Second day of jewelry class…I had come up with some pretty simple designs but no…I had to decide to do the more intricate one. It took me a half an hour just to figure out the logistics of cutting out the pieces to have the least amount of silver wasted. Once that was done the cutting, drilling and getting a pattern rolled onto the silver took up most of the rest of the class. I was able to get the pieces through a preliminary polish but will need to oxidize and re-polish them next week before I can put them all together. I am sure this must get a little faster with practice! Next week we start on a ring.

 April 19, 2008

     Last night we went to dinner at Lauri’s “villa”. She and Deborah are both Hospitalists like RD and are sharing a 3 bedroom “villa” that is part of the Four Seasons hotel. Right on the beach, access to all of the amenities of the hotel, I could get used to that… Unfortunately it takes two Doc’s to pay for it; 31,500 QR or $8,654/month! Ouch!
    For the last two days I’ve been swimming with my fins on to strengthen my right ankle (the one I broke into a million pieces stepping off a curb). It still swells when I push it too hard and swimming with fins is no exception. I’m only doing about 45 minutes right now, in Bali I’ll have to do about 4 hours a day…for a month…I hope it holds up to the stress. I’m going to swim an hour a day to get it as strong as possible before we leave.
    Today we pulled out all the dive gear to see if anything needed to be fixed or replaced and realized that both of our dive computers were dead (neither of us have back-up depth gauges so I had a moment of panic).  I thought the batteries in my computer could only be changed at the manufacturer but it turns out that is not true (I’ve only had the thing for 18 years…you would think someone would have told me that before now).  I had seen a dive shop on Al Mirqab street so we jumped in the car and headed down there thinking it was the best place to start to get a battery for a dive computer (we’re in Qatar…what were we thinking!) Of course they didn’t have one but they thought there was a computer store on Al Saad Street that might have batteries but they couldn’t remember the name of it… After walking half the length of Al Saad we found a computer store, but no, they didn’t have batteries…but if you go to the Mercure hotel there is a computer store downstairs that has batteries… 
    Back in the car we pull out our map and plan our attack route because The Mercure is right in the middle of old Doha (think narrow streets and no parking). RD is to drive, while I navigate (right at the C-ring, left at the Ramada, over the Jaida fly-over then right at the second light), then jump out in front of the hotel, find the store and buy the batteries, while he circles the block. Miraculously there was a parking space right in front of the store! That’s what’s so great about this place, you feel so triumphant when you are able to accomplish what seems like such a simple task…buy a replacement battery. We left at 5:00 and got home at 8:00…three hours to buy a battery…and people wonder what I do with my days.

 April 20, 2008

     You know you’re getting old when you have to have bifocal readers in your scuba mask so you can see your gauges and compass…we ordered them online, now we just have to hope they get here in time.
    I also got an e-mail from the person I had hoped would start me on the path to learning French but she is moving to Malaysia. I guess I am on my own for the time being. C’est la vie!

 April 23, 2008

     We rented a car last night because today we had to take our Trail Blazer in for a little tune up, i.e. make darn sure the AC is fully functional and fully charged because we are already in the high nineties on a daily basis and its not even May yet!
    I have dubbed the car “the death trap” because I am pretty sure that if I get in an accident in this thing it will look like a soda can that has been stomped on by a large cowboy boot! It’s a SEAT…yes, that is a brand of car (it’s pronounced ‘zay-ought’) and I’m told they are made in Spain. I’ve seen all kinds of cars over here that I’ve never heard of before….’Skoda’ from Czechoslovakia and “Great Wall’ from China (duh).
    We were going to wait and drop off our vehicle for repair while we were out of town but something was feeling a little “off” with the brakes and I didn’t want to drive it that way. Now, driving this little tin can, I think I would have been safer with “iffy” brakes!

April 24, 2008

    Today in my jewelry class we made a ring. Got it about 7/8th’s done, just a bit of finishing-work to do. I am really hoping that there is a way to stretch it a bit because it is just a hair small. “Très difficile” to cut a piece of silver exactly 57.1 mm long with nothing but a tiny jewelers saw and a piece of graph paper rubber cemented to the silver as a guide…

 April 28, 2008

    We’ve been tracking our scuba masks…they were in Paris over the weekend…too bad I couldn’t pick them up there! Yesterday they hit Dubai, so hopefully they will be here tonight. We leave for Lombok (Bali) in 5 days! It is currently 87° during the day and 77° at night in Lombok, which will be a welcome relief from our 100° days and 80° nights. I will probably return on June 11th, be home for a week, then, we leave for Greece on June 19th and return July 2nd! This whole “living in Qatar thing” is really starting to work for me!