December 12, 2008

After unpacking, washing clothes and getting settled back into Doha (amazingly it doesn’t seem so bad after Cambodia), I pulled out the Christmas tree and few decorations that I shipped over here and tried to make this place look like Christmas. It’s pretty minimal but it’s the best I can do.

December 15, 2008

For the past few days I have been trying to plan our next vacation. I have been wanting to go to Borneo but it is apparently one of those “you can’t get there from here” kind of places.  I kept running into difficulty trying to get flights, hotels and “tours” organized so I decided to put that trip off until March (so I would have more time to plan and it will also be a better time for diving there) and put together an itinerary for diving in the Philippines…RD has been wanting to go there.

We sent an inquiry to a dive resort and this is the reply we got back:

Thank you for your interest in White Sand Bungalows.

A few months ago Malapascua Island was invaded by soldiers by order of the local governor.

They brought with them 100 convicts and started to break resorts along the shoreline. This without any legal documents - gunpoint only! This involved all resorts and restaurants along Bounty Beach and in Sunset Cove. Some resorts had guests inside the rooms, who were horrified when their rooms started to fall apart. In restaurants tourists enjoying their lunch were thrown out in the middle of the meal! Those who complained had guns stuck in their faces! Next month they plan to bring in bulldozers and jack hammers to destroy all the local’s houses all around the island. No relocation has been offered. This is not a good time to visit. Some of the locals blame the tourists for this situation. There is a very bad feeling on the island and almost all tourists and divers have left. For your own sake find another island or even country for your well deserved holiday. Maybe later things will get back to normal.

You are welcome to contact us anytime. But we will not reopen this season.

Best regards

Kurt

I am not kidding!

December 16, 2008

I sent an e-mail to a dive shop on Malapascua and it turns out this guy Kurt is just pissed off because they changed a law stating how close buildings were allowed to be to the beach. Everyone else complied; he did not, so they tore his buildings down for him. Our dive trip to the Philippines is a go…we’ll be staying at a different resort however…

December 22, 2008

Internet service is frustratingly slow and spotty, which means e-mails and Skype are intermittently working. Apparently, three of four major cables in the Mediterranean, that supply the Middle East, have been cut and will take several days to repair.

December 24, 2008

We had two couples come over for Christmas Eve dinner tonight so of course I cooked all day. Artichoke dip for appetizer, lemon-garlic green beans, orange-ginger carrots, sweet potatoes, prosciutto/dried cranberry/pecan stuffing, turkey, gravy, and corn muffins. I had to borrow a neighbors oven because just like in the states…the oven is never big enough to cook everything for a full turkey dinner.

December 25, 2008

RD had to work a 24 hour shift today so I was on my own for Christmas. Went to the mall…was looking for the magic formula skin lotion that would make my skin tight and young again but it cost over $200 a bottle… settled for new eye shadow…

One of our other neighbors invited me to have a full-on Swedish Christmas dinner with them. The evening started with Glug (Swedish version of hot mulled wine) and then a glass (or two) of Champagne. Next came 3 kinds of pickled herring, I took little tiny pieces of each…didn’t want to be rude but turns out I love pickled herring…who knew! I ended up going back for seconds. In between everything were shots of Schnapps, which brought on bouts of Swedish drinking songs (not Christmas carols). For dinner we had ham on brine soaked bread (so fun to be naughty on Christmas in a Muslim country), 2 kinds of sausage, more Schnapps, real “Swedish” meatballs, 2 kinds of cabbage, more Schnapps and whipped cauliflower (kind of like mashed potatoes). Dessert was Saffron “pancake” with hot strawberry jam and whipped cream…I think I was Swedish in a past life. It was wonderful!

December 29, 2008

This is such a weird country. Over the past year I’ve learned that if I find something at the store that I’ve been looking for to buy two, because you never know when you’ll find it again. I’ve talked to other women who say they have been known to buy every jar, box or can (except one, don’t want to be totally rude) of something when they finally find whatever it is they have been looking for. The latest casualty is tonic! None to be found anywhere in the city…I’ve been looking for three weeks!

December 31, 2008

Happy New Year! We had a “progressive” dinner party tonight and it was a blast. The evening started at Jim’s for appetizers (pickled onions and strawberries/blueberries/grapes on toothpicks…he’s a bachelor) and a game of charades. Not so easy when there are 2 Americans, 2 Canadians, 1 French and 7 Swedes!  Lot’s of the guessing was done in Swedish so it was hard to keep up! From there we moved on to Ola and Katrina’s for soup. It was mushroom, handpicked in Sweden no less, I tried but I just couldn’t choke it down. After that we came back to our place for the main course and a game of “Who am I?” A piece of paper is taped to your back with a name on it…you ask questions that can be answered with yes or no until you figure out who it is…I had Ringo Star…and it only took me 6 questions! (Male? yes, Black? no, Celebrity? yes, Elvis Presley? no, John Lennon? no…something about the look on the persons face…Ringo Star? yes!) Dinner was shredded beef cooked in Chianti, garlic, thyme and black pepper…I made a wine “gravy” and mashed the 60+ garlic cloves into a spread and served it on rolls with rosemary red potatoes, very yummy. At 11:55 we took our Champagne and went to Ola and Katrina’s rooftop to watch for fireworks…not a single one anywhere, we were disappointed but not surprised. Back at our place we had Chocolate Mousse that Laurie had whipped up this afternoon after work. I found it so amusing that 12 people were in the brightly lit, messy kitchen, eating their dessert standing up instead of sitting in the living room/dining room in the ambiance of music, dimmed lights and candles…it’s true all over the world…the party always ends up in the kitchen! It was a fun night.