Tuesday - Fore!

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Almost 10 pm, and decided to do another entry. This is likely the last one. We go to the airport tomorrow night for our flight to London. We have a 6 hour layover and then a direct flight home...back Thursday afternoon.

Today, We divided and conquered. Maria's mom had a driver take her to a doctor's appointment early this morning. She left me the car and I drove first thing to the golf course. There is one golf course in Qatar, Doha Golf Club. Every February, this course is the host of the Qatar Masters, a pretty big tournament on the European PGA tour. I think I've said, but past winners of the tournament have been Ernie Els, Retief Goosen, Adam Scott...some big names. They have the massive trophy on display in the club house.

The course was in great shape...and it's tough! I think it's the second longest course on the European tour. Anyway, I golfed with two expats - one is a pilot for Qatar Airways from Glasgow, and another works for the New York Stock Exchange in Doha. If you can keep it in the narrow fairways and hit it a mile, you can score good. Me on the other hand...I like to shape my ball - hooks and slices. Off the fairway is killer rough...and beyond that, desert, bunkers, rock outcrops, water, cactus....and on and on.

I'm not sure how to describe the weather here the past few days. It's been sunny...but cloudy. Or cloudy but bright? I don't think we've had pure sun in several days...but today was certainly the warmest. The warmer weather is starting to come, and with that it will get more humid.

Maria and the kids went for a walk. When Maria's mom got home, they went to lunch at the Fish Market, which we ate at last week. The kids found a massive chess board by the Fish Market, so they had a few games.

Once I was done, we went to the Hyatt and had a swim. Finished the afternoon off with our usual coffee for us and ice cream for the kids at the Hyatt.

I don't think we've eaten at the same restaurant twice for supper. Tonight, we walked to The Noodle House...which I guess was Thai. It's right on the marina here in The Pearl. The kids liked the fact that the menu was on an Ipad. Never seen that before. Each table gets an Ipad when ordering. You scroll through the menu, with pictures of everything. Neat idea.

Overall, the food here is really good. There are so many different countries that influence the types of food you can get. I'm told the Qataris are very picky about what foods are imported. To me, that doesn't make sense, because I then see the local fish markets where the fish are on display, and it's not the most hygienic.

After spending two weeks here, we have gotten used to a lot of things that were a shock to us when we first arrived. The clothing worn by the arabs is second nature now. I'm not sure if I ever talked about this, but it's interesting I think. The men, at first glance, seem to look identical. They wear a white robe of sorts, that goes down to the ankles (not sure what it's called). They then have the cloth folded on their head (called Ghutra) which is either all white or red and white checkers. Then an ogaal is the brown or black rope like coil that is used to secure the ghutra. All of that is standard. Where they are very different, and they seem to go to great lengths to focus on this...there are 3 things they do to differentiate themselves. They all have a nice pen in their chest pocket. They all have amazing watches it seems. The last is their cuff links. It looks like they spend a lot of money on these items.

The women are typically in black gowns...and I'm not sure if the names of these. At first glance, they seem the same, but they can be quite different. Some of them now will have bead work or some kind of stitching on the sleeves that could be purple, pink etc. They also vary in how they cover their head. All of them seem to have their hair covered. Others go a step further and wear sunglasses all the time. Others go a step further and have everything but their eyes covered. Then there are a few that are 100% covered....behind some sort of dark veil. If you look close again though, you can tell they dress very well underneath....sounds bad...I know I know...but I'm observant. They wear normal clothes (i.e. jeans, nice shoes etc.) I had to chuckle - in the mall the other day, there was a store that sold these black gowns, and in the window of the store was a big sign announcing the arrival of their spring collection. I'm not sure what the difference would be from season to season. They look fairly similar year round.

Most signs are in English and Arabic. With there being so many different languages being spoken here, English seems to be the common ground. The kids know the arabic numbers now. They read the license plates all the time. We have no idea what the letters are though. The license plates are only numbers, so it's a form of entertainment for the kids while we drive. That, and guess the name of the round about (hardly and traffic lights - all round abouts).

I have drivin at most 3 times here...and only short distances. They are crazy drivers here. Most vehicles seem to have dents/scratches, and it's mostly because of speed. Noah says I drive like an arab. It sounds funny when he says it...but the way to not get in an accident is to drive like them to an extent.

Overall, it's been a great trip. We've experienced a part of the world we never thought we would ever visit. It's opened our eyes to an entirely different culture. Hopefully the kids have learned some things too. Qatar is one of the richest countries in the world and that brings people from all over the world. We've seen the high-end restaurants and shops, exotic cars, etc to areas that look so run-down, I couldn't imagine living in such conditions. People who come to Qatar to visit could easily do it in less than 2 weeks (it's actually more like the size of PEI...not New Brunswick or Nova Scotia as I said the other day...just looked at a map). We had considered doing a side trip from here, but with all the issues in surrounding nearby countries, we thought it was best to stay put. For those that followed along, sorry. It might not have been the most exciting play-by-play of our trip, but hey, how often do you get to ride a camel?

Thanks.
The Deitz's

p.s. there were no exciting pictures to put up today.

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