November in Qatar

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Sorry again for my lack of posts, but nothing really exciting has happened. Oh, I've been keeping quite busy, but I won't bore you with the details of my work. I will, however, bore you food and driving!

About 2 to 3 hours everyday is devoted to driving - I guess in a way, that is exciting. I love being able to drive the Beast - I have no fear. I thought I'd figured out a good way to and from work on Thursday, but that must have still been part of the Eid Holiday as driving to and from work yesterday (Sunday) was complete torture. I left work a half hour later (7pm) than yesterday and the drive was fairly smooth (for Qatar). In some instances, the roundabout is a great thing. In others, it is the worst idea imaginable. There is constant and massive construction on almost every road in the city, so those don't help. Especially when you have road barriers creating crazy curves - throwing that at the drivers here is not the smartest, and especially at night. I always crack up with the parking here; it is worse than anything I witnessed in Dubai - people can and do just create a parking space. Police try to direct traffic when it gets backed up but I think in some places, this does more harm than good.

Thursday, I hung out with coworkers Indiana and Tony (I have given him a nickname and it is not JuJu). They picked me up at my hotel and we drove to The Pearl for coffee and sheesha, the typical outing here. The Pearl is a bunch of manmade islands built to resemble an oyster and pearl - Pearl diving was the main trade for this area up until the oil boom. These seem to be striving to rival the Palm in Dubai. High end retail, expensive beachfront villas, but it is a little more accessible to the people. Well, I guess that's not true. There is security when you drive onto the Palm and they reserve the right to deny you entry, but they do not seem to enforce this. And while the walk around the marina at night was lively and pleasant, you are surrounded by the high end retail stores. One of the coffee shops was Armani for crying out loud! If that wasn't enough, you get to see the beautiful super yachts resting and you can only get access to the docks with special codes for the entry doors. No sheesha, but we walked around - the weather was very pleasant (yay!), the moon and stars gorgeous, and you get an incredible view of Doha. It was a nice evening.

Saturday, Indiana took me to lunch near my hotel - an Italian place called Vapiano. He said it was very nice (keep this in mind). And it was! Definitely the best place I've eaten in Doha and it was not too expensive, probably slightly less than my weekly lunch at my favorite place in Malibu. When you go in, they give you a card which you put your order on. There is a counter across the entire back where the chefs make your food in full view of you. They also make the pasta there. There is an antipasti station, a pizza station and a pasta station. This was like my dream. I had been craaaaving real garlic bread (and garlic in general, actually) and I pinned my hopes on this place. I ordered it and it was like two small slices, which were good, but nothing spectacular. I guess the only way to get what I want is to make it (first thing I do when I get back to Dubai...). But the pasta was very good! I got aglio e olio (one of my favs) with linguini. So, I planned to come here more often! Actually, we went back Saturday night as well. Indy got a pizza (which looked fabulous) and I got chicken alfredo with linguini (no fettucini and was good, but not terrific). And Actually, I came back tonight after work and got a fresh salad which was YUM.

Last night, I got home from work around 8 (I left the office at 6:30 - grrrrr). Indy called and I met him and Tony in town for sheesha and coffee. We basically met up around 10 (after I got a little lost, well not lost, just didn't know exactly where we were meeting) and the whole the time I'm thinking why am I up to eat so late!?!? But Tony recommended this place and it was pretty nice! We just got delicious bread with hummus, tabooleh, fatoush, methabel and baba ganoosh, as well as some breads stuffed with zaatar, labneh, and cheese. Oh and some carrot juice (missing vegetables). Perfect. I smoked a little grape flavored sheesha, which actually felt strangely cleansing.

So yeah - pretty much eating, sleeping and working! I have a couple of coworkers who are coming in for meetings this week, so maybe I'll have more photos or stories to share in a couple of days. In the meantime, enjoy the photos.

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