Doha, Qatar

Our first two out of Kingdom (OOK) trips were to Bahrain.  It is a close island country that has movie theatres (they don't have those here in KSA), shopping (different and the same as KSA), and I don't need to wear an abaya out (that extra layer sure gets warm!).  It's a short trip in terms of distance, but depending on the amount of people on the causeway it can take a while to get there. Our first trip we made it to Bahrain in about an hour, but it took us 4 HOURS to get home (a perfect storm of events).  The second time it took us about 2 hours to get over and only 45 minutes to get back. 

Getting OOK is part of the sanity process here, even in the States we need to take road trips to get away, here the getting away isn't just to another part of town or part of the state, but to another country.
Our latest drive took us over the desert and thru sandstorms to Doha to visit friends (and yes, I was totally singing "over the river and thru the woods" when typing that last sentence).  We have some great friends - the Holt family - from our first Katy experience that have lived in Doha for about 5 years.  We have a long 2 week spring break for the kids and a small window of leave for Coby, so Doha was the perfect long weekend trip.  The Holts graciously hosted us in their villa, allowing us to use that as "home base" while we explored the city. 

This should give you a visual of the area in which we live/travel...

We left Thursday morning, it was rainy and gloomy here that day and most of the previous week, so we were looking for some sunshine...epic fail in that department!  We took off on the road to the south and only about an hour and a half in we hit a shamal (sandstorm) that lasted until the border of Saudi (we were told there was another in Qatar, but we must have missed it!).  It reminded me of I-80 in the winter from Salt Lake to Denver (except for sand instead of snow) - blowing sand, nasty wind, bad visibility!  The amazing thing was seeing how the camels seemed unaffected by it all; they stood tall, heads up, like this was a normal day.

Camels in the distance - the dark sky in the background is the shamal we are driving into...

Just walking along...

We made it to the border!
 

After making it thru the visa process at the border we headed into the State of Qatar.  It was a nice drive.  No more shamals and lots of billboards to look at.  One of our favorite was this one (thank goodness it was in English a couple miles down the road, we weren't guessing the correct message).

Comment on what you think it means (no cheating and looking up Arabic translation)
& I'll post the English sign in a couple of days

The State of Qatar is relatively small compared to Saudi, but it made for a fast drive after we crossed the border.  Doha is a beautiful city.  We enjoyed catching up with the Holts Thursday evening (I didn't even think of a picture - this whole trying to document our lives thru pictures isn't my forte).

Friday we enjoyed a day of worship, good food and good company.  I love having a down day!

Saturday our friends left for Spain so we were on our own.  We traveled into Doha to go to the Grand Mosque.  It's beautiful!  A and I put on an abaya and hijab (head scarf) and went upstairs to the female prayer area.  The boys went in and got more of a tour (we didn't know until we took off the abaya and hijab that we could have joined them).  A and I enjoyed the views and building while the boys toured.


Outside the mosque looking towards downtown

Grand Mosque



Another view

Looking towards downtown Doha

After the mosque we drove to a mall south of Doha.  I know that doesn't sound very "we're on vacation", but we heard there were some great restaurants and the area is beautiful.  On our way we found our new family vehicle...

Get it..."Long Vehicle" - ha ha ha

We enjoyed a delicious burger, fries, and ice cream concretes and walked around for a bit.  The venetian style boat ride thru the mall was tempting, but the long line help us decide it was a "no go".

We went back to rest for a bit before heading out to the souq for dinner and shopping with another old friend (amazing how small the world is).  We met up with my high school friend Chris and his buddy, who took us to a delicious Yemeni restaurant.  We enjoyed a meal relaxing on the floor.  Chicken, "meat" (which usually means beef, but it is kinda disconcerting to read an ambiguous "meat" instead of identifying what it is specifically), & lamb meal with rice and bread.  It was served family style so we all got our grub on family style.


The bread was suppppper yummy! Living in the Middle East doesn't help with my carb addiction!



C was being a dork on purpose; he's just like his dad and will try just about any food. 
Even though A & G were not so sure about the meal, they ate it up.

After the meal we explored the souq.  Apparently the old souq was torn down a while back and a new one that looks old was built on the same spot.  It is beautiful and clean (different than our souq).  We walked thru the animal area, the clothing area, tchotchke area, and found the food part.  We purchase some YUMMY honey and some dried fruits and nuts.  We also took in a show for a couple minutes...the backdrop of the spiral mosque made it gorgeous!

The signs at this store made me smile...

"In God We Trust", "God Bless Our Home"

After we enjoyed the tourist souq our friends took us to the "real" souq.  It wasn't very clean and was much more what we are used to in Saudi.  We first went to a pearl shop and got some beautiful strands of pearls, pearl earrings, and Chinese "good luck" charm surrounded by jade.
Then we went to a blanket/clothing shop.  We bought A the abaya she has been begging to get, and got the boys some soccer outfits - orange, of course (we have sufficiently brainwashed them to think Ok State U *is* "America's Brightest Orange").
We then headed to a watch shop where Coby got a new watch and we were allowed to go behind the counter, thru a hidden door, up some widely steep stairs to an upper room that had the knock-off watches, purses, etc.  G picked out a watch (a late bday present) - yellow, of course.

 

Sunday (the first day of the work/school week for us here) we headed to the Museum of Islamic Art (MIA). 



Outside the MIA



This reminded me of something my mom would like...

G liked this guy






Camel bone boxes

A lovely view of downtown from the MIA

It was POURING rain at this point so I didn't venture closer to get a better picture.


Do you see what I see in the Museum of ISLAMIC Art?

 By the time we left the museum it was pouring rain.  We ran to our car and were soaked by the time we got there - so the perfect "family in front of the beautiful museum" picture I hoped for didn't happen.  Instead you get one out of the window on our way out.  I really is a beautiful museum and with no entry fee it makes it even nicer!  There is great green space around the MIA that would be fun to take advantage of if the weather was cooperating.
We headed off to another mall for lunch. With the weather being so ugly we didn't get to walk around like we were hoping.

Yummy Italian lunch

On our drive back to Saudi we saw some more camels (they are sooo cool to see).  I guess if we were in the USA it would be similar to seeing cows along the road, so not so "wow" if you are from here, but for us they are way neat-o!

 

Our front license plate didn't stand a chance driving thru multiple sandstorms (drove thru coming and going).  The first one is what it *should* look like - the second is the new "look".



 

We really enjoyed Doha.  It's a beautiful city.  Getting away for a bit is always fun and reconnecting with friends makes it even better.  I wish the weather would have cooperated better, but we enjoyed what we could do.