greetings from Doha... from my dad
I thought this was interesting. It's nice to hear it w/o the crying.-Kelsey
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Well we made it and it is everything I expected and much more. This city is in the middle of a huge construction boom. They must have twenty to thirty brand new buildings being built in the downtown area alone. One of the buildings is expected to be 85 stories, many will be forty to sixty stories. The architectural designs are fabulous, very different and unusual. The flight over was very efficient, quick and for the most part uneventful. One nice perk, we flew first class from Washington DC to Doha non-stop. Qatar Airlines has outstanding service. When we arrived a representative from Qatar Airlines met us on the tarmac and drove us to the immigration service (in a BMW no less), provided us with a private seating area and handled all our visa’s and entry passes into Qatar. We were escorted to luggage (it was the first set to come through) and made sure we were met by our contact who took us directly to our townhouse.
Driving in Doha is an experience, there is not a very high regard for traffic laws or common sense safety (although I hear it is improving). Still, it is easy to get around if you are patient and it takes a while to get the knack of maneuvering the round-about (traffic circles). It is a cross between a grand prix race and off road rally’s. There a lot of SUV’s on and off the road. The Qatari nationals like to drive the Toyota Land Cruisers but you can find any form of SUV, although I have not seen a regular Hummer, yet.
Shopping is unbelievable, absolutely unbelievable, I have never seen so many malls in one area as they have here. Each mall is a full service type experience. Along with the usual array of men’s and women’s clothing as well as shoe stores and electronic stores they also include furniture and grocery stores. Prices are pretty close to what we would pay and generally better when you consider there are no taxes on their merchandise. The mall around the corner from us is called the “Villagio”, it was designed with a Venetian theme in mind. The ceiling has been painted to resemble sky and clouds and there is a real water canal with operating Gondola’s running through the mall that patrons can get a ride from one end to the other free of charge. Along the canal there are shops and marble bridges that cross over. Above the shops is a second story that resembles canal homes looking down on the mall corridors. They have false balconies and shutters to provide the air of Venice. Very neat looking, with the sky and all.
We are living in an area of town called Al Waab, in the Sport City section. About a stones through away is the stadium complex that the Amir built for the Asian games that Qatar hosted in the winter of 2006. This place is something else to see, there is a torch that stands about 300 feet. It is huge, and in an hour glass configuration. This over looks the main stadium and the other arenas are spread out in the rest of the complex. This is a very new area of town (it seems that everywhere is a new section of town) and there are a lot of town home complexes going up. Instead of subdivisions they build these large “compounds” surrounded by walls with private security to let you in and out. Before you start thinking anything different it is the way that things are done here. When they build a home (some of these are palaces) it automatically has a wall. I guess this allows for privacy, cuts down on the sand and dust, and reduces the amount of noise. I am sure it is also for security reasons and the way some folks drive, maybe to keep them out of your front yard.
The job is very different but a pleasant change. The ride to and from is the craziest thing going. It is a bout 50 km from the house and takes an hour and fifteen minutes to get to the site. Most of the way is a two lane road with hundreds of trucks going about 30 mph. To get to work you need to pass these convoys and avoid the on-coming traffic as they pass their conveys going the other direction. It is a constant game of chicken the whole way there and back. Sometimes you will see the loser of game on the side of the road. There is a habit of leaving the wrecks on the side of the road as a reminder of what can happen. It is definitely hot here, it has stayed around 110 to 115 with 80+ percent humidity. I don’t know what that makes it with the heat index but to me it is hot what ever it comes up to. Funny thing is they say it is starting to cool down!! The second day on the site I received a work package to redo some instruments at the QCHEM I site. So it was hitting the ground running when I got here even after everyone said there would be nothing until early next year. Funny people!
Kristopher stated school on September 9. They delayed the start of school to get it more cleaned up because of construction. It is very nice and will be unreal after all the construction is finished. Four years ago there was 400 students in the entire school from K-12. Now there are 1600 with 440 in the high school and approximately 98 in the junior class. Class room sizes are between 10 and 15 students and there is a very heavy emphasis on college prep. The school expects each teacher to be able to write a personal reference for each of their students if needed and be able to know there students well. A lot of one on one with the small class sizes. Next week he will try out for the varsity soccer team. If he is successful there will be a different sort of meaning to the word away game. The schools in their conference are in Egypt, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Bahrain along with several others. There is no such thing as cross town rivals. The conference is known as the EMAC or Eastern Mediterranean Athletic Console. Unfortunately the parents are not invited to the away games. I am not sure if they are other American schools or just Western schools in general.
Chris is attempting to drive around to see some of the expat wives and she seems to have met a large number. They are from all over Europe and the States, and some are even with Chevron Phillips. When we finally get our air shipment and get our phone and computer set up we should be much more settled in knowing we have our communications set up. The Vonage phones will work out very well and the Skype connection will make it a whole lot better
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Well we made it and it is everything I expected and much more. This city is in the middle of a huge construction boom. They must have twenty to thirty brand new buildings being built in the downtown area alone. One of the buildings is expected to be 85 stories, many will be forty to sixty stories. The architectural designs are fabulous, very different and unusual. The flight over was very efficient, quick and for the most part uneventful. One nice perk, we flew first class from Washington DC to Doha non-stop. Qatar Airlines has outstanding service. When we arrived a representative from Qatar Airlines met us on the tarmac and drove us to the immigration service (in a BMW no less), provided us with a private seating area and handled all our visa’s and entry passes into Qatar. We were escorted to luggage (it was the first set to come through) and made sure we were met by our contact who took us directly to our townhouse.
Driving in Doha is an experience, there is not a very high regard for traffic laws or common sense safety (although I hear it is improving). Still, it is easy to get around if you are patient and it takes a while to get the knack of maneuvering the round-about (traffic circles). It is a cross between a grand prix race and off road rally’s. There a lot of SUV’s on and off the road. The Qatari nationals like to drive the Toyota Land Cruisers but you can find any form of SUV, although I have not seen a regular Hummer, yet.
Shopping is unbelievable, absolutely unbelievable, I have never seen so many malls in one area as they have here. Each mall is a full service type experience. Along with the usual array of men’s and women’s clothing as well as shoe stores and electronic stores they also include furniture and grocery stores. Prices are pretty close to what we would pay and generally better when you consider there are no taxes on their merchandise. The mall around the corner from us is called the “Villagio”, it was designed with a Venetian theme in mind. The ceiling has been painted to resemble sky and clouds and there is a real water canal with operating Gondola’s running through the mall that patrons can get a ride from one end to the other free of charge. Along the canal there are shops and marble bridges that cross over. Above the shops is a second story that resembles canal homes looking down on the mall corridors. They have false balconies and shutters to provide the air of Venice. Very neat looking, with the sky and all.
We are living in an area of town called Al Waab, in the Sport City section. About a stones through away is the stadium complex that the Amir built for the Asian games that Qatar hosted in the winter of 2006. This place is something else to see, there is a torch that stands about 300 feet. It is huge, and in an hour glass configuration. This over looks the main stadium and the other arenas are spread out in the rest of the complex. This is a very new area of town (it seems that everywhere is a new section of town) and there are a lot of town home complexes going up. Instead of subdivisions they build these large “compounds” surrounded by walls with private security to let you in and out. Before you start thinking anything different it is the way that things are done here. When they build a home (some of these are palaces) it automatically has a wall. I guess this allows for privacy, cuts down on the sand and dust, and reduces the amount of noise. I am sure it is also for security reasons and the way some folks drive, maybe to keep them out of your front yard.
The job is very different but a pleasant change. The ride to and from is the craziest thing going. It is a bout 50 km from the house and takes an hour and fifteen minutes to get to the site. Most of the way is a two lane road with hundreds of trucks going about 30 mph. To get to work you need to pass these convoys and avoid the on-coming traffic as they pass their conveys going the other direction. It is a constant game of chicken the whole way there and back. Sometimes you will see the loser of game on the side of the road. There is a habit of leaving the wrecks on the side of the road as a reminder of what can happen. It is definitely hot here, it has stayed around 110 to 115 with 80+ percent humidity. I don’t know what that makes it with the heat index but to me it is hot what ever it comes up to. Funny thing is they say it is starting to cool down!! The second day on the site I received a work package to redo some instruments at the QCHEM I site. So it was hitting the ground running when I got here even after everyone said there would be nothing until early next year. Funny people!
Kristopher stated school on September 9. They delayed the start of school to get it more cleaned up because of construction. It is very nice and will be unreal after all the construction is finished. Four years ago there was 400 students in the entire school from K-12. Now there are 1600 with 440 in the high school and approximately 98 in the junior class. Class room sizes are between 10 and 15 students and there is a very heavy emphasis on college prep. The school expects each teacher to be able to write a personal reference for each of their students if needed and be able to know there students well. A lot of one on one with the small class sizes. Next week he will try out for the varsity soccer team. If he is successful there will be a different sort of meaning to the word away game. The schools in their conference are in Egypt, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Bahrain along with several others. There is no such thing as cross town rivals. The conference is known as the EMAC or Eastern Mediterranean Athletic Console. Unfortunately the parents are not invited to the away games. I am not sure if they are other American schools or just Western schools in general.
Chris is attempting to drive around to see some of the expat wives and she seems to have met a large number. They are from all over Europe and the States, and some are even with Chevron Phillips. When we finally get our air shipment and get our phone and computer set up we should be much more settled in knowing we have our communications set up. The Vonage phones will work out very well and the Skype connection will make it a whole lot better