I decided I should post on here since I've now been here for a couple of days. The flight over here was okay, I had a lay over in Amsterdam for four hours. It was nice being back in Europe, even if it was only the airport, since it made me think back to my backpacking trip I made through Europe a couple of summers ago. When we boarded the plane to go from Amsterdam to Dammam in Saudi Arabia one of the hydraulic coolers in the engine blew out and you could actually smell it in the cabin of the plane. This caused a two and a half hour delay where we had to stay in the plane the whole time.
Qatar has been amazing. The weather has been crazy it has been around 115 both days I have been here and in the high 90's both nights. This causes a very interesting dynamic in the city where in the day time no one is out, but then at night everyone comes out once the heat has lightened. The first night I was here I went down to one of the local souqs, which is a market but also has dining and coffee/tea shops.
These are some pictures of the souq. You can buy everything from dyed bunny rabbits, to hand made instruments, to luggage in the souq. There was also a lot of live music.
Today I went to the Saudi side of the peninsula and swam all day in the Persian Gulf. The water was the warmest I've ever swam in warmer than Hawaii, Florida or Greece. Hopefully within the next few days I'll head down to the city center and get some pictures of the skyline as the buildings here look nothing like the skyscrapers in the U.S.
Beyond that there are a few interesting things I have noticed since I got to Qatar. One of them is out
of the 1.7 million people who live here less than 300,000 of them are citizens, everyone else is of foreign decent. Also Mosques have to be close enough together to guarantee that every person in the country is capable of hearing the prayers that occur 5 times everyday. The first prayer is called Fajr and today occurred at 3:13 in the morning. From my understanding this is the most important prayer of the day because in the Islam faith god says this is the time when all others are sleeping. This makes it the most essential and obligatory prayer out of the five to practice at a local mosque for someone of Muslim faith. The second prayer is called Dhuhr and today
occured at 11:34. The next three are Asr, Maghrib,
and Isha occurring at 2:57, 6:24, and 7:54 respectively. Together these 5 prayers form one of the 5 pillars of Islam. The prayers are interesting to hear because as mentioned earlier you can hear them anywhere you are in the city. When I was coming back from the beach I was listening to the radio, and even in the car all the radio stations stop at the 5 moments of worship, and the music is replaced by prayers. A prayer also came on while I was at the souq and everyone stopped and prayed while the prayer was occurring and then right after everyone continued on with whatever they were doing. It was kind of similar to how everyone stops what they are doing during the National Anthem at a baseball game.
I think that is all I have to say for now, but I am planning on heading into the U.A.E. and Oman hopefully within the next couple of weeks. I'll keep this updated, and hopefully tomorrow will add some cool pictures of the skyline. Below the photos of the souq I'll add some other random photos of Qatar. If anyone knows how I can make them in columns instead of a single line let me know!! :)
Random Photos of Qatar
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