Sorry

Sorry I haven't posted yet this week, but I had food poisoning from some food I had from a street vendor! That took me out for a good couple of days. I think the blog will slow down for the next two weeks with maybe only one post in that time, but it'll pick back up once I take off to Thailand on August 2nd. One funny thing that happened this week was a few friends I have met here now officially refer to me as a blonde bedouin. Bedouins are the people in the region who live in tents out in the desert, and tend to be nomadic moving periodically from place to place. They call me a bedouin because of my long hair, as many bedouin males also have long hair. Beyond that I have been hanging out at the souq a lot planning my trip through Southeast Asia. Next week I might upload a map to show you all my planned route through the region. That's all for no,.

Bye all!

One month in

So I've been out of the US for a little over a month now, and I got to say I'm still having quite a good time. Earlier in the week I went swimming out in a little bay by the skyline of Doha. This was a really cool little beach because it is the only one still open to the general public and is almost completely hidden, being a piece of land that can't be more than 30 feet long. All of the rest of the beach front in Doha is either on property used by the royal family, embassies or are private beaches on hotel property.

Later in the week a good friend of mine named Mohsin invited me out boating with him and some of his friends. The owner of the boat is Muhammad who is around my age whose father owns around 30% of Harrods, which is a luxury department store like Nordstroms in England, at least to the best of my understanding. To the left of this shows the ramp we used to get into the ocean. It was an extremely narrow ramp with huge rocks to the left, which would have caused a lot of damage if they even slightly touched the boat. The boat yard hires foreign workers to help guide the boat down the ramp, which helps insure boats do not hit the rocky side.

After we got into the water we left the harbor and headed towards this area that boats, jet skis, and waver runners all congregate. In order to get there we had to drive through little inlets and bays like the one pictured to the left. Once we got there it was a large party on the water.

These different groups all congregate on the narrow strip of water, which you can see in the pictures listed under random photos. The boats drive up and down this narrow strip of water in order to make large wakes for the jet skis and wave runners to get maximum lift off of. It is an amazing experience and some of the jet skiers got massive air on some of the wakes caused by the boats. While the boats are driving up and down the strip of water they are all blasting arabic music, and having a good time on the boat.

What else is interesting is over on the side, on the land, runs a long walk way where people congregate and watch the jet skiers jump off of the wakes. There are a lot of young women in their traditional garments who are on the side laughing, taking pictures, and watching the young men as they play on the water. Everyone was having an amazing time, I even saw people throwing candy off of the boats to young kids who were on shore watching. No one was stressed, and everyone was living in the moment.

I'm also surprised that by how many boats and jet skiers there are in the water no one ever runs into each other. We hung out there for a good few hours making wakes before we headed off out into the ocean.

Once we got out into the ocean we were going pretty quick. I don't know exactly how fast but it was fast enough to guarantee that my cheeks were somewhat dragging behind my face in the wind.

Once out in the ocean we came up to a group of small islands, where there were a lot of old fashioned local boats. These boats are a lot like an American house boat, and are used for dinner parties. As we we were out there we were zooming by them along with the jet skiers. As we zoomed by the boats they would wave at us and we would wave back. After a while we pulled up with a lot of other speed boats along this small island, and everyone got out and started swimming. It was another large event, but this time it was out on a random island in the middle of the sea while swimming. We stayed there for a while, and then as it got dark we pulled the boat up closer to the small island. Once we got to the small island Mohsin along with the other guys got out of the boat cleaned their hands and feet in the ocean, and then began one of their prayers. It was really interesting because one moment we were out in the ocean swimming, the next moment they were praying. It is something they take very seriously, and it was quite amazing to see. After they finished we had a small bonfire before heading back to the harbor.
Once we got back Mohsin and I went to dinner at a local restaurant, which had exquisitely good food. It was also cool because it was a local place, I was the only westerner in the restaurant. At dinner Mohsin and I covered a lot of different subjects, both funny and serious. After dinner I went home, but only for a few hours as later that night (morning at this point) I went down to the Corniche to watch the sunrise, unfortunately the humidity was quite high so I didn't get any good photos. That is pretty much all I have to update at this point.

Also I'd like to wish my mom and Paul a safe flight back to the US as they leave tomorrow, and thanks for all of your help getting me ready for Thailand!

                                              

                                                            Random Photos

The city is floating in the sky

Qatari Currency-Riyal

Pigeons!

Crazy

So it has been a little bit longer than a week, but I have been preparing for my new job! I will be taking a teaching course in September in Phuket, Thailand followed by being placed in a public school somewhere in Thailand after the completion of the course. I will most likely be working with Elementary aged children which should be pretty cool! Because of that this week has been a lot of preparation towards getting ready to go. Filling out visa applications, ordering transcripts and letters of good standing, and other such things. There was one slight problem, which was I had to receive a background check from my local police department in order to work with children in Thailand and in order to receive a background check from your local police department you have to show up in person, which is kind of difficult when you're on the other side of the planet!! This meant that I might have had to fly back to San Francisco for a week in order to obtain my background check before flying back to either Doha or straight from San Francisco to Bangkok. Lets just say that would have been a lot of flying and jet lag! Luckily it didn't have to come to that because the Santa Clara Police Department told me if I faxed in the right documentation they would send the clearence certificate to a family member. This means it will save a costly and time consuming plane ride back to North America, and instead I'll be able to get to know Qatar a little better before heading to SE Asia on August 2nd to do a little backpacking before heading off to start my job.

Despite all the preparations to go to Thailand this week I have still had a few interesting experiences. Early in the week I went down to an old souq that specializes in selling fruits and vegetables. It was a lot like a farmers market, but with a Mddle East flavor.  Beyond that I went to the Northeast tip of Qatar, which is the closest part of the peninsula to Iran. It is quite an interesting part of the country, and all the pictures below are from that region. It is different then the hubbub of the metropolitan area of Doha.  It is empty desert expanse that is beautiful in its own right. The road to the left shows how empty it was. What was amazing that out in the middle of no where was this huge sporting complex that looked like a red fort. It was massively large yet there didn't really seem to be an adequately large population around it to use it.

My favorite part though was this umbrella. We went out to the one of the beaches, which had nothing around and definitely no people yet there was this wooden umbrella grounded in the sand, which made a nice escape from the 110 degree weather, notably since there was no other shrubbery around meaning not a lot of shade. The other really cool thing about the area was the sand right around the water, because it wasn't sand at all instead it was all little tiny shells! The whole beach was full of the shells it looked like something you would buy out of a bag. Beyond all of that I have been going on a lot of late night walks around the city, the latest being around two. It is 

 interesting because with how hot it is during the day everyone comes out at night, meaning at two in the morning you can still see quite a few people out and about. I hope to walk to the Corniche one of these nights, which is a beautiful waterfront part of Doha and watch the sunrise since it is facing east and the sun rises around 5 in the morning. If I get down there to watch it I will make sure to take some pictures. That's all I have to write about now, I'll update the blog again in about a week or so. Until then As-Salamu Alaykum.

Random Photos