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