Hail???

This was a new one for us - ice coming from the sky in the middle of the desert. . . This picture doesn't quite capture it but the 2 minute hailstorm was the talk of the town. The biggest hail stones were a little smaller than marbles and the thermometer said it was 74 degrees out so they didn't last too long. My flowers haven't been the same since.

Much needed vacation in Oman

Anyone who's spent anytime here in Doha recommends a trip to Oman, so Steve and I decided to take a week vacation to see what all the fuss was about. We spent 4 days at a resort about 50 kms outside of Muscat. The scenery was beautiful with big rocks randomly jutting out of the ocean.

We also took a drive through the mountains which was amazing even for a couple who grew up in some of the prettiest mountains around. We spent a day in Muscat and found the city to be very memorable with it's steep cliffs and forts built on every high point available.

We then took a flight South and spent 3 days in Salalah. Most tour books show the area as green and luscious but our luck (and lack of research) put us there right at the peak of dry season. More desert and sand for us but the water was nice to swim in and the people were extremely nice.

Omani people have a reputation of being warm, friendly, and enjoyable and we got the feeling that there is a competition between them to see who can be the nicest . . . every street you walk down everyone says hi, we also had a few join us at meals just to chat. If you decided to make a trip over here you will definitely need to put Oman on your itinerary!

Steve tried something new by putting the pictures on shutterfly so follow this link to see them.

connorsindoha.shutterfly.com/action/?a=0AbNGLFozaNWLjY

Superbowl uh - Monday?

So what do a bunch of expats who haven't seen a single NFL season game think is a great idea . . . getting up at 2:00 am on Monday morning to watch the Superbowl! Fourtunatly, the game was good and kept almost everyone awake for the entire game. The game was broadcasted live in Doha but no commercials - we had to use our neighbors sling box to see those. I think the verdict was: 1st place Blockbuster mouse, 2nd place Bud Lite wedding, and 3rd place KFed fastfood. I'm glad it only happens once a year but I guess now I can say I've had chips, dip, hot dogs, and saurkraut for breakfast at 5 am (and we stuck to coffee and soda since we all had to go home, shower and head to work).

Happy Birthday Steve!

Steve is another year older so to celebrate we took a quick trip to Dubai to enjoy the shopping festival and see the Quidam show by Circ due Soliel. This was the 3rd time to Dubai and I think we have visited almost every major mall in the city and there's a lot of them! The last National Geographic had an article about Dubai and it said that there are more malls per capita in Dubai than any other city in the world. So, I guess we're going to have to find a new place for weekend getaways. The Circ due Soliel show was fun but not quite as impressive as the one we saw in Houston (Allegria). This time the tent and therefore the stage were much smaller. But we still enjoyed all the acrobats and contortionists.

New Years in Doha

Happy New Year! Eid Mubarak! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eid_Mubarak) My New Years Resolution to quit writing 06 when I mean 07 by February. . .

Steve and I had a fun night on the town, we got a dressed up and headed to the Ritz for 6 course chef’s special meal. Not 5 minutes into the event Steve accused me of setting up his demise (the first 2 courses were shellfish) but fortunately the chef was able to scrape up a little something extra for Steve.

Christmas in Doha

We had yet another delicious turkey dinner for Christmas. We rounded up the few lonely souls left in Doha and ate and drank too much all night. Steve made another excellent turkey but we he decided to cook it the conventional way – in the oven. He claimed the bird was too big for the rotisserie but I suspect he didn’t want to deal with another fire ball adventure so soon after the last one. If any of you experienced even a slight bit of dryness with your turkey we have figured how to make the best, juiciest turkey ever – you brine it for ~12 hours before cooking (soak it in a salt/sugar solution). The turkey comes out perfectly brown and juicy and the gravy from it is perfect. If this sounds interesting to you then check out the various recipes for brined turkey on foodnetork.com. Athena also had a great time entertaining the guests.

Teddy (pictured here), my co-workers son, favorite toy is a ball so he and Athena were peas in a pod all night. Mav and Athena also took a little time from the Christmas fun to admire the beautiful bouquet my mom sent us for Christmas – it was too big for the dinning room but just perfect for the coffee table. All in all it was a great night and a lot of fun.

We also went out to the "singing dunes" where the sand has the right physical characteristics to produce a harmonic sound when the wind passes over it. The weekend before Christmas there was a big bonfire and caroling event held here. There were at least 500 Ex-Pats from all over the world there having a good old time.

Asian Games

This entry is long over due but if your regular visitors to our sight then that won’t surprise you much. Doha was host to the 15th annual Asian Games which is basically the Olympics for everyone one on the east side of the globe. We’ve been hearing about these games ever since we arrived in Doha in April. The games were blamed for the awful construction which was to blame for the awful traffic; the delays at customs which meant sea and air shipments took longer then expected; employees were told to stock up on food in case there were shortages; schools were let out the last week of November so families could leave before they started; hotels were completely booked so the city had to bring in 3 cruise ships for the over flow; everyone was told to pack water and food in their vehicles in case they were stuck in traffic for hours – you get the idea, we were prepared to experience a minor apocalypse due to the games.

But it actually turned out to be very well planned and a lot of fun for the few of us who braved the potential chaos. Neither Steve nor I were ever stuck in traffic (that wasn’t already normal) the parking at events was easy and we even got tickets to a few events. The event that became the topic of conversations is called Sepaktrawa (sp?). It’s a cross between playing hackey sack, volleyball, and martial arts. If Bruce Lee had a sport it would be this (subtitles included). Same rules as volleyball, you serve to the other team, each team gets 3 hits to get it over the net but no hands – you can only use your feet, head, and back to volley the ball. It’s a great game to watch and the athletes are amazing – we got a few good pictures but if you ever come across the games I’d highly recommend watching it.

There was quite a bit of window dressing around the city as well. Here is a photo of the Emir's Palace with lights decorating it with the Qatar Flag. Kind of neat.

X-Mass Shopping In UAE

So Mariah had a business trip to Dubai recently followed by a conference in Abu Dhabi. I took a flight over the weekend to join her and make sure that she wasn't spending too much money X-Mas shopping. We had a good time hanging out at the bars with some of Mariah's colleagues. I did find it most intriguing that in a Muslim country, which most Westerners consider to be back woods and in-tolerant, we found more Christmas decorations than you would find in the US. I really got a kick out of the recent fuss in Seattle regarding X-Mas tress at the airport (http://www.king5.com/localnews/stories/NW_120906WABxmastreesEL.11b0d0cc.html). We see huge Christmas displays in all of the malls in the Middle East, yet people are constantly sued for such displays in the US. Really makes you think.

Thanksgiving In Doha

Well we had ourselves a Proper Thanksgiving dinner in Doha. We had a big event with about 16 people. I fired up the spit and rotisserie a 14lb bird on it. Let me tell you, grilling with Butane instead of propane is not easy. For those that don't know Butane burns considerably hotter than propane, something that I am sure Mariah could show in a chart or chemical breakdown or something. All I know is it is hot. The grill regularly goes from 350 to 550 in a matter of seconds if the wind happens to shift. In true Connor form after 5 hours of painstaking cooking, my picture perfect bird went from stunning to flambé in the last five minutes. We had a fire ball at least 15 feet high scorching the back of the house. After putting out the flames and pealing off the charcoal skin I was happy to find that the meat was still perfect. I had several comments that it was the best turkey ever, and I will ignore anyone who claims that those were sympathy votes.

We did have a good time none the less. Mariah pointed out that this was a typical Thanksgiving as after dinner all the women where in the kitchen, and all the men were watching the football game (UT vs. Aggies).

Maldives

At the end of October for Eid ul-Fitr (Muslim Religious holiday marking the end of Ramadan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eid_ul-Fitr) Mariah and I went to the Maldives for a little get away. It was an easy 4 hour direct flight from Doha which made the trip that much easier. Evidently TomKat had there Honeymoon somewhere in the Maldives so that should put the place in perspective.

We spent five nights at a five star island resort. The island, which is one of the larger ones, took about 30 minuites to walk around the shoreline. The snorkeling was amazing, it looked like a National Geographic special. We saw more types of Parrott, Angel, and various tropical reef fish than we could possibly count. Also saw three types of eel including a wolf eel. Next time we go we need to invest in an underwater camera. I definately wish that we had our diving license and gear in a place like this (currently working on this problem).

Our pictures realy didn't do the place justice so check out this link of the resort we stayed at: http://www.kurumba.com/overview.html

Prague

We went to Prague for a week in August. Mariah's mom and brother were both in town so we spent some quality family time in the Old Town Bars. Prague is definately a must see, for all the guys out there the "local scenery" can not be matched.




I had the unfortunate joy of working through most of the trip due to a big contract negotiation. I managed to spend more money on my hotel phone bill then I did for the 10 day room charge. This gave Mariah and family plenty of time to tour the city and enjoy some bonding time.



The sweetest thing we saw while there was a Bone Church outside of the city. The story goes that during the Crusades some guy brought dirt from the holy land back with him. He placed this dirt in the local cemetary, which naturally caused every Tom, Dick, and Harry to want to be burried there. After time the bones started to pile up, which naturally led a creative church owner to create artwork with the excess bones. The artwork is meant to represent the assention of man to heaven. Plain old creepy.

Steve at Work

So I thought that I would post a couple of photos of my job site. So my client is getting ready to build a $300 million +/- 30% facility here. Looks like the perfect setting to me, what do you think? Note the current camel herd onsite, these things are mean. They actually came up and tried to scare of my SUV.

Here is a photo of my supervision skills. Yes, that is a survey crew changing my tire for me. They were not impressed with the idea of an Americano trying to change a tire. Evidently that is not acceptable.

"Business Trip"

So Mariah had a last minute "business trip" last week to Barcelona. She received a call on Friday telling her to be at a conference on Tuesday and Wednesday. I went ahead and took two days off an flew out to meet here on Wednesday afternoon. I took this photo of her "working" hard. I am sure that Sangria is an accpetable afternoon drink. We spent three days walking around the city, seeing the sights.

A very different kind of place, very artsy. Great food (mainly pork products), good wine, nice people. It was definitely a nice change in scenery (good looking women in abundance).

Alaska Trip

We took Mariah's parents with us up to Alaska for a two week adventure. We met with Steve's parents and did an extreme tour of the State. Caught up with family, friends, had great weather, and saw lots of bears.

When we started the trip Mariah's dad Peter was scared to death of bears, by the end he was chasing them around with a camera. Good stuff.

We went halibut fishing near out of Ninilchick (near Homer) and had a good run at it.

The best part was seeing rich greenery and wildlife - a far cry from the scenery in Doha!

New Toy

Today Mariah let me buy her a new toy. I am sure that she is going to love it. It is a 25 footer with twin Yamaha 140's on the back. Nothing too fancy, but more than enough to get us out to local islands and fishing holes. We also managed to snag one of the few boat slips in the city, it seems that due to construction there is a serious shortage of slips.

The guy that we bought it from is having some work done to it while we are back in the States, a detailed polishing, some new paint, new leather, and a new shade for the front. I can't wait to get back so we can start playing in the Gulf.