Even if this had only been a chance to not work and wear civilian clothes for four days, it would have been awesome, but they do not stop there. With a three beer a day ration and fun little trips you can sign up for, clearly they can only get people to leave by force. I chose the "go to the beach trip."
It started off with a trek across the sand dunes at a pace which can only be described as "ludicrous." I believe at one point, we went plaid. This experience was made all the more interesting by being in the not- really- secured-to-the-floor backseat.
Then, we crested the last dune to see the Persian Gulf below.
I went swimming, got stung by a jellyfish (a little one, so it barely even registered), played a little volleyball (with the tour guides who took it a little too seriously) and ate kabobs for lunch. It was a just plain nice day. 
The next day I ran into a friend of mine that I was stationed at Fort Bliss, Texas with last time I was doing this Army gig. She is stationed in Qatar, which means she was allowed to take me off post. We went to the mall (exciting, I know!) and while it was really just like one in the states in so many ways, it was so very different. The men in their white robes, the women in their black burquas, all the signs being in English and Arabic, but with the same logos and models. Very surreal. To clear my head, I decided to go to the indoor ice skating rink.
Which is next to the camel ferris wheel.Another odd thing about Qatar? The population is only about 30% Qatari, the rest being third country nationals, mostly from India and the Philippines, who do all the work. And instead of income tax? The government pays the Qataris a certain percentage of the oil revenue each year.Oh, and along the way? I saw this giant oyster.
Awesome.
I think that sums it all up- feel free to create your own moral to the story.Bye!
6 comments:
Moral of the story: You take great random pictures!
Chisholm, I thought you were already warned about this.... He doesn't take "great random pictures" he "has the attention span of a five year old doing shots of red-bull and vodka."
Ooh! Something shiny! Wait, what were we talking about?
I wish we could of made it to Qatar - it seems a lot like Bahrain - all foreign nationals, malls that seem American until you register the ladies in abiyas and kabobs. Although Qatar does lool to have a nice beach (there are none of those here!).
Steve favorite part at the mall is that the arabic translations of teh store's names are phenetic spellings, so the arabic is funny. So, Starbucks would be "Setaraboukes" when they would say it.
Hey...So Qatar was worth it, even if just for civilian clothes. Hehe.. Any luck with the falcons?
"Setaraboukes" Hee hee. There were also like three French cafes in the mall within spitting distance of one another. However, you would not want to test that theory because the public spitting? Kind of illegal and can get you fined.
We did not make it to the "Old Souq", just the "Gold Souq", so no luck on the falcons, I just saw a LOT of watches.
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