Ankur and Genny’s Meandering Tour

Qatar was originally British owned and as such, there is plenty of British methods in place in the country.  Roundabouts are one such nuisance.  At almost every intersection, there is a roundabout of some size.  Since people give directions by the roundabouts (street names mean nothing), all of them have a statue or theme.  There is even etiquette reqarding these roundabouts.  Once you're in the roundabout, you can keep going until you want to exit.  Then you drift right and make your way out.  Those entering must keep a keen eye for mergers and departers and make some guesses.  Then there are the locals with their Land Cruisers (yes, they all have them) who don't even brake entering these roundabouts.  It's no wonder that car accidents are the leading cause of death in the country. 

Additionally, these roundabouts don't even need to exist for much of the country.  They're slowly putting in flyovers and intersections to moderate the traffic.  But as it is, the trafic doesn't work.

Mutaz writes about it in his blog:

Genny posted some pictures of our cockapoo online.  I've never had a dog before, but he's quite cute and a wonderful dog.  He doesn't bark, likes to play, and loves when you come home. 

However, if he's too happy when you come home, you know it is because he peed on the carpet.  He goes overboard as an apology. 

Anyway, I'm going to miss Sully out here.

This is a picture of him tangled in my old shirt.  Genny uploaded a few pictures to snapfish.

I'm off to the UAE to go do some work in Dubai.  I'll be there for 11 days.  Does anyone know if there is a good online map of Dubai?  Something maybe with business names?

Last weekend I went to watch an ice hockey game.

And in case you were wondering,

Yes: This is Qatar where the temperature can hit 50 Celsius

(btw, I don't like the image situation with the blogging software, so I'm crafting my own using flickr)

This was taken during the warmup before the halves.  I will admit that it's a bid odd, because they chopped the rink so that there are only two zones instead of three.  There are no two-line passing penalties as such.

Gadget Shoe

This shoe seems to fit in better with the gadgetheads than the Yahoo! Fashion News. 

Genny, I expect comments on this one!

I decided to treat myself to dinner and ate a grotesque amount...and had more than double left over.  This meal was had by me for the whopping price of 12 bucks (USD). 

Leftovers

It's definitely the best local food I've had.  There was a Maybach and Maserati parked in front - not to mention the Jags, Mercedes, and Porches. 

I do wish that I remembered the name of the place though - it's down the street from another great spot called Mint. 

I did manage to take a picture after I was done eating. 

Chicken Coop

I walked past the Al-Najada Souq on Friday during the "siesta" time.  Basically from 12-4 nothing is open except the Indian-owned restaurants and shops.  Most of those are even closed as they'd rather take some time off during the day anyways.

Much of the country employs a bit of the Starbucks marketing mentality.  They believe heavily in consolidated communities of goods.  So where there is a mobile phone store, there will be 20 - with nothing else there.  You walk from store to store asking how much the same phone is and you get 20 different prices.  All of which you're expected to bargain down 20%-60%.  So really, the price doesn't even matter.  I still don't quite understand the economics of expected bargaining. 

But I had two goals for Saturday.  I wanted to pick up an SP5 from I-mate and eat some good pizza.  I failed at both.  I found a few places that had the phone for 1500-2000 riyal, but by the time I decided to buy the 1500 price one, I forgot which store had it.

I also wanted good pizza.  Anyone that knows me knows that this will be the toughest thing about food here.  So far everything has been delicious, but I've yet to experience good pizza.  I found a place that had Chicago pizza on the menu.  So I took a closer look. 

• Beef
• Cheddar Cheese
• Olives
• Thin crust

Maybe I don't know enough about Chicago style pizza, but I'm pretty sure there aren't many parts of the city in which a Chicagoan would claim this as old-skool.

After this I went back to some shops and saw a gaggle of chicken butcher shops.  There were 5-6 shops, with 25 or so chickens apiece.  All of them had about 20 sq feet of total space for them.  They're not chickens leading a good life.  But you pick one out and the butcher cuts the head off and drains it.  Fresh meat. 

I've been working for a government agency this week on auditing their Active Directory and Exchange environment. 

That however is not the point of the topic.  In the US, the consultant gets the cube that no one wanted - the one in the basement, with the fleas and dust, etc.

Over here, I was offered a window office, but apparently this wasn't good enough.  They insisted I take a corner office that was away from everything so that I would have some security and privacy.  I have a view of the Corniche (water-front area in the center of the city) with access to everything. 

I've got my junky cam-picture, but it's all I had. 

It doesn't make sense to me that drinks costs so much here. 

I went into an Indian restuarant yesterday and ordered.  Well, maybe not so much as ordered, but got vegetables.  The choices were fish, chicken, lamb, or vegetables.  They asked me if I wanted rice, so of course I said yes.

I was given rice with three different vegetables, naan, and some curries.  I got a 7up also (being that my stomach is Ameri-wimpy, I'm not drinking tap water yet).  The bill?  5 riyal. 

3.65 Riyals = 1 Dollar. 

5 Riyals = $1.37

I couldn't even finish half of the food. 

Later I met Diego at the hotel bar.  He is here on business from Italy, where he lives 100km from Torino.  He can't speak English, and I can't speak Italian.  So we end up with a hodgepodge Spanglish/Italianglish communication.  I think it might be better if we gave up words altogether and played charades.  Anyhow, back to the point.

I ordered one beer (CL = 500 mL = 16oz).  It was a good sized Heinekin.

The 1 beer bill came to QR 30.24 = which is like $8.24.  Or in other words, dinner for 6.

While an $8 beer is considered expensive (including tax and tip), it's not insane - especially if you're at a swanky place in the States.  But over here, it just seems so relatively high for food/drinks.  With all the amazing juice drinks I may start having those instead of a beer with dinner - it's probably healthier anyways.

I bought a pair of Jorduns on Saturday.  They have the "And 1" logo on the front, Adidas stripes on the botton, and a Nike look.  They came in a Reebok box.  I thought it was funny that they chose the name Jordun, so I decided to buy them. 

Other options were the always popular Adiboss or Reebock.  They actually had shoes with the spelling and design dead-on, but they wouldn't be as funny to me. 

Here's the kicker - I didn't buy them from a shady alley, but rather from a department store.  I knocked off 33% of the price, but I probably paid too much still. Although, for 20 bucks I'm not gonna complain.  Hopefully they'll last longer than a few months.