Doha Diaries: Part 1

For those that do or do not know, I just came back from a week in Doha, Qatar. Yes, I said Doha. It's where the Junods just moved, taking with them one of the greatest friends to have ever crossed my path. I have never been overseas, so rather than take a tour of Europe, I thought I would just go to the Middle East. Thankfully, Wendi's sister, Ashley, decided to travel with me. Nothing like two blond white girls to stand out in a Middle Eastern culture. Now that I am back, everyone keeps asking me for stories, pictures, etc. So being the faithful photographer, I decided to sort through the 641 photos I took (not a lie, I really took that many), and make an assortment of posts about our trip. I was gone for 7 days, so why not have the 7 Doha Diary Posts. For those that are rolling their eyes on the amount of posts, much less pictures that this blog is about to reveal, then you might want to check back in a couple weeks for your regular scheduled daily program. I've never been on a trip quite so fascinating, so I need all the little reminders to help me remember all the memories.

We flew Qatar Airways. Phenomenal airline - our stewardesses grew to love us, cheesy Shani and all. When we got to the Houston airport, I really turned on the charm and convinced them to give us the exit row seats. We managed to get them both trips! And, no one sat next to us. So we had three seats all to ourselves. We slept more on the trip there since we left at 8:30pm at night. We had little kits in out seats with eye patches and ear plugs. Let's just say that when I slept, I slept great thanks to the "dark, quiet" space I was in. Here's Ashley modeling our freebie merchandise.

Side note: I wish you could have felt my pulse as I stood with my zoom lens to take this photo. At this point in the trip, I was a wary of my white skin standing out on this flight of people returning home to their native lands. I didn't want to draw unnecessary attention to myself. That all went out the window on the flight home.

Everyone got their own personal TV. On the exit row, the TVs come from under the side of the seat. We were silently gloating as we sat in our exit row seats with all the leg room. But then we panicked when we thought we didn't have a personal TV. I felt scammed. I even asked the male flight attendant if we could trade seats (yes, I did that) until he pulled out my TV. The Napoleon Dynamite song was running through my head: "I still love technology".

On the trip there I only watched the Curious Case of Benjamin Button (boo). I then started the book Twilight. Don't know if it was because I was missing my husband already or if it was because I remembered what it felt like with high school love. Either way, I read book one and two of the series on the trip. Waiting on Valerie to send the other 2 my way. Didn't think I would love them so much. Funny enough, Ashley was also reading Twilight. Here we are both reading out books. We sat near the bathroom, so we got one unlucky passenger to take our photo.

We of course watched Twilight on the way home. Giggles throughout the whole thing. If Edward had not been such a cutie then I might have turned it off. The amount of movies, music, TVs shows, etc. to choose from was amazing. Let's just say that the last 2 years of missing out on movies has now been updated. I watched Australia (liked it), Bolt (hilarious - reminded me of hamster days with Shannon Brown), and Flash of Genius (yawn - worked on photo editing for the entire duration of the movie). 5 movies in a week - reminds of the baseball days, being poor, and going to double features (we only paid for one, of course).


Food on the flight was interesting. I was so excited for my 5 course meal! At the Houston airport, we got so friendly with the girl checking us in that 30 minutes into our friendship, she told us we got a 5 course meal. So the first meal I dove in like a hungry banshee. They served ice cream at 4am - a Ben & Jerry's special. So my tummy was a little upset by breakfast. On the way home, all they had left for me on my two meals was an Indian vegetarian meal and Moroccan lamb. After lots of crackers with butter and rolls with cream cheese, Ashley and I never thought a Whataburger tasted so good. Our menu choices in Arabic and English is above and the only good meal I had is below. Since I was so excited about the food I obviously took a picture of my good fortune. Little did I know....

After a 14 hour flight, we arrived to Doha where a service picked us up and quickly moved us through customs, getting our visa, etc. I could not find my passport at first (I had put it in a random pocket on my carry on) and was throwing stuff everywhere. I even muttered that "this was so American". What?! It just sounded right at the time. We quickly went through security and met Nick outside as he was parking. Apparently our plane was 1 hour early, so we surprised everyone by already being ready to go. We were all so excited to see each other!

We went to Chili's for dinner, where the only weird thing was the ketchup, of all things. After one moment when Nick asked if had gotten our typhoid shots right before opening our water bottle (no one drinks the water there), we laughed, loosened up, and got ready to get excited about Doha. Popped in one of many ambien in the last 9 days, and slept great.

The next day we went to the mall after sleeping until 11am. Yikes! 8 hour time difference was tricky to get used to but not as bad as I thought. Went to a mall called the Villagio - looks just like the Villagio in Las Vegas. Gorgeous architecture, lovely stores, interesting people....

Are we at a musuem or a mall?

The entrance we walked in revealed the waterway where you could take a boat down the river. We didn't have time for the tour, but how neat to just see such a sight. But nothing could take me eyes off of the sign just to the left of this....

...well what do you know it's an H&M! I had to fly to Doha to get my fix. Found a few things after wrapping my head around the difference in price of a riyal vs. the US dollar. So the shirt I liked really wasn't $79 after all. Whew.

We needed to go get Brooks from school, so Wendi ordered these Lebanese sandwiches from the food court. They take awhile to make, so after they handed her a paper sack the size that Hallmark gives you after purchasing one card, my stomach started to growl in disappointment. I was pleasantly surpried - the flatbread sandwiches were amazing. I was thankful they were so looooong - better for the growling tummy.

After the boys napped, they opened presents from Wendi's parents and the Tuleys. Big grins from Brooks on his new shirt from Honey and Papa.

Barrett loving his piano from Kaylinn.

Easter bunny surprise.

That's about all my hands can type right now. And you thought I was done. Nope, that was just the first 24 hours. Derek is already asleep and now, it being 8:30pm and all, is the latest I have stayed up since returning. Derek and I both have decided to be more scheduled with our working out. I have greatly missed my kickboxing class that I haven't taken in a year thanks to the Y getting a new (and not better) instructor. So now Derek leaves at 4:45 am to go workout in order to be back in time for me to tryout a 6am class on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I went hardcore back into the gym this week after being MIA and only mildly walking for the last month. I can barely walk today, and I am so sore. But I must stay consistent! We'll see how long this crazy behavior lasts. More Doha Diaries yet to come....