Tuesday, January 24, 2006
doha daily 1/18/06
Up until this point, I had spent 37 years of living in the USA. One week after living in Doha, Qatar, clear across the other side of the globe, Tristan and I are exiting the hotel, he proudly wearing his USC Trojan's teeshirt we bought him for the BIG GAME, when President Bush Sr. walks by. He stops at me and asks me if I am American, to which I replied, "Very." He then turns to Tristan and apologized for the loss to the Longhorns. Now THAT was timing...Thierry was standing behind us in the lobby laughing. Tristan and I were actually on our way out the door making our way for the Doha zoo, and although the brochure reads 8am opening, the gates were closed upon arrival at 8:30am (opens at 9a in the winter) I felt like Chevy Chase approaching Wally World, "First ones here, first ones here!" To kill time, we continued on the 3-lane freeway hitting roundabout after roundabout, getting more acquainted with the drivers here - the middle lane seems to be the safest and if you drive just a few kph's slower than everyone else, people seem to get out of your way. And for all of the "road-ragers" who honk and kick and scream on my bumper, I've taken the "smile and nod" approach, sorry. Driving is really going to take some time getting used to - for instance, let's say there is a building you would like to visit on your lefthand side - unfortunately, there is no break in the road on this lefthand side when you need it. Therefore, you must continue driving AWAY from the building you so desire to visit until the next roundabout, which may have TONS of cars waiting to enter this 'bout due to the fact everyone is driving so crazily. After jockeying for position, you breath a sigh of relief when you have completed the 365 degree turn. Without a bunch of turnsignals in the roads, I figure I'll be in the car for 50% more time than I really need too, looking at the buildings as I pass them, yearning to be on the other side of the street and driving an additional 500 feet to get where I need to go. And there is one radio station that I have found that shares french and english speaking segments - they played Xanadu today. Oh yes, and a remake of Barry Manilow's "Mandy." (I belted that one out). The zoo the zoo the zoo...to me, the cages seem WAY too small for the lions, tigers, cheetah, etc, and there seems to be more land dedicated to the men who were relaxing for a lovely morning on the park benches. And lots of cigarette butts on the ground - something else to get used to again - smoking inside. There are bars dedicated to smoking the shisha pipe - looks like a large elaborate "I dream of Genie-type" pipe (the Hotel has a bar like this), but there is no nicotine involved and one can order different flavors, apple, strawberry, anise, etc...Due to the fact the hotel is an atrium above the lobby, you can smell the frangrances all the way on our floor - lucky 15 : ).
2 comments:
GW! that's classic.
Tell Thierry that would have been the only time I would have been a Trojan Fan! hahaha Miss you guys!
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