The Doha Daily: doha daily 6/19/06

Back from the beautiful south of France and dang is it HOT! 47C (117) and the humidity is indeed beginning to arrive. I will say it was rather tough flying back into the land of three-story white villas and mosques with the patch of skyscrapers near the sea. As Tristan and I were landing in Nice two weeks ago, the first thing I noticed was the greenery…TREES!

We stayed with all of Thierry's family of course and met up with my brother Justin and his girlfriend, Becky. They brought some great things over from the States for us; well, mainly for Tristan : ). It was like Christmas, although in the past Santa Clause never put Trader Joe's dried pineapple rings under the tree.

Thierry took two days off when we arrived so we went to pool – the best time to go now is 5p when you have a breeze blowing. We were going to hit some golf balls at dusk, but it is now all about the World Cup and the matches at 4, 7 and 10pm. Since there are so many different nationalities here, everyone is buzzing about their individual team, rather than when we were in France and it was all about Les Bleus!

I brought back 4 large saucicon (pork sausage) from Nice and have learned that it could be worth gold to the expat community. When we first arrived in Doha, someone told me that although pork is NOT sold anywhere in Qatar due to the Muslim religion, it can be brought in via suitcase. This may not be the truth though, as I heard a story of a woman who brought in a large ham and it was confiscated when crossing customs. Perhaps because we arrived at 6am and Tristan was crying because he wanted the officers to put his puppy dog through the x-ray machine that he caused a distraction and they didn’t notice the sausage in my carry-on luggage (because they also x-ray your baggage when you deplane here in Qatar).

Most of my friends are leaving for their long summer vacations the first of July – Tristan and I again leave the 20th of July and take a trip to Normandy, then off to Nice followed by the US! We will be returning Sept 25, the first day of Ramadan. Thierry will be meeting us in Nice August 4 and boy let me tell you, he cannot wait! For everyone who has a license to buy alcohol here, the government doubles up the allowances the month prior to Ramadan as the liquor store will close completely for that period. Needless to say, the bottle shop will be very busy in August. I’m going to do the best I can to get stocked up now so that Thierry doesn’t have to go back.

There were a few road changes around our compound since we’ve been gone, all for the better for us. That means though, that some other people’s usual routes are now probably closed and their new daily commutes have become nightmares.