National Day

The 18^th of December in Qatar is national day, a day devoted to celebrating the country and the Amir. During the build up to the big day there have been bands playing in the Souq and just general partying. The culture here seems to be to ride around on your car and generally make loads of noise, however during the days before it is illegal to ride outside your car or on roof or anything like that so the police were having a field day handing out fines! It also makes getting anywhere near impossible with traffic grinding to a halt and police closing down all the roads. However it is the most amazing event of the year, so far… On national day itself there is a massive parade in the morning which Penny, Simon and me headed down to here follows the adventures of national day!

National Day

As we left the flat and wondered down to the corniche the traffic was at a standstill and the parade was already underway, getting closer and closer we could hear the music the cheers, of what must have been well over 100,000 people. The amount of love they have for their country is amazing and tops Scotland by miles in fact I bet it would top most of the world. The first thing we came across was a mass camel parade, which seemed to last forever!

How many camels

So many.... Too many

Attack Dogs

And Attack Horses!

Really cool police officer

Penny watching the world go by

How amazing are their Dish Dashes!

It took us ages to fight our way to somewhere that we could actually see the parade and even then we were struggling to see what was really going on! There was amazing fly overs by jets at what seemed like tree height and then a massive jumbo flew over with Qatar printed on the bottom.

Planes

The parade ended with the Amir driving down the corniche and waving out the car window at all the people standing by, the cheers at this point were on the side of totally ridiculous, and the security around him was at the same level!  The ISF which are the second most serious cops in Qatar were leading the way with there really obvious bright red cars followed closely by the CID (the big bad cops) in there swish black mercs, and then there in the middle the Amir! At this point Simon was going crazy with excitement and swore that the Amir had looked and waved at him and only him! So much so that there was some crazy dancing on the way back from the parade!

The Amir

ISF BMW

ISF Patrol (Sweeet)

Simons Crazy Dancing

The day ends with what must be the most amazing fireworks display I have ever seen only spoiled by a building in the way from our flat. These fireworks literally blew Sydney bridge, Edinburgh castle and any others off the face of the earth and were a sight to be seen! If you ever get a chance to spend some time in Qatar over the 18^th of December do it! Its not my video so sorry its maybe not showing them the best, Blogger doesnt like my video!

The Desert.

So a few weeks ago now James came to visit and spend some time making himself look like a local again. (more on that to follow) So seeing as me and Henry had not been to the desert yet we decided that it would be a fun experience for all of us to have. Qatar International Adventures here we come! Getting picked up from the flat we spent roughly 40 mins driving south from Doha towards the Saudi border. Our driver Imad had some goo chat on the way telling us about how he had only flipped one car which then turned in to two but one only went upside down! Sweet ha ha.

Our Patrol

We drove to Sealine a large beach resort on the edge of the desert and lowered the pressure in the tires, instantly we were in the dunes, driving at what seemed like flat out around, up and down massive banks of sand! The only thing we could do was smile as Imad launched this patrol down a near vertical wall of sand the sand flowing over the bonnet of the car. As we continued to drive down towards Saudi the desert flattened off and the speed instantly doubled we got to the border and looked out over the inland sea and into Saudi. 

 James and Henry by a desert fjord.

Henry jumping into Saudi

Lawrence takes a stroll!

So as we left the Saudi border we headed back for a BBQ and evening relaxing by the sea in the QIA camp. We just happened to spend the whole evening there on our own, it was amazing to have this whole place all to ourselves although playing volley ball with 3 people proved challenging. We played about on the sand boards (snowboards) and got ok on them before we starting trying silly things. Henry decided he would try and ride a board through the human sized gap in the tents, which after several attempts and a few near misses he eventually slid through only to come flying off! The food was excellent and the chat for the rest of the evening only got better and better. Sunset over the desert was the most amazing experience of it just dropping out the sky in just a few minutes. The best thing about the whole trip was driving through the desert in the pitch black, just the headlights and the moon lighting the way forwards! Amazing.

Sunset in the desert

Me sand boarding

The QIA camp.

And as promised James looking like a Local

Hello, sorry it has been so long since I last updated, I will do a more thorough update as soon as I can but for now I will give you a brief outline of what has happened in the last month. (Sorry for all the mistakes I'm doing this on my phone)

So where to start, I've been exceptionally busy over the last few weeks with stuff going on all the time, our work programme has been busy, with second eid smack bang in the middle giving us a little rest (still had a group of 16 every day). Both the yachts have been out the water scrapped, sanded, primed, anti fouled and back in again! One within the space of a week!

At the beginning of the month James came out to visit for a week which was really cool, and I had two days off which was great and meant I could do fun stuff like go down to the desert! Which I will post about later (with pictures) don't think I need to say but it was great!

We went out to a hotel called the W which has dj's plying every friday and most weeks guest dj's, so the last one I went to was cafe del mar, and they had this guy dressed in a 18th century french aristocrat outfit playing the music at night with sunglasses on very odd. But some good music non the less. Bek one of the other instructors was there as his friend is the house dj, and was way better than the other guy just cause he played the crowd and knew what they wanted. But was quite a good night anyway.

So ill leave it there for now and update with pictures later.

Days off and Nights to remember!

So its been ages since I last posted so be prepared for a couple of big posts!

Its been a busy couple of weeks, school sailing has started with at least 20+ kids in every group. Its quite a shock to the system seeing that many new faces in a week, compared to east lothian where you would see that many in a year! So with the schools started its full speed here for the next 8 weeks at least. but I wont bore you with work at the moment, more of that later (or earlier depending on if your reading my posts in the correct order!)

So my last two days off have been pretty boring to be honest with you, I've been so tired that all I have really done is sleep and take on ridiculous amounts of liquid, which obviously doesn't make for a good post! However my last day off was slightly different! The Intercon (hotel the centre is based at) plays host to beach parties throughout the year, and the most recent one was Teisto (he is a DJ). What a night, as it was a beach party at a hotel, (expensive) we had a few drinks in the house first and then a ridiculous taxi journey down to the hotel. There were easily 3000+ people on our tiny little bit of beach, most of whom spent all there time in the bar area to stay cool! Which meant getting a drink was pretty hard! It was a really really good night out and well worth the money! Plus managed to get back to the flat successfully so my drunken sat-nav must be working really well! (or possibly the fact that i do the trip once a day! .....shhhhh)

Tiesto

In other news my flatmate and our new Yachtmaster henry arrived last Friday, so that meant another big ish night out in a row, again to the rugby club! turned out to be another good night which was cool, and again my internal sat-nav worked a treat! so that's 2 days out of 2 wooohooo!

Ladies racing

We went down to the Souq again a few nights ago to try out some of the other food places and decided to try this little Chinese restaurant down a back ally. It was a really warm night (and they had football on a massive screen) outside so we decided we would sit inside. The place was the size of china no joke was absolutely huge. Once we had our meal we went for a short (15 minute) walk around the restaurant, but it was probably the best Chinese I've ever had. Although to be that size we all reckon that there must have been some major dodgy dealings going on in there! Anyway I will try and get the next post up later, or possibly 2mro.

Yeah that is one pink bunny rabbit!

So this last week has been pretty busy, 6am starts and 12 hour days just what you want in 40+ degree heat! But it has been fun non the less. Been giving presentations to all the local schools and telling them about how they can come sailing and all the fun stuff they can do with us at RSA. It was a bit daunting at first talking to a whole school but when 90+ pupils say good morning Mr Alex you just cant help but smile!

Souq Waqif

In terms of everything else its going great I feel like I have finally settled down fully, and am really getting into the way of Doha life (ordering everything for delivery at your door!) Although that is getting slightly on the boring side, so this evening I went to the souq waqif with Justin for a wonder round and that is where my title comes from. We wondered around the maze of buildings and corridors before coming across this:

Pet Ailse

A whole section of the Souq handed over to pets of all types and sizes, (for those of you easily offended by stuff with animals skip this section) We were looking for some monster fish (preferably meat eating) to go in the guys flat and we did come across some monsters but non with big enough teeth to scare Simon, However we did come across alot of other cool things like:

Fish in a wine glass

Teenage Ninja Terapins...on a beach

Some amazingly well trained birds!

And getting back to the whole title rabbit thing:

Yes you are seeing right those are pink and purple bunny rabbits, and rabbits in dress's not exactly the nicest thing I've ever seen but I bet they sell better than the plain ones sitting next to the them! I was pretty shocked but then again people get away with worse things here than dying a rabbit pink! There were so many cool parrots and other birds but they are just far to noisy to be worth having in a house. After not finding a killer fish we headed back through the maze and to a place called Tanjine which is a Moroccan restaurant and was really really nice! sitting outside in the lovely warm evening was just exactly how you want to eat food! Unfortunately they didn't have any camel left so I will just have to leave that for another day, I did have an amazing mountain of couscous and lamb! So now feeling stuffed to the brim and content with not sitting at home eating in all evening I'm ready for bed! Without further rambling I will leave you with some more pictures of the Souq and a really cool building that I think is the Qatar Cultural Centre (really amazing building) Goodnight.

Dinner on the roof sir?

Dunkin Doughnut lovely touch.

Cool  set of stairs

Nice building.

Qatar Cultural centre

P.S. sorry for such a massive post didn't realise how big it was getting until too late!

9 till 5.

Hey as promised some photo's of our little bit of beach, hope you like.

Regatta Sailing Academy

View from our pontoon (yes you heard me)

Some of our boats and the view along our breakwater/pontoon

The Laser fleet

View from our beach looking towards the rest of west bay.

View when we leave work every night!

Anyway I talked loads yesterday and nothing new happened today so I will leave it with the pictures enjoy.

My First Week in Doha بلدي الأسبوع الأول في الدوحة

So I've been in Doha for a week now, well a few hours under a week but close enough. I thought I would give everybody a bit of chat about how it has been and what I have been up to. But in short good and hot!

The average temperature since being here has been in the 40's and thankfully the humidity has stayed low although one day it was really high and I did find it pretty bad. Apart from that day I'm getting used to it more and more every day. The winds here have been no more than 17knots on any day which is new to me and you can predict the sea breeze almost to the second! One problem is choosing the right clothing, as its so hot outside shorts and t-shirt seems fine however you then go inside and freeze as everywhere is air conditioned, but then again its only as cold as a hot summers day in North Berwick, so you just man up.

Doha is one of the most impressive places I have been to ever, it has the amazing cross over between developing and developed, middle east and west. What I mean is you can go into a mall and right next to each other will be a massive Armani shop right next to one selling little gold trinkets. Its that mix of old and new that makes this place really cool. I love this place from an architectural view as well as some of the building designs are just amazing, especially the newer builds that have to have a stone front too them a really impressive mix of stone and glass that really works!

Sky Scrapers and Flat Top Roofs

The people are all really nice as well, if a touch impatient, sitting in a cue of traffic last night one guy sat and flashed his lights for the best part of 5 minutes with no response surely after the first few flashes you would give up but no! This seems to pass into every aspect of life not just driving which is totally crazy btw! There is no waiting for anything out at a meal last night and Liam (one of the guys I work with) had drunk maybe 3/4 of his drink and before he even put it down it was out his hand and a full one was in its place AMAZING!!!

As for work its been pretty quiet but as of tomorrow things are supposed to get really busy as Friday and Saturday are the weekend here, and then we start working with the schools on Monday and with 50+ kids in some groups its going to be busy on our little patch of the beach! We have a small building on the beach with a office, a couple of teaching area's and a workshop all of which are not air conditioned which can really test you! (I will try and get some photo's of tomorrow and get them up on my Flickr or here when I get a chance) Everybody in the team is great and the first week has flown by, with most of the time spent in fits of laughter. We have been out pretty much every night visiting the major places in Doha, City Centre, Villagio, and the Rugby club.

Sky Scrapers by night

So at the moment all is really good, and as the heat goes down things should get even better. I hope that everybody at home is well and that this hasnt been to boring, until then Goodbye and Goodnight.

p.s you read the arabic bit left to right

Goodbye UK.

You all can blame matthew if this post is terrible as I mentioned to him that I hate my writing when I get rambley and he suggested to just carry on and not worry so here you go. (a post over 2 nights)

Last night:
So its 2am what better to do than add to your blog eh? Well I was watching paranormal activity but it was getting a little intense so decided to take a break!

Its the day before I leave for my new job and all in all things are going well, I've got all my stuff ready, my tickets, and a little time to spare (or that's what I hope...) As far as good byes go I've had a few, the Friday before Kenneth left the yacht club hosted a wee party for us but as I wasn't leaving for another couple of weeks it didn't really feel like I was going anywhere as I saw most of the people the next day. This feeling of not really going anywhere has kind of stayed with me and even today the day before I leave I still feel the same. Good byes are odd, you can never really say what you have been thinking about and personally always get stuck between the okward (yet manly hug), the cool guy hand shake, and the lame guy wave. So to anybody that I didn't really have a proper goodbye with I apologize and wish you good luck and health for the next year when I will try and at least say hello if not goodbye again.

Just for a little bit of fun and to break up the writing check out these two nutters playing about over the rocks in yesterdays waves!

This evening:

No paranormal activity tonight but one heck of a load of packing! got a years supply of clothing and kit into one 90ltr bag not bad in my opinion! however I am now really awake and bored of looking at clothing so once again looking at ways to distract myself and once again the blog is the distraction. It still hasnt really hit me that I'm going away, got stopped on the street like 5 times today with people asking when I was going and then looking totally shocked when I said tomorrow and dont look panicked or excited. It really feels like tomorrow is just another day, but I do know im going its really odd feeling, a little detached from the whole thing.

So I think I will leave it there for now I will try and keep this relitavly up to date with how things are going and what amazing experiences ive been up to, I will also try and get some cool photo's of stuff, anyway good night and chat soon.

p.s. blame matt if its crap!

Things I'm about to do!

So as many of you know I am leaving for a new job halfway around the world at the end of the month. I was thinking that although Facebook is great for those short updates and a good bit of banter, it has its downfalls the major one being that the people I want to read this don't have Facebook so cant see what I'm writing. This also has the real advantage of being able to write as much as I want and not really be restricted in my rants and rambles. I didn't really know where to start so I thought I would start with my thoughts on my new job!

I'm going to Qatar which is a small country (well smaller than Scotland) in the Middle East surrounded by the Persian Gulf, who's only border is with Saudi Arabia. I will be working for a growing company called "Regatta Sailing Academy" which is based in Doha (the capital city). I'm going out to do pretty much the same roll as I have in North Berwick for the last few years (and especially this year) of lead Senior Instructor/ all round whatever needs done guy, there is one major change however SUN!!!! as the time of writing this its 33oC and about 4am in the morning. That seems like a pretty good deal to me! Along with the sun I get the opportunity to stretch my legs a little more and see some more of the world. India was just simply amazing, America was just crazy busy and a bit to much for me, I think Qatar will have that really cool mix of the traditional and modern so Im really looking forward to getting there and experiencing it!