Sunday, November 25, 2007

Points for money

So the newspaper headline says,

POINTS SYSTEM PUTS CAR RENTAL FIRMS IN A FIX
(click to read full article which will open in new window)

and then goes on to explain how the new traffic rules in Doha are impacting rental car companies. Driving offences now carry fines and penalty points on your license. Rental car companies are able to pass on the fine to their customers, but not the points. Most renters are foreign yet somehow, the Traffic Dept requires that points be assigned otherwise the car in question cannot have its road permit renewed.

So here is the ..... I can't believe it ..... solution!!!!

The car rental company finds local drivers who are willing, for a fee, to take the points (the blame) on their license!

Given the small number of people in Qatar, and the growing number of visitors, here's hoping a proper solution gets worked out before these not guilty local drivers rack up too many points!

ps. I wonder how much they get paid!

Thursday, November 22, 2007

Thanksgiving... or Christmas!

Shopping this morning for last minute things for our Thanksgiving turkey dinner and lo and behold there is Christmas music playing over the loudspeaker! So even in Doha Christmas comes early.



I have actually been quite surprised at the amount of Christmas decorations around everywhere, candy canes, Santa claus's and even fake Christmas trees. Can't say that I find any nativity scenes available - just all the commercial, non-religious Christmas stuff everywhere!

Monday, November 19, 2007

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's...

We had the privilege to see the UK Red Arrows fly over the Corniche today. They put on quite an aerial display for about a 1/2 hour. As you can see, they buzzed right past the Sheraton and inserted a bit of colour into the sky.


Yesterday, we saw the Formula 1 racing boats.

And last week we saw the French stunt planes. So othere has been a lot of very fast things making a lot of noise all around the Corniche! I wonder what next week will bring?!

Monday, November 12, 2007

Strange headlines

This was the headline of an article in a local (English language) Qatar paper...

EXPATS ALLOWED TO ASK QUESTIONS AT WORKSHOP ON HUMAN RIGHTS
(click to read full article which will open in new window)

I was curious (and scared) to think that it was newsworthy for expats to be allowed to ask questions!

The article itself is about a "two-day workshop ....on ‘Promoting Human Rights Culture in Qatari Society'." and has little to do with expats being allowed to ask questions! I have seen this before where headline and story don't exactly match. I'll try and find some more!

Where did everything go?

I woke up this morning to a world that had disappeared. At 6:45am there was fog everywhere, and I couldn't see a thing out my window. I live in west bay and normally I can see the ritz carlton, but now I couldn't see across the street.



Surprisingly, some of the tall buildings near city centre were sticking up above the fog, so it looks like there were about 20 stories worth of fog covering part of Doha.

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Not quite full serve / almost full circle

As a kid growing up in California, I remember full service gas stations. A nice man (it was always a man) would fill your car up with gas and clean your front and rear windows. Sometimes they would even check your oil. By the time I was a teenager, it was definitely a pump your own world. Gas was still cheap - around $1 a gallon.

Then I moved to Australia, learned to call it petrol, still pumped my own but paid AUD $0.80 a litre. Then I moved to UK, still pumped my own and paid GBP £0.80 a litre! (that is roughly US$ 6.50 a gallon)

Now in Qatar, there is again a nice man who fills my car up with gas but doesn't do windows or check the oil and I pay 0.80 Qatari Rials a litre (about US$ 0.85 a gallon).

Drive thru banking...



As I have mentioned, Doha is hot. Even now that is almost November it is still 31°C (88°F). So you don't want to get out of your air conditioned car if you don't have to. Hence the multitude of drive through ATM's. These are scattered all over town and the screens are angled to make it easier for drivers. I have yet to master the approach and usually have to open my door and lean out quite a ways to reach the buttons but give me a few more years and I am sure I'll be an expert!

Where did all the cold water go!

In summer, cold water comes at a premium in Doha!

The only way to get it at this time of year is to refrigerate it.

The "cold" water for your home comes from a tank that sits outside with direct sun shining on it all day long.




So as a result the water that comes out is even warmer than luke warm. For a kids bath, you don't need to put any hot in and sometimes you even need to let it cool a bit for the youngest ones!

It does take some getting used to. The biggest adjustments for me are brushing your teeth with hot water, and getting a warm backside from the toilet! In public places, where there is higher "bathroom" usage, you can actually feel the cistern behind you is very hot! Quite strange. Fortunately at home the water normally has a chance to cool down a bit between flushes!

The swimming pools are funny too. You can tell how "up market" your pool is if they actually go to the expense of refrigerating the water before pumping it in. No need for pools to be heated here, you have to use electricity to cool them down!

Recycling... or lack thereof

In London we were very good at recycling. Before we had door stop recycling, we would walk down to the local bins and put in our paper, plastic, cans etc... Then it got even easier and we could leave all our recycling in a special bag outside our door and it would be picked up by the council and recycled. And while we lived in an apartment and couldn't compost, we used a waste disposal unit and felt good that our organic waste wasn't wrapped up in plastic bags in a dump somewhere. Now we can't seem to recycle anything!

I am told that our new home country is just too small population wise to warrant building facilities here and it is too costly to ship recyclables to a facility. So after training the kids what to throw in the bin and what to recycle, it now all goes into one bag and off to the landfill it goes.

If any one has any tips, suggestions... this is one area where I feel like some sort of progress should be made

Energy use and air conditioning

We arrived during the Qatari summer. With temperatures up to 50 degrees celcius (122° Farenheit), you are grateful that pretty much everything is air conditioned. However, with all the talk about global warming, the needing to conserve energy etc.. I often feel guilty about leaving the air con on 24/7 but it get so hot so quickly you normally do.

So when we went away on holiday for four weeks, I figured there was no point in keeping all the air con units on (we have six) so I turned of a couple of them and turned the temperature up on the rest. I figured leaving all the internal doors open would allow enough airflow moving around.

Much to my chagrin I found out why people in this part of the world keep their air con on all the time - even when they are away on holiday!

Mould! Two of the rooms where I turned the air con off had lots of things covered in the stuff. From shoes, to empty back packs, luggage, children's car seats, and lots and lots of clothes. What a mess. So the energy saver in me has had to concede that saving on air conditioning just isn't the way to go. (I still turn off the lights when I leave a room though!) :-)

Monday, October 29, 2007

Starting over

After 9 years of living in London, our family (me, husband, two kids) moved from the centre of a very busy city, with lots of trees, parks and public transport.... to Doha.

I am not qualified to comment on all the details of what is truly going on in Doha as my life here is primarily restricted to living in what I call an expat bubble. But I do want to share with you my observations on life here.

Previously I have lived and worked in the UK, US and Australia and have travelled to a great many countries. When asked where I consider home, I always reply that it is where I am living at the moment as in my heart I have many places to call home. I do not know where I will eventually end up "settling down". For the moment, my family and I are enjoying our continuing adventure and I hope to share a bit of it with you.