Something I realised the other day I have become used to here in Doha... but is not "normal" in other places I have lived, is the need to hand over your ID when you go to visit friends.
Not everyone here lives in a compound, but a large majority of wester expats do, and many in quite secure ones. You drive up to a gate (sometimes after driving a zig zag course through large concrete blocks) and hand over your ID to get in.
Then you wait.
You wait for either the boom gate to go up, the gate to open, or the crash barrier to go down, or any combination of the three before you can go in !
Occasionally you don't have to hand over your id if your host has provided a printed list of everyone who is visiting (eg for a party).
Handing over your ID doesn't just apply at compounds, but at some public venues too. We like to go to the Doha Debates at Education City and you always have to hand over your ID and get a pass to get inside. You actually get in pretty quickly, but leaving can be a different matter. You all leave an event at once and everybody has to queue up to get their ID back on the way out.
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