The New Blog

Well exactly 3 months since the last post!

Yes, we are all still alive and well!!!!

With just over a week until the summer break is over I am finally going to get the new UAE blog up and running (it keeps on slipping down the list list of things to do - procrastination is a great trait). Obviously lots of photos to share and posts to complete, and I will try to keep it all as short as I can and backdate them for the past 4 months where possible.

Watch this spot - http://mandkuae.blogspot.com

Has been a bit too quiet don't you think?

Hi all,
Just to let you know we are alive and well. I have been busy getting used to the new job, city, country... and K & A have been busy getting through the remains of the last job, city and country. As of this Thursday night we will all be back together again to start the Middle Eastern experience Part 2.

Can tell you the new location is rather nice and already settling in to the job quite well... rather different than what I am used to but has many positives that make the days pass without too many dramas. I have actually been here for a month already and there are many things here that are different and that includes what we have been used to in Qatar.

Obviously we have quite a bit to share and other bits and pieces of news. Maybe I can start getting K to post next week while I am at work, but I have a feeling she will be busy recovering from the past 10 months!

Not in Kansas anymore Toto!

Well not only are we not in Kansas, but we sure aren't in Qatar either! What a contrast.

Anyway just thought I would upload a couple of photos to let you all know we are still alive and kicking. This is our 5th night in Al Ain and we are doing ok... although a bit tired and worn out. It is not an easy life staying in the Intercontinental Hotel trying to get some furniture for our new home before I actually have to start living there.

Al Ain is as green as we were told... and it is far more peaceful than Doha. It really does have a nice atmosphere about it. I have already been to the college a couple of times, sat in on some classes and met some of my future students. I have also already finished my Residence Permit process, which should come through next week sometime (VERY quick).

What to say about Al Ain! The scenery is different... the people are different... and there are A LOT of date palms... everywhere! The added bonus is Oman is just out the window (well from the hotel anyway) and we are really looking forward to exploring when K and A come back for good. They are flying back on Saturday... and no one is looking forward to that!

I suppose one of the major surprises for me anyway is just how big our new home actually is! It just makes our place in Doha look like a shoe box! Actually make that a shoe box that has been left out in the rain for a month! Added to the size of the place is the fact it is right behind the biggest mall in Al Ain... anyway no doubt we will have much more to say about the 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, the far too many doors and lights, as well as the funny little maid's quarters in the future!

We will get around to telling all, but for now we are pretty sure that the Qatar and UAE experiences will be worlds apart! So that should make for interesting reading hopefully.

Impending Travels

Well it is under a week until we head over to the UAE. We are all going over on Sunday, but unfortunately K and A will have to return the following Saturday until a replacement actually takes over from her at work, or her notice period is up (whichever comes first). I am very happy they are coming over with me, but just really wish they didn’t have to come back!

As well as being flown over to Abu Dhabi, collected from the airport and driven out to Al Ain, we are also put up in a hotel for the first 6 nights and provided a “meal allowance”. During this first week I will be taken through the Residents Permit process along with the whole settling in thing. As accommodation is more or less provided as a shell, it is up to us to go around and purchase the furnishings and electrical stuff during this first week to make it habitable. This is all done with the “relocation allowance” provided… will be nice to go on a shopping spree at someone else’s expense! After that first 6 days is up I have just over a week to prepare for the 4 courses I am taking over… SCARY!

I must say I have been impressed by HCT thus far (I know… I am not even there yet). Everything has just seemed far more organised and professional than what we experience here. Right from the time I was contacted last December when I couldn’t make it over for an interview to now, a week before departure, it has been a good experience.

Although the initial offer they made was good, I wasn’t overjoyed with my starting salary. I was informed last week that my monthly salary has already been increased two pay increments… and you have to be happy with a substantial pay rise before you even start work! At the most I know I will be working as hard as K does here, and for the higher salary, better living conditions, and environment/lifestyle we are hoping Al Ain provides, I can handle that. Even the flexibility of HCT with my start date has been good. Originally my offer was for commencement on March 11th and I really didn’t think I would be able to make it over until the beginning of the 2007/2008 academic year in August. With not much negotiation at all, we worked out a mid-semester starting date that tied in perfectly with the term break at school here in Doha. I am sure my future colleagues will be happy to pass over their increased teaching load to me when I arrive!

I don't know if I am feeling stress or excitment yet, but I am looking forward to experiencing the Emirates and actually working (... as I am sure K is). It will be good to have some sort of routine as it is far too easy fall into a rountine of not doing very much at all (but I have discovered Civilization IV can easily kill numerous hours here and there)! I think the last 7 months has made me dumb down a bit, although the Qatar experience has been very worthwhile I am pretty sure work would have made it better.

Anyway fingers crossed everything goes smoothly, and in the not too distant future there is going to be a whole other experience to share with you all! I will be starting up a UAE blog and then when we are all over in the UAE we will just leave this one as it is, but link back and forth between them. I am sure we have several thoughts and things we will want to say once removed from this environment, but that is in the future.

Cruising the ‘burbs

Language is a funny thing, and translation is never as easy as it first looks. With direct translation from one language into another there are so many aspects of meaning that can be lost. The names of the suburbs (zones or whatever you actually want to refer to them as here) are a good example. As you drive around you may go through Father Fish, New Salad or Old Salad among others (these are just the ones that come to mind). Of course these are direct translations of the words and more than likely have very little to do with the meaning of the place name … this makes me wonder how strange something like New Farm or Slade Point might sound when translating those words directly rather than the actual name.

Zig Zag Towers getting more zig-zaggy

Came home the long way to check out the progress on the Zig Zag Towers today. Can’t work out if they look impressive or just strange as yet!

hhmmmm.....

"But Ma! Do we have to move up to the top floor????"

OK... it was funny in my head for a split second! To be honest I think they are knocking it down, but around here who knows!

Parties and such…

"A" was invited to a party a Jungle Zone the other day (indoor amusement centre at Hyatt Plaza). So for a couple of hours on Saturday afternoon we entered a weird little alternative reality. The reason I say this is because it was the Birthday party you have when you are not having a Birthday party (a bit like Claytons for anyone out there that remembers that).

It gets a little confusing, but it was a Birthday party for a brother and sister, but it was neither of their Birthdays. We sang Happy Birthday several times, there were party games, and there was a huge cake… but the fact is the children spent a reasonable amount of time looking a little confused by the whole proceedings (probably because they had already had their respective Birthday parties in another time and space!

The best part was the “entertainment”, although I do use the term lightly. I am sure it has been said that one mans entertainment is another mans purgatory! As "K" has stated to various people, it resembled some weird and seedy Philippino nightclub. Proceedings began with someone in a lion suit (the Jungle Zone mascot so to speak) dancing with the children to very bad and very loud dance music (actually the same irritating song about 4 or 5 times). Next was a juggler who really was a cocktail waiter, and his act resembled the movie Cocktail complete with cocktail shakers and pretend bottles of Champagne. The “cocktail waiter” was followed by another juggler who I think was a circus performer in a previous life; he insisted on doing handstands, flips and summersaults between each bought of juggling prowess (he was actually quite good). His act was complete with a performing midget (I suppose I am suppose to say “little person” to be politically correct) who as you would imagine was the comic-relief sidekick (‘tis all a little sad if you ask me). Next was the magician who kept making one or two pigeons (I believe I counted 2, but then again I possibly was so amazed I wasn’t paying close enough attention) appear/disappear and lighting stuff on fire and turning fire into other stuff. I think he bought a good magic kit and is getting better at using it with every performance. The magician was also the DJ so by this point I was more than hoping he would make both himself and the sound system disappear!

Finally the female MC took over proceedings to host a couple of children’s games. One made sense as two kids were made to run up and down and fill a bucket with balls… simple! The next lead to a large amount of confusion as it consisted of children having to form groups of a given number on the MC’s command. Over half the kids sort of stood there and were “helped” into groups by the “cocktail waiter”, “juggler” and “bat painter”. I haven’t mentioned the “bat painter” yet, but the face painter did a little bat on the boy’s cheeks… I also think he was the guy dancing around in the lion suit earlier! Finally was a dancing competition… firstly the girls who seemed to be trying to dance and then the boys who followed each others lead and ended up standing facing the crowd of nannies (and some parents) clapping nearly in time with the music.

After all this excitement things slowed down a little with the appearance of CAKE (the big one), more renditions of Happy Birthday, Burger King for the kids, pieces of cake for all, the handing out of the gift bags, and the my favourite part… the disappearance of the sound system as everything was shuffled into the next party room ready for another “performance”; another term I use lightly!
As a side note the best part of the afternoon was seeing a woman in the full black Abaya and veil come down the flume ride alone and get wet… not because she got wet, but it looked like she was having a lot of fun… I think we did too, but our fun was far more obscure…

Kittens Arrive…

Must be that time of the year as various cats have been getting a little on the big size lately. We have been trying to keep all the cats outside and cutting down on their food leading up to our move, but on Friday night “Kitten” snuck into a box inside the house and had 3 rather cute little furry friends… We did well to keep Big Moza outside but she ended up having hers under one of our hedges! Who knows how many other kittens are around at the moment in and under things around the compound, but most of the cats are looking a little smaller than a week ago!

Wind Storm

Had the weirdest storm last night… bit of thunder, bit of lightning, and bit of rain… and for a little while HUGE winds! We awoke to various bits of roof in our and the next-door neighbours back yards! We think it has come over the back fence, but could really have come from anywhere… no one has come looking for his or her roof yet!

COUGH!

Looks like fog but believe me it is another dust storm under some grey clouds. I don't think I ever posted a photo of the "fishing pole" lights along Al Waab, but this is them... and there are a lot of them. Not particularly effective but obviously someone liked the look of them.

An update...

Well there really isn't too much going on at the moment... I think we are just through the motions a bit now and waiting (a bit impatiently now) to find out if K and A are coming with me to the UAE. We have our fingers crossed for the "family move" though as it is another of the experiences we are having over here and it is far more enjoyable for those experiences to be together! AJA are trying to find someone to replace K (who of course is irreplaceable) but whether they are successful or not, we just have to wait and see (plus there are some other issues which no doubt will come to light at a later date).

Apart from that K is still coughing her lungs out and really shouldn't be at work, but is doing parent consultations this week so can't really have a day off... yes they do parent/teacher interviews for 3-4 year olds once a term!

I still haven't confimred my leaving/arrival date as yet, as I am delaying to the last possible moment, but it is only 4 weeks away... and then off to another country! I think it is 6 weeks until I start teaching again. All very surreal really!

Our Dusty World

Everyone is coughing and spluttering at the moment… particularly K! There is so much dust around and our villa isn’t the most airtight place in the compound, so a lot of the very fine stuff makes it’s way inside one way of another. There is a constant dusty haze that hangs over our heads, so when the winds starts that dust starts swirling. Although the temperature is still really nice, it seems like we have to keep the place all closed up for the moment to try and keep some of the dust out. Will be looking forward to living in a nicer villa in Al Ain (which you can guarantee will be happening).

Anyway snapped a few piccys on the phone driving to and from school yesterday afternoon!

Didn't actually mean to have the phone set to B&W, but oh well. Sand snakes it's way across the road and you end up with little mini sand dunes in the gutters.

It’s been a long time coming!

Well it is now official… we are moving to Al Ain in the UAE. The city is about 1 ½ hours drive from both Abu Dhabi and Dubai, and is an oasis city split by the Omani border. I have taken up a position with Al Ain Men’s College, which is part of the Higher Colleges of Technology (the one that flew me to Dubai for the interview) teaching in their eBusiness program (I think it will be teaching the 3 E’s - eCommerce, eMarketing, eBusiness, and Marketing, so basically the same as what I was teaching at Griffith)… Kerry has put in her notice with AJA and hopefully they will find someone to take over her position during the break between term 2 and 3. If so we will all be going over together on about the 11th April, but if not K and A will follow me over in mid May (fingers crossed for the going over together)!

At the end of the day HCT is a good employer and it is a decent package with relocation paid; plus it is a change of scenery and yet another adventure. As I have said before we didn’t really want to pack up and leave Qatar just yet but have to go where the work is. Unfortunately the tertiary sector here is still small and seems to be a bit of a closed shop. At the end of the day it isn’t going to be that big of a change, just a bit quieter and greener, more trees and sand, and not as flat. So Emirates, here we come!

Dust Storm

We are in the middle of a dust storm today… I suppose it is what happens in a dusty country when it is windy! Visibility is very low, the world has a yellow-brown colour to it and everything is… well… DUSTY! Took a picture of the car about lunchtime… no it doesn’t normally look this dirty!

Virgin Megastore

A first for Qatar yesterday when the Virgin Megastore opened at Villagio. Might not seem like such a big deal, but seriously this is the first “proper” DVD and bookstore in the country. It is nice to be able to just go and have a look through English language books of all shapes, sizes and interests as well as being able to browse a decent selection of DVDs (all at “not bad” prices too)! Actually some of the books are cheap in comparison to Australian prices and we have already walked out of there with a couple of books for Ashur, DVDs and a Taschen art book. Makes a much-needed change from the endless sea of clothing, perfume and jewellery stores in Doha!

March Arrives!

Hi all
I know it has been a bit quiet on the M, K & A front of late. We are all doing ok and are pretty well (minus the odd cough and splutter... probably dust related). Will post more soon as have some piccys and news to share.

Villagio

Snuck a photo in Villagio today on the mobile. Just to give you an idea of the scope of this place, this is the new section that has just been opened up and the little fence you can see is actually the canal that runs down the middle, which has full sized wooden gondolas in it. There are actually only a couple of stores in this section open, and that is pretty much the same through the whole place. You can only just make out the ceiling which is painted (rather well) as a blue sky with fluffy while clouds.

They open the mall first here, and then let it slowly fill up with tenants. A little backward, but still an interesting thing to see. Unfortunately this means quite a bit of walking between shops to see what is actually there.

HCT Offer

Well HCT has made me an offer for Al Ain Men's College... nice to at least get an offer at last! More info to come...

Telephone Interviews

I have decided that I am not a fan of the telephone interview… actually I am not a fan of the interview full stop, but I think the telephone interview is definitely not my favourite.

To elaborate, I had a telephone interview with the American University of Bulgaria last night. I know! Bulgaria is a little like Qatar and doesn’t normally come to mind when people are thinking about working overseas, although most people at least have heard of Bulgaria! But the thing with this interview is there were about 6 people (I think) sitting in a room asking me questions over a speakerphone… I actually think there may have been 7 at one point. That wasn’t too bad in itself, but the line was really bad meaning I couldn’t actually hear some of what they were saying as well as some of them being very quiet (I am guessing they were further away from the microphone). All this added up to me being a little confused at the best of times and having a very sore ear due to having to squish the phone against the side of my head to hear what was being said. Added to this, the line had a nasty echo and delay playing havoc with it!

Needless to say, I haven’t heard back from them as yet. Although the interview went ok from my end, given that I probably didn’t answer the actual questions they were asking I don’t think it went so well at their end.

One thing though is I can say I had an interview with a university in Bulgaria, and that is yet another experience in itself!

New AJA Accommodation

Well after many rumours and something that I can’t quite work out, it has finally been confirmed that all AJA staff will be moving into new apartments that are currently being built next door to the school prior to the next school year beginning. This has both positives and negatives naturally.

Being close to school can be both good and bad, but with the location of the school for the time being it is mostly bad. The area the school is in is not the best and next to one major road and one over crowded substandard one – which means no doubt there will be significant road works in this area in the future… there also is really nothing in the way of shopping nearby. I guess we have been a little spoilt by our current location with regards shopping. Also it not only looks over AJA, but also backs onto the fence of the other school next door so basically if you look out your window you will see major roads or school grounds; no gardens and no balconies.

The plan does not allow enough parking for the amount of apartments, which may work out ok in the long run, but in addition to this there is no real place for children to play (unless they jump the wall and go into the school grounds – if that is allowed). The apartments look as if they may be quite nice once established, but very compact which leads to a lot of people living in close quarters. The other issue is it seems for anything to be established here it takes a little while, so once construction is finished and everyone is moved, no doubt there will be some issues initially as they are going to be very rushed.

I guess one of the final things is a no pet policy, which doesn’t help those here with pets (which there are quite a few) or the ones who have befriended cats. There is also no smoking in the apartment buildings, which is funny because there are many teachers who are driven to chain smoking (if you get my drift). There will be a little “clubhouse” within the walls, but there is very little chance you would be able to fit 200+ residents in there as it looks very small (actually the whole thing does look very small). All in all who knows!

Cats and Thunderstorms

We had a nice thunderstorm this morning. You can feel the weather slowly warming up, but it still seems the “it hardly ever rains in Doha” comments have definitely been proved to be false. More importantly what do all the cats do when it rains? Find somewhere warm and dry to curl up and sleep!

Big-Head cat and Big Moza waiting out the rain…

As I said before, it is hard not to feel the need to give these little furry friends at least some comfort for part of their lives. You can tell that some of them have either been pets, or have been treated well by someone at some point in time. Just wish they could all find nice little homes to live happy little cat lives in, but there really are just too many… even if you just look after the nice-natured ones, you still end up with a house-full! We had to chase out 5 that were sleeping in various parts of the house last night when we went to bed.

Boxed kitten ready to be sent to a good home!

More Cats

We have two new arrivals, although the little tiger-stripped cat has visited once or twice before. They have now become “Skitty-Tiger” cat and “Splotchy” cat. These two are rather cute because they are kind of small and just hang around together… the one with stripes is male and very timid and runs away every time someone or something moves. He also has a little limp, which is weird because all the tiger-stripped cats seem to have at least something wrong with one of their paws or legs. By the way, I know they aren’t really tiger stripes, but that is just what I call them. The splotchy one is a little female and very affectionate. She sort of does this pushing thing with her head when you give her scratches, so maybe she might become “dozer” or something else if she hangs around much longer. The cutest thing about these two is they snuggle up together when they sleep.

Ice Parties

Headed off the City Centre this afternoon for a little bit a retail therapy and saw something interesting while we were there.

The central part of the mall is built around the ice-skating rink and when we first arrived we saw three huge bags of balloons hanging from the roof. So naturally the thought would be that something big was going to happen. Not yet though, so we continued on our walked up and down floors and in and out of shops.

Later when we walked back past the middle we saw they had set up the rink with more balloons and put a carpet over the middle. As we watched we saw a HUGE birthday cake carried out to the middle on a table and few guys wandered around with movie cameras. Ok so there was going to be a huge birthday party on the rink? Didn’t know you could hire it out for parties since it is in such a public space, but apparently you can.

So anyway along with many others, I stood and watched (haven’t quite got the hang of lining up the panorama images on the phone’s camera yet, but you get the idea). Now my guess is that there were about 10-15 children in the middle of the rink for about a total of 15 minutes. The music at the centre was turned off as a microphone was handed around the kids and their minders to sing happy birthday (very badly and very loudly). I should also say that none of the children at the party were actually ice skating, but rather just standing around on the carpet in the middle of the rink with 100’s of onlookers.

I find all this just weird and we didn’t actually stand around to watch the huge bags of balloons dropped from the roof. Extravagance is pretty normal for children here, and it seems that parents like to try to outdo each other when it comes to this type of thing. I must say though I think this is one of the strangest and most conspicuous ones I have seen.

When things go bang!

Apparently the water pump blew this morning… actually didn’t know it was the water pump at all, but rather thought it must have just been a fuse. Kerry was on the phone and everything just went dead after she heard a “pop” sound coming from the box on the wall in the entrance foyer. After a little bit of work and an hour or so, we were told everything was fixed (translation being “we have patched things up and call us next time something blows up”). I went outside and saw a shiny new water pump, so the power of deduction tells us that was the problem as we have power once again!

Something Dead In Our Drain…

Well maybe not something dead, but it sure was stinky! To elaborate…

Last night our main bathroom flooded. Seems that the drain was backed up so when to plug was pulled on the bath, instead of the water heading on a journey down the drain it came up through the hole in the middle of the bathroom floor (I should say this hole is actually another drain and not just some “hole” in the floor). Anyway we called the plumber type guy who came around and unflooded the bathroom… he also left by saying “oohhhh big problem” and that he would be back in the morning.

It turns out the “big problem” really wasn’t all that big… As I had to help all I know is what came out of the drain outside looked like hair, toilet paper and pooh in the shape of a dead cat! Now I am not saying it was a cat… but was shaped like one and sure didn’t smell pretty. Anyway the drain is now unblocked, the bathroom is no longer flooding, and whatever it was in the drain is no longer there… and that has to be a good thing! I think I would have rather been trying to control a class of 20 kids screaming and running around than help with the drain though!

Big-Head Cat

Well after not being around lately “Big-Head” cat has made his return. Although he looks very beaten up and like he has had a hard couple of months, he still loves to flop on the floor or a lap and have roll around.

Also saw one of the “hillbilly cats’ yesterday… don’t know where “overbite cat” is but “cross-eyed cat” is still passing along the fence with it’s banjo on it’s back at least once or twice a day. Duelling banjos along with the call to prayer is something to behold!

Post #100

Well maybe not a very impressive post but it is still number 100!

An explanation of cats...

On any given day we are visited by any number of cats as I have mentioned before. Their relationships differ as does our relationship to them, but they all have names of some form, which we have bestowed on them for various reasons. Many of them make their way inside for whatever reason they see fit, some we can touch, and others are a bit scary… but they are among the cats of Doha and they like the cat food and milk we put outside for them. All the cats live outside and are just visitors, as we are here.

Our first visitors after our arrival were “mummy cat” & “kitten”. As you would have seen previously “kitten” has become a fixture of our home and can be an affectionate little thing (although it is slowly outgrowing it’s “kitten” status). She plays, sleeps, and generally just hangs around most of the time. Mummy Cat on the other hand has only just started coming inside for the occasional nap and pat… she also only has a stumpy tail; don’t know what happened to the rest of it. Both of them still head off together, but “kitten” normally returns far more frequently than “mummy cat” does; she normally announces her return by jumping off the roof onto the window sill via the air conditioning unit (which makes a load thumping-kind-of-crashing sound).

Next is “big moza” formally known as “moza 2”), who sort of just turned up a few months ago. She is never too far away and often sleeps on one of the dinning table chairs in the evening. She likes a pat, reluctantly puts up with “kitten” but is not really friends with “mummy cat”… they sort of give each other a wide berth as the pass (or some times just sit there facing each other sounding not particularly happy with their world). She is one of the few fluffy cats you see around here, as most have short smooth coats.

pretty cat

The other two regular visitors are “moza” (formally “moza 1”) and “pretty cat”. We think these two must be sisters (although they don’t look alike), as they don’t really have a space issues between them and eat together out of one bowl. They also turned up together not long after we arrived, but both are still very skitty so only venture inside for a walk and sniff around then head straight back outside. “Pretty cat”, who actually vanished for about a month but is now back, is so-called because she is a very pretty and fluffy cat. We can’t touch either of these two at all!

big moza & moza

The story behind the “moza” name is based on a little girl at Kerry’s work who once said “I have nose. It’s dirty”. Both the moza’s have black on their noses, hence their name. “Big moza” is fluffier and bigger than the other “moza” plus has a white stripe down it’s back… so if we had put more time and effort into naming (which you should have guessed by now, we didn’t) it’s name would have probably been something more skunky! Don’t know if the two moza’s are related, but they seem to tolerate each other better than some of the others.

There is also the “skitty cat” that turns up normally once a day, and is very skitty! She hides under the chairs out the back, eats and drinks, then runs away.

skitty cat

There are also some male cats around, but they obviously give each other a pretty wide berth. The female cats don’t really have a problem with the male cats and basically ignore them for the majority of the time. There is “male moza” who I think is possibly the moza’s dad as he has very similar markings. There is also “ugly cat” who I think may be the dominant male and possibly the father to both “mummy cat” and “kitten”. He really isn’t ugly, but just very solid and beaten up. There are others that we only see now and then. “Big-head cat” is a young male who kind of has the whole big Garfield head thing going on… he is looking a bit beaten up lately and has only been around once in the past few weeks. I picked him up one night and brought him inside, and he just flopped on Kerry’s lap… very nice natured cat but I think when he was beaten up once too often by one of the other males and has now been scared off. There is also “tiger cat” who sort of has tiger stripes, is another nice-natured big male who loves a pat, but he has only been around once in the past month and now has a pretty badly damaged foot. We also had another kitten with a damaged foot visit us for a few days, but that was has now disappeared.

male moza

Finally are the hillbilly cats. There is a male and female who we see on the top of the back fence (I have yet to see them in our backyard)… the reason they are the hillbilly cats is the male has what looks like an overbite (or at least a big bottom lip) and the female looks cross eyed, so they both look like the bad result of a little bit too much inbreeding!

If you think that is a lot, they are just the ones that visit our backyard. You can drive through the compound or on the surrounding roads and see others who obviously have their little area they stick to… all of them look related to at least one or two of the ones that visit us.

At the end of the day you can’t look after these cats too much… this is not the place to be if you feel the need to take in strays otherwise your house would be full in a week! It is hard not to get attached to our little furry friends though and our evenings would not be the same if we didn’t look over and see at least one of them asleep somewhere.

Qatar – If the weather or roads don’t get you, the washing machine will!

Our washing machine continues to vibrate violently and make it’s own way around the kitchen hunting for prey (I think cat or child)… well, as far as the cords coming out of the back will let it. The back cover flies off every time it is put back on and it’s spin cycle is the source of great entertainment for all of us… especially Ashur, who while scared of it also obsessively sits and watches every spin cycle he can! He is actually very taken with the front-loading washing machines and air conditioning units here. He seems on a mission to draw the perfect air conditioner (which he is getting very good at), and each trip to Carrefour includes a visit (often by himself) to the washing machines and air conditioners. It has become such a regular occurrence that the men who work in that section of the hypermarket talk to him and discuss the finer points of front loading machines and air conditioning units on each visit.

Getting back to our machine… it has been fixed, but one thing you learn here is things really don’t seem to get fixed very often but rather are patched up. So until such time as the thing actually blows up or stops working, it will continued to be patched… and fair enough too I say as I don’t think life would be the same without it!

Home looking homely...

I have been playing around with the camera on the phone and worked out it does little panorama photos. Unfortunately for some reason only known to someone else, we can't send or receive international MMS messages so we can't send any photos directly to your mobiles (but we can send and receive international SMS messages). Added to this, the photos that come off the camera aren't the best when you see them off the phone (but they will do for those times when we don't have the camera with us).

Anyway here is home looking homely this morning...

The weather thingy!

I have noticed that the weather thing on the right sidebar of this page is normally out. I know this morning it says "clear" but our weather has turned weird once again. We actually had a big thunderstorm last night, which was a "just like in Brisbane" moment... today it is cold and grey... no clear skies that is for sure!

We were small, but we were there!

Not the best but looks far better on our computer than it does when posted. Unfortunately the images will not come through as clickable! I know, it is a "you had to be there" kind of thing... but thought I would post these anyway.

Off to Dubai… for the day!

Went to Dubai for my interview with HCT today. It was an early morning to get everyone off to school and me to the airport on time. The departures area at Doha is actually not too bad once you get through security into the “passengers only” area where you go through check-in then passport control. Saw the duty free shop which is actually pretty big, but to be honest the prices are not that different from what you get in town (but it was a little strange to see alcohol on the shelves). The flight was delayed a little so instead of leaving at 7.55 it was scheduled to leave at 8:15am. That would have been ok, but we actually ended up sitting in the plane for at least an hour and didn’t take off until after 9am! I just think I am destined not to have a good experience with Qatar Airways!

Did see The Pearl from the air as we were climbing though, and it does look very impressive! I think we flew all the way across the Gulf as I could see land on the left side of the plane, which I was guessing was more than likely Iran and then came in over Sharjah, which looked pretty big… but I was on the wrong side of the plane to see much of Dubai. The land did look a little different with not so much rock and rubble as there is in Qatar, but rather undulating sandy looking ground with bushes everywhere… plus you could actually see some hills in the distance that was a change from the flatness of home. Once through passport control and security it was already about 11:20, so jumped into a taxi to go straight to Dubai Women’s College as my interview was scheduled for 12.

Impressions of this part of Dubai was it is a lot bigger than I thought as the college is quite close to the airport on the map, but it seemed to take about 20 minutes to get there. Everything looked similar to Doha, but more finished… so even though I could see cranes and building everywhere (plus the top of a few huge high-rises in the middle of the city) and the roads all looked finished and clean… and BIG!

Dubai Women’s College was very nice and new looking… the security at the gate welcomed “Mr Michael” and handed over a visitors pass… the reception area also welcomed “Mr Michael” and another security guard showed me where I needed to go. I was greeted by two of the heads of two of the business departments and the interview went as interviews go… it was video taped as well which made me feel rather self conscious. Can’t really say anything more specific about how it went because I really don’t know… I was asked questions; we discussed some things and so on. After the interview I was taken upstairs where I was introduced to some of the DWC staff and got to talk to the supervisor of the eBusiness program there which was informative, and then talked to another staff member from the business department. Both were rather open in their conversations and answering my questions, which was a good thing, and it seems like a good working environment with some good courses in place. From my understanding HCT falls somewhere between TAFE and Uni, being more focused on vocational education but also providing undergraduate degrees.

The process is quite complicated as the interview is just one step. Next the interviewing panel sends their recommendations along with my videotape to central recruiting services. Then I have to be recommended further by one of the colleges if I was deemed to have “passed” the interview. The business supervisors can read the recommendations and view my interview, and then recommend me for a position at any of the colleges… all a bit confusing, but I guess the one thing I do know at the moment is I am one step further along in the process.

By the time I waited for a taxi I didn’t actually leave DWC until about 2:30 so had to head straight back to the airport. Tried to call home several times but even though the roaming on the phone was working; apparently you can’t call from the UAE to Qatar… who knows, but maybe it needs to be set up before you leave or something! Once through the security check into the “passengers only” area I went through check-in and then passport control yet again… one thing I noticed about both the Doha and Dubai airports, that unless you are a passenger they look very small and you really don’t get to see anything at all!

I had a look around Dubai Duty Free, which is as big as you would imagine and bought a couple of pressies to take home with me. The prices once again really aren’t too different from in Doha, but I guess the whole “duty free” thing is aimed at travellers who don’t get these prices everyday. Another thing I noticed was the huge display of Fosters in the duty free section for both incoming and outgoing passengers!

Anyway flight home took about 40 minutes and saw the river (or whatever it is) and port at Dubai on the way out but not much else. Crossing the water I saw what I at first thought where groups of fishing boats with very bright lights, but then worked out they were the oil and gas platforms… and there were a lot of them! Anyway once through passport control and security one last time I was home again… a very long day with over 6 hours of it spent either in planes or at airports… and what did I see of Dubai? Well really nothing apart from the most cranes I have ever seen in one place, some very nice buildings and some very big roads with lots of traffic, but of course that is probably more or less all anyone sees in Dubai on a daily basis anyway. But next time we will all go and make sure we have time and money to experience what Dubai really has to offer!

Qatar Exit Permits

Ok so while I have posted our experience I just thought it may be useful to post a little more information in case anyone tries to do a Google search or something the same as I did… maybe it will come up, maybe it wont.

Qatar Exit Permit – All those with a Residents Visa need an Exit Permit to leave Qatar, which must be approved by your sponsor. If you are under a Work Visa your employer has a process in place, which includes handing over an internal application for an exit permit along with your passport a few days prior to leaving the country. Apparently most require a confirmed booking to do this. They then take care of the rest and return your passport to you prior to your departure date. If you are under a Family Visa you only need an Exit Permit if you are a Husband (or I think male child over 16, but not 100% sure about this one). The easiest way to do it is either online (but the online form on the MOI Website is only in Arabic), or to just go out to the immigration office next to the airport (first left and then left again after the airport heading into town along Old Airport Rd) with your sponsor who can sign the form on the spot. The actual forms at the immigration office are in both English and Arabic, so hopefully the one online will be the same in the near future!

The reason for the Exit Permit is (from what I understand) so that those who are under residency visas do not just leave the country leaving money owing, breaking employment contracts etc. I am guessing the reason why husbands (but not other dependents) under family sponsorship need one is for similar reasons, and possibly that if the male of the household leaves the country there is more chance the wife may follow.

Of course there is one problem with all this… there is nothing that I can see that would stop you from getting a return ticket and Exit Permit to fly to somewhere nearby, then booking a flight home from there… but maybe I am wrong.

The "yes, you can catch your flight" permit

Well we did find out that Kerry could come to the airport with me the day before I was flying out to sign something, which I assume was an Exit Permit. So after school today we headed out to Doha International to see what we could do!

Firstly went to the departures area to discover that most of it was a “passengers only” area, so went to the information counter who sent us on to the Qatar Airways room, who then sent us to the arrivals lounge… same building but out the door, up the road a little, and then in another door. In the arrivals terminal we found a sign that said “Immigration’, so followed that upstairs to a closed door with an Arabic sign above it. We did get some information from someone helpful in another office though who told us the immigration office was only open until 2pm, but there was another immigration office next to the airport and if we couldn't come back at 7:30am in the morning, they could help us because they are open 24 hours.

So we got back in the car, left the airport and went down the road to the first big white building (which actually IS right next to the airport, but not very well signed and quite easy to miss). After lining up the guy behind the counter filled in the form which Kerry then signed and gave back a little printed sheet of paper… we can only assume this was the Exit Permit!

Not really that much of a hassle to be honest IF we had been told that was all we needed to do when we asked, but by now we are getting accustom to receiving partly correct information and then making the rest up as we go… this seems to end in the correct result most of the time!

Asian Games Ceremonies DVD

They released a 3 DVD set of the Opening and Closing Ceremonies from the Asian Games today. Packaging could be better as it is just in a normal DVD case and there really isn't anything on it that you could really call "special features", plus it isn't cheap! But anyway we bought a copy and have seen the closing ceremony... I think what we saw in person was far more impressive than it looks in the telecast. The scope of the whole thing isn't really shown and the colours don't look anywhere as good as they did in person. But we did do some slow motion to see if we could see ourselves, which we think we can at least once (although no closeups)... but there is a shot from above where you see the 2 laterns K and A where waving which is a bit cute... of course very hard for us to show you, but maybe I can get a still image from it and circle us or something in the future!

Job Interview

Well I finally have my first proper job interview this Thursday… in the UAE!

This is the second time I have been invited to an interview with the Higher Colleges of Technology; the last one was scheduled for 13/12/06 in Ras Al Khaimah (one of the smaller Emirates) and we just couldn’t afford for me to fly over.

This has been a little bit of a saga as originally this interview was going to be done via teleconference, as HCT are unable to set up a videoconference between Qatar and the UAE (I actually don’t know why). Then we found out that a teleconference does not replace the face-to-face or videoconference interviewing process… I guess they need to see the whites of my eyes. The problem once again was that we just didn’t have the cash available to pay for the flight upfront so this time around they have provided me with a return ticket so no reason not to go, plus they will reimburse incidentals.

The issue now has been finding out about the Exit Permit that is needed to leave Qatar. This is a continuing saga that started with me needing one, then not needing one as I am under Kerry’s sponsorship (Family Resident Visa rather than a Work Resident Visa). Now what we were told has changed again, and apparently the only dependents that require one are husbands under their wives sponsorship. At this stage the only thing we have been told is that Kerry needs to accompany me to the airport on the day of my departure… beyond that, who knows. Hopefully we will find out something a bit more detailed (or an alternative) today.

So regardless of the Exit Permit (which we will get one way or another), this Thursday I am going to Dubai for 7 hours… yet another adventure!

We now have mobile technology!

Due to the impending travel (see next post) we decided it would be a good idea to bite the bullet and finally get a mobile phone. Added to this is the fact that potentially we are the only people living in Qatar without one as we continue to get strange looks every time we are asked for our mobile number and reply “we don’t have one”. We had already purchased a SIM card as Qtel are having a ½ price sale during January, so we thought we better get one while they are cheap; QR 100 (instead of the usual 200) and you get QR 100 credit with that. A bit of a bargain!

We actually went to Carrefour yesterday and came away with a Motorola for QR 499, but after bringing it home and charging it up, we discovered the screen didn’t work. This morning we took it back... they played around with it and discovered the same as us… that it didn’t work… and gave us a refund. So today we came home with a Sony Ericsson w300i for QR 650 (about $AU220)… and it works! Of course the only problem now is that our old mobile has died… the Optus SIM card is no longer registered so we can’t access any of the numbers that were stored on it!

But anyway we now have a mobile with about 6 numbers in it… at least we wont be getting anymore strange looks when asked for our contact details!

15th Asian Games Closing Ceremony

OK........ so it has taken a while to finally get this up, but here are some of the photos from the closing ceremony. I think it has taken so long because it was an experience that had to be experienced, rather than something that is easily put into words (maybe they will release a DVD).

The flames burn on...

Maybe the right words to do justice to the ceremony will come at some point in time, but for now the images will have to do.

The Emir arrives to much flag waving!

The first 1/2 of the ceremony was inspired from the stories of 1001 Arabian Nights and the whole thing went for about 3 hours... so this is just a very small selection of images!

The Sands of Time
…a magic carpet ride through the closing ceremony

The Flame is Passed On
…the symbolic passing of the Flame to the Arab merchants of the caravan

Haroun Al-Rashid and the Darawish

Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves

Sinbad the Sailor

Aladdin and His Marvellous Lamp

The Dance of Lights

Entrance of the Athletes of the 15th Asian Games Doha 2006 - The Land of the Oryx

Salute to the Games

Fireworks begin...

Hopefully these images are clickable, but it seems some are and others aren't without me actually doing anything to the settings!