Here There and Everywhere

Expat wanderer

Hotel Suq al Waqif Ramadan Offering

Ramadan Kareem from Hotel Souq Waqif!

As the Muslim world celebrates the holy month of Ramadan, Almaharah Seafood Restaurant commemorate with the holy festivity.

Come and be our guest as Almaharah Seafood Restaurant offers a special and unique buffet meal that will surely make your visit memorable.

For inquiries you can call 441-5959 or see the attached for additional information.

WaqifSeafood

August 21, 2009 Posted by | Doha, Eating Out, Entertainment, ExPat Life, Food, Living Conditions, Marketing, Qatar, Ramadan | 3 Comments

Breakfast at the Beirut Restaurant, Suq al Waqif, Doha

“We want to take you for breakfast at the Beirut!” my friend said with enthusiasm, and I was shocked. She is totally covered. How could we eat at the Beirut? I remember her family loves the Beirut, and I remember lining up with all the other cars along Shar’aa al Karaba’a to buy felafel and foul and hummos, yes, oh yes, such good felafel. But it wasn’t really a place for ladies, especially covered ladies and their daughters.

As is usual with this friend, I never really have the complete picture. When my niece and I go to pick up my friend and her daughter, it is actually my friend and three daughters and we squeeze into my car and head – not to Karaba’a, but to the Suq al Waqif!

When I go to park in one of the new, tiny, narrow little parking spots, my friend laughs and says “You park like an American! I am going to show you how to park like us!” and she points to the one tree off in an unpaved area, and sure enough, there is one spot, not in the shade of the tree but in the shade of a large truck parked in the shade of the tree. “Now you are learning to park like we do!” she laughs, and I laugh too, I am always learning something from this friend.

We walk a short distance and she leads me into a restaurant which on the outside says Matam Beiroot, but it’s in Arabic. If you are walking from the upper parking lot, it is one of the very first buildings you come to, at the top of the street.

Inside, there are all kinds of tables and chairs, but my friend and her daughters lead us upstairs to the family section, where we sit off in the corner, so she and her daughters can sit with their backs to other customers while we eat. We are a strange group, two women covered head to toe, two younger girls in hijab, my blue-eyed-blonde niece and me, laughing and enjoying each other so much in the corner.

Since then, I have been back many times. The Beirut is a lot of fun for breakfast. They have wonderful felafel, and several different great hummos, and they have beans and the ubiquitous french fries, and tea. Grammy and I grabbed a quick bite there on our trip to the Suqs.

I really am so bad at remembering to take photos. This is where the felafel used to be, before we dipped them in the lemon juice and gobbled them all up:

00Wherethe FelafelUsedToBe

here is what is left of the hummos:

00Hummos

And here is the traditional style ceiling with traditional style light fixtures:

00BeirutCeiling

August 16, 2009 Posted by | Adventure, Cross Cultural, Doha, Eating Out, Entertainment, ExPat Life, Food, Friends & Friendship, Living Conditions, Qatar, Women's Issues | 6 Comments

Vietnamese Salad Rolls (Woo HOO on ME!)

00VietnameseSaladRolls

OK. They may not look like much to you, but these are my very first Vietnamese Salad Rolls, one of my favorite eats in the whole world.

And I am giving myself a BIG WOOO HOO for doing them.

You all think I am much braver and more experimental than I really am. I have loved these for probably 15 years, but on my own I could never figure out how to make them, and I really didn’t want to try. I told myself I couldn’t get all the ingredients, anyway.

“Oh yes!” said my French friend, mistress of the kitchen, nothing she couldn’t do, and she invited us for dinner and the first course was Vietnamese Salad Rolls, made in her own kitchen. “They have the rice wrappers at all the Phillipino stores in Kuwait.”

Who knew? My French friend knew ALL these little secrets.

She carefully explained how to make them, but my mind shut down when she said “There is one part that is a little tricky – the rice wrapper has to soak for ONE SECOND in a pan of hot water, but only one second!” To me, that sounded very scary and daunting.

Then she gave me two packages of the wrappers.

I took them out now and then and read the instructions and put them back in the cupboard. I even shipped them from Kuwait to Doha with me. I read detailed instructions on the internet. I printed some out.

Yesterday, I found more wrappers at the MegaMart and bought two packages and now, with plenty of back up and with an unanticipated energy and hopefulness, I thought “why not give it a try tonight?”

The secret to making these is to have everything ready in advance – a bowl of cooked shrimp, sliced in half down the spine (so both halves look like a shrimp), a bowl of basil leaves, a bowl of mint leaves, a bowl of chopped parsley, a bowl of thinly sliced lettuce, a bowl of julienned carrots, a package of the rice wrappers, the cooked vermicelli in a strainer (it stays flexible because these go together fairly fast) and a flat round pan of hot water to soften the rice wrappers.

Once you have the ingredients assembled, the assembly – which for some reason was the part that daunted me – goes fairly easily and rapidly. If you soak the thin, brittle wrapper for exactly one and a half seconds, and lay it on a cutting board, it becomes very flexible and exactly the right texture. I started 3 inches from the top with the shrimp, then lay the rest of the ingredients in a row vertically, but almost on top of each other. Then I pulled the bottom up over the ingredients and tucked it in – not too tightly, but very snugly, folded in the sides, then wrapped the top over the already-rolled up section, and wow – a salad roll!

Vietnamese Salad Rolls

INGREDIENTS
• 2 ounces rice vermicelli
• 8 rice wrappers (8.5 inch diameter)
• 8 large cooked shrimp – peeled, deveined and cut in half
• 1 1/3 tablespoons chopped fresh Thai basil
• 3 tablespoons chopped fresh mint leaves
• 3 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
• 2 leaves lettuce, chopped
•  
• 4 teaspoons fish sauce
• 1/4 cup water
• 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 2 tablespoons white sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic chili sauce
• 3 tablespoons hoisin sauce
• 1 teaspoon finely chopped peanuts

DIRECTIONS
1. Bring a medium saucepan of water to boil. Boil rice vermicelli 3 to 5 minutes, or until al dente, and drain.

2. Fill a large bowl with warm water. Dip one wrapper into the hot water for 1 second to soften. Lay wrapper flat. In a row across the center, place 2 shrimp halves, a handful of vermicelli, basil, mint, cilantro and lettuce, leaving about 2 inches uncovered on each side. Fold uncovered sides inward, then tightly roll the wrapper, beginning at the end with the lettuce. Repeat with remaining ingredients.

3. In a small bowl, mix the fish sauce, water, lime juice, garlic, sugar and chili sauce.

4. In another small bowl, mix the hoisin sauce and peanuts.

5. Serve rolled spring rolls with the fish sauce and hoisin sauce mixtures.

FOOTNOTE
• The fish sauce, rice vermicelli, chili garlic sauce, hoisin sauce and rice wrappers can be found at Asian food markets.

These are so fresh-tasting and light, perfect for a hot summer evening, perfect for a special Ramadan breaking-the-fast appetizer. Once the rolls are made, seal them on a plate under a couple layers of saran-type wrap to keep the wrappers from drying out. You can make them a couple hours in advance and wrap them good and store them in the refrigerator; they keep well for a couple hours. Don’t make more than you can eat the same day; they don’t keep well overnight.

The recipe above uses a different sauce than we use. The Vietnamese in France use this sauce, which is more of a vinaigrette, but the Vietnamese in Seattle and in St. Petersburg, Florida, use a peanut sauce:

1/2 cup peanut butter
2 Tbs Thai sweet chili sauce (sometimes called chili pepper sauce for chicken) it is that thick, sticky sweet orange-y red sauce with pepper flakes in it)
2 Tbs soy sauce
2 Tbs rice vinegar
1 Tbs sugar
1 Tsp finely chopped ginger
1 Tbs tahina

Cook one minute in microwave and stir until all the peanut butter is dissolved. Then add liquid – can be water or orange juice or pomegranate juice or chicken broth or sake (!) to thin to a thick salad dressing consistency.

AdventureMan was so amazed and delighted when he came home and saw I had been able to make these all by myself! I am so amazed and delighted that I can do it! Wooo HOOOOOOO! We didn’t eat them as an appetizer; we like them so much, we ate them as the main course, with some finger-food veggies – snow peas and carrots – as side dishes.

August 13, 2009 Posted by | Adventure, Cooking, Doha, ExPat Life, Food, Friends & Friendship, Kuwait, Living Conditions, Recipes, Shopping | 8 Comments

Beijing Restaurant near Ramada Hotel, Doha

When we were in Doha the last time, our favorite Chinese restaurant was the Gulf Royal, a quirky second floor restaurant that delivered, but first, you had to visit the restaurant and get in their book. The book was names and addresses of all the families in Doha who liked Chinese food – and maps to their houses. Total hoot! We drew our map, and then looked through, laughing at how many of the names we knew.

Gulf Royal disappeared during a huge street re-do back behind Al Saad, and now, a new building is there, maybe the fencing club, and the Gulf Royal is no longer.

Never mind. After searching through The Qaterliving.com website I knew that the place to go was the Beijing, a restaurant we had tried once or twice before, but somehow, had drifted on to others.

Get there before 7 is the first rule. If you get there after 7:30, all the tables are packed, all the parking spots taken. The restaurant if full and people are waiting to be seated.

We had an excellent chicken Kung Pao, and a good shrimps with black bean sauce. The shrimp were plentiful and perfectly cooked, we just prefer a little more black bean taste, but next time we will know to ask. And the Beijing DELIVERS!

This is how you get there:
00BeijingLocation

Here are the hours:
00BeijingChineseMenu&Hours

And here is part of the menu – there is more!
00BeijingMenu1

00BeijingMenu2

The waiters and waitresses speak good English. One of our dishes, we got the wrong dish, and sent it back. The waitress came back and asked if we still wanted our original dish (the kitchen had gotten very busy) or if we wanted it taken off our order. By that point we were full, and asked to have it taken off our order.

We saw lots of delicious and sizzling dinners go by as we were waiting and as we were eating. We will be going back to try some of them, too.

August 9, 2009 Posted by | Doha, Eating Out, ExPat Life, Food, Living Conditions, Qatar | 9 Comments

Amjad Thai Snack on Merqab al Jedeed

AdventueMan and I have different preferences dining out. Actually, I don’t even care that much to go out, I totally loved Kuwait’s system, everything and anything can be delivered. That worked for me! AdventureMan likes to go out, sit, enjoy his dinner, have a relaxing experience.

He doesn’t like Amjad Thai Snack, but he does agree with me that the food is outstanding. Our agreement is this – If I go get the food, he will gladly eat it, but he doesn’t want to go there.

00ThaiSnackExterior

The food is amazing. The place is a dive.

Six years ago, Thai Snack was just that – a few tables and chairs outside a Thai Massage Parlor on Merqab, closer to the C Ring Circle than the D Ring. It used to be you always knew where it was because they had these neon signs of massages. One of the massage signs started out slow and got faster and faster and then when WOW! POP! Sparkles-all-over! We would take people down to watch the signs at night, they were so funny. Finally, I am guessing someone else figured out that they had ambiguous sexual overtones, and the neon signs are no longer there.

I think the massage parlor is still there, but the success of Amjad Thai Snack has just grown and grown. It grew to one inside serving room, then two, then three. It’s nothing fancy. No tablecloths, you get your own flatware from bins on the table. Your waiter takes your order and then you take a chit that has your table number on it to the cashier to pay before you leave. They really have an efficient, high tech system for a very low tech kinda joint.

Did I mention the food is amazing?

The first night AdventureMan agreed to take me there, we had to wait about 45 minutes to get in, on a hot, steamy night in Doha, crowded in with all the other people waiting to get in, crowded more by those coming in to pick up their orders. Amjad Thai Snack does BIG business.

The noodle soups are easily enough for a meal for two people, and enough for a first course for four.

Shrimp Noodle soup:

00ShrimpNoodles

Fish with Spicy Basil:
00FishWSpicyBasil

Fish with Spicy Basil served over rice:
00FishOverRice

Other dishes can be split and shared. It’s part of my family tradition – growing up on the West Coast of the USA, great and authentic Chinese / Japanese / Vietnamese /Korean cuisines available everywhere, it was the fast-food I grew up on. Our extended family would get together in a restaurant and everyone would order one dish – maybe 26 – 30 dishes coming around the table, and you were encouraged to try anything. One of my joker cousins would order something gross and we would all try it.

It’s not AdventureMan’s thing, although he likes it well enough. His preference would be to eat Chinese in a nice hotel where he can get a beer with his dinner, but most of the hotel Chinese food is too dumbed-down for me.

Amjad Thai Snack is not dumbed down. The Fish (or Chicken, or beef, or seafood, if you prefer) in spicy basil sauce is delicious. Their curries are delicious. They have wonderful appetizers, wontons and buns. They do hot pots that serve a table of four to eight. Their noodle soups are divine. They are so well packed that not a drop gets spilled on the trip home.

You can call your order ahead and it will be waiting for you when you get there. Parking can be a problem, but if you get there before 7:30 pm, you should be OK. You can often find parking across the street, too.

00ThaiSnackMenu&Hours

00AmjadThaiSnackMenu&Hours

Last , but not least, if you can read the menu, and I apologize that it is small, you will notice it is all correctly spelled and grammatically correct. This is an amazing advancement in six years. We used to find things on menus in Doha that totally mystified us, and when we would ask, the answers would also mystify us. Not anymore. 🙂

August 8, 2009 Posted by | Cooking, Doha, Eating Out, ExPat Life, Family Issues, Food, Living Conditions, Qatar | 4 Comments

Doha Roadwork

You think you know your way around, but in Doha, that can all change from day to day due to the roadwork. I was in that position this last week, found myself not wanting to re-do a 2 kilometer detour, so figured I could find my way through the back streets, which I did.

I didn’t know there were still streets in Doha I had never seen, but these were such streets, and oh what fun. I found this unusual and delicate mosque:

00LostDuwarAlQatub

While lost, I also discovered a traffic roundabout I had been looking for. Expats have different names for many of the roundabouts, and those names are totally different from the real, local names, like The Mall roundabout, Green Steps roundabout – we know what they are, but those aren’t the real names.

The roundabout I had been looking for was Kotub, but I found it – Qutub – also called Library roundabout. Nearby is supposed to be a take-away place called Felasteen; someone told me they have the best felafel in the city. We used to go to place on Najma called Al Quds, but now he doesn’t do felafel any more, only sweets. We especially liked his bread, thin but with toasted sesame seeds embedded in the bread – oh YUM. We are hoping the Felasteen measures up to the old Al Quds felafel.

August 7, 2009 Posted by | Adventure, Building, Doha, ExPat Life, Food, Living Conditions, Photos | Leave a comment

Doha Changes Update

Just after I mentioned the closing of the Q-Mart, I was at The Mall (yes, it was the first mall in Doha, and it is called The Mall, even on the maps) and saw this new sign on the place where the opening of the supermarket would be:

00Spinney'sMegaMart

Spinney’s is what the place behind the Ramada that is now called The MegaMart used to be called. I would die of happiness if this were a MegaMart/ShopRite opening at The Mall. Yep. Prices are high. And they have just-the-right-thing-when-you-need-it. Wooo HOOOOO.

August 1, 2009 Posted by | Doha, ExPat Life, Food, Living Conditions, Qatar, Shopping | Leave a comment

Souq Al Waqif and The Tajine

I can’t let Little Diamond leave Doha without one more visit to the Souk al Waqif. She used to go with me in the old days, when the souk was really really really HOT, and stuffy, and even a little dirty, and the pathways were dark and potholed, so you could easily trip or fall down. Some people I would take loved the place, some didn’t want to set foot inside. It was considered dangerous, and off limits to the military folk.

I miss the scribes. I miss the shoemakers. I miss the little hardware stalls, where when I would ask for masonry nails, 3/4″, they would take me by my sleeve to the man who sold masonry nails. It was a sweet souk then.

It is a WOW souk now. Many of the vendors are the same, even though some have gone missing. There is still the canvas sailmaker, and the fishing supplies man, and the bird souk. There is still the HUGE kitchen souk, and I don’t mean it is a large store, I mean it is a store for giant people, who cook in pots the size that a grown man or woman – or both – could hide in!

00SoukAlWaqifKitchenStore

00SoukAlWaqifKitStore2

When we lived in Jordan, we used to be invited to feasts, Mensefs, a huge rice dish, served with goat most often, sometimes chicken, rarely lamb or mutton (sheep) if it was a really really special occasion on huge round trays. The trays in the Souk Al Waqif would probably serve twenty men at one time, they are so huge.

People say you can’t stop progress. When we lived in Doha the last time, the municipality put in meters for paid street parking. Qatteris were so outraged that the meters were ripped back out without ever being used. I wonder where all those hundreds of unused parking meters ended up?

Today there is a story in the paper about paid parking going in at the Souq al Waqif, and they quote five or six people who are wildly enthusiastic about the idea and all I can wonder is . . . where did they find people who would publicly say they were in favor of PAYING for parking that they always have had for free? The article says that now they will have less competition from large trucks, but when we are there at congested times, it is normal everyday SUV’s and family goat-trucks that are competing for the parking spaces. I wonder if the public perception has changed so much in five years that people are now openly praising paid parking?

00SoukAlWaqifPoliceman

It isn’t costly. It’s going to be like 3QR – less than a dollar. It also isn’t covered, and when you park your car in the lot, it is hotter than anything you can imagine when you come out, even if it is only 0930 and only been sitting there for an hour. The best time to go is night, during these hot summer months, and even so – the place is hopping. Even on a week night, there are so many good restaurants down in the Souk al Waqif restaurant row that it is a go-to place for a dinner out.

We tried the Tagine, as we all like Moroccan Food.

00TajineExterior

The greeting was warm, and the service was attentive.

00TajineInterior

The food was excellent. Now I have an admission to make, one I have had to make frequently – I forgot to take a photo when the food was served, so all you can see is the mostly eaten remains. I am so sorry, sincerely sorry, but it smelled SO good, and we were SO hungry.

00TajineSeating

We sat overlooking the souks. There is a wonderful terrace for outdoor dining, but it is just a little too hot and humid for us to enjoy eating outside right now. We can hardly wait for October, when those cooler breezes start blowing.

These are the pre-starter nibbles, delicious olives, a tangy spicy Harissa paste, and delicious fresh-baked bread that melts in your mouth:

00TajineNibbles

We ordered the mixed hot starters, which all disappeared before I thought to take a photo, and Little Diamond had the Addas (lentil) soup, also very good, also not photographed. We had the Moroccan Salad and Zaalouk, an eggplant/ tomato salad we adore. Yep. We were so hungry I forgot to take photos.

00TajineRemainsChickenWSlimBread

AdventureMan ordered Chicken With Slim Bread because we had never heard of it before and it sounded interesting. It was good. He shared with me. 🙂 He also chose the CousCous with 7 Vegetables, because when we lived in Tunisia, we were told traditionally it was always supposed to have seven vegetables (and one was always squash, and there were always garbanzo beans, and there was always tomato, and pretty much always carrot – it was always a very vegetable-y dish). It doesn’t sound like we ordered that much, but it was so delicious, and so filling, that it there was food left over.

007VegCousCous

The bill was reasonable. Wine and beer are not available, and that keeps the totals lower. We rolled ourselves back to the car, already planning our next trip to his delightful restaurant.

Once the sun goes down, the heat isn’t so bad. The Souq Al Waqif is so much fun at night. Everyone goes there – the locals, the expats, the tourists – it thrills my heart to see a public space so well loved, so well used. There are some very cool art spots going in, too!

One of my good friends told me there is a blog in Arabic that talks about searching for a restaurant I had written about in Mubarakiyya, only to find out it was in Doha. The blogger had invited guests. I felt so bad. So I will add this: WARNING WARNING THIS RESTAURANT IS IN DOHA, QATAR, NOT IN KUWAIT!

July 21, 2009 Posted by | Adventure, Beauty, Community, Customer Service, Doha, Eating Out, ExPat Life, Food, Living Conditions, Public Art, Qatar, Shopping | 1 Comment

Baked Stuffed Pumpkin

My visiting niece, Little Diamond, is vegetarian. AdventureMan and I are not vegetarian, we laughingly say we are meatatarian or meatavore, but the truth is, we don’t eat a lot of meat, either. Last I tried a new recipe, not entirely original, but a lot of fun, and it turned out really really good. It is also surprisingly easy. 🙂

464_image1
(This is not my photo, but it looks a lot like my pumpkin. It is from visual recipes, another great recipe site)

I got the idea from a quilting friend in Kuwait who baked a pumpkin full of a meat stuffing. It sounded yummy. I filled it with a channa dal / burgul mixture (recipe follows) and I added:

1 chopped apple
seeds from 1/2 pomegranate
1/2 cup slightly chopped walnuts

Here is the original recipe for the stuffing:

• 3/4 cup chana dal
• One large onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic (or more, to taste), minced or pressed
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 cup bulgur wheat
• 2 cups hot water
• 1 teaspoon salt (or less, to taste)
• 1/4 cup finely chopped parsley or cilantro
• freshly ground black pepper

Preparation:

Soak chana dal for 10-12 hours. Drain and rinse.

Sauté onion and garlic in olive oil until soft (5-8 minutes). Add drained chana dal and bulgur wheat. Sauté for about 3 more minutes, until bulgur wheat is browned (it will begin to smell heavenly). Add all remaining ingredients except pepper, bring to a boil, and lower heat.

Simmer, covered, for about 35 minutes. At this point, check to see if the chana dal is tender enough for you. If not add a quarter cup more water and simmer another few minutes or until you are satisfied. Turn off heat and let sit, covered, for at least 10 minutes. Fluff with a fork and mix in pepper.

Makes about 6 cups.

The only hard part is remembering to soak the chana dal. 😉

Pumpkin

Cut a lid off the top of the pumpkin. I usually put a notch, so I know how the lid fits back on.

You have to clean out the pumpkin, throwing out the innards (you can toast the seeds if you want). I also cut some of the pumpkin flesh into small pieces and added it to the stuffing, but that is optional.

Stuff the pumpkin tightly with the stuffing mixture, then line a baking bowl or pan with the remaining stuffing, set the pumpkin in the center, pour 1/2 cup of water – or wine, now that we are in Qatar – or broth – over the stuffing, and cover loosely with foil.

Bake at 350°F / 175°C for one hour, or more, until the pumpkin flesh is soft all the way through. Cut the pumpkin into slices to serve, and heap extra stuffing on top.

Delicious!

Additional hint – I use a Misto, a bottle you can fill with the best olive oil, pump, and spray. I spray the bowl before I put the stuffing in, to make cleaning easier, and I also spray the pumpkin to give it that glisten. It is very sparing with the olive oil, but you still get the taste.

Little Diamond asked if it were a potiron or a citrouille, two words the French use for pumpkins, but none of us could say definitely. I thought it was a potiron, because it is more squat and I thought citrouille were taller and oranger, but Little Diamond actually looked it up online after dinner.

AdventureMan reminded me of the time in Tunisia when Halloween was coming and I went to the market and bought a whole pumpkin to carve. I don’t think it was really a pumpkin at all, it was a huge pumpkin-like squash, and it was sold in slices, by the kilo. I bought the smallest one I could find, but it still caused quite a commotion, buying the whole squash, not just a slice.

And I was thinking, too, of my French friend who shared her recipe with me for the very best pumpkin pie I have eaten in my life, ever.

July 19, 2009 Posted by | Cooking, ExPat Life, Experiment, Family Issues, Food, Health Issues, Recipes, Tunisia | , | 2 Comments

Qatteri and Kuwaiti Gazingas

We’ve lived in so many different places and dealt with so many currencies, you’d think we’d be used to it by now, but there is always that confusing time at the beginning, when you are mentally trying to multiply and divide and figure out how much things cost. Generally speaking, we call it the gazinga problem, gazinga being our family generic term for whatever currency we are currently using.

00CashMachine

I think the cost of food in Qatar is cheaper, but to figure that out, I have to think what it costs here, translate that from Qatteri riyals to dollars, and then to translate that to Kuwaiti dinars. For example, the Vanilla Caramel coffee stuff I like is 2.250 in Kuwaiti dinars (when I can find it) which is about $8.25, and in Qatar, it is QR 15.50, which is $4.25, a significant difference.

Life in Kuwait became much simpler when my Kuwaiti friend told me “Just think about a Kuwaiti dinar being roughly equivalent to the dollar. Otherwise, you will go crazy.” He was right. When I would go grocery shopping and just think of it in dollars, life became much simpler. Every now and then, when I would multiply by 3.65 to figure out the cost in dollars, I would gasp and put the item back on the shelf. Life is simpler if you just go with it. Mostly, I would look for locally produced vegetables, eggs, etc., and that kept grocery costs down. It’s the imported stuff that gets crazy.

So, irrationally, when I have 500 riyals in my pocket, I feel RICH. I feel secure and protected. (500 riyals {$138} is approximately equivalent to 35KD {$128}). I can’t tell you the number of people who come into town in Qatar and offer to take us to dinner (we’ve learned – we always carry extra cash!) – and then when the bill comes, they are stunned – and embarrassed – that they don’t have enough riyals to cover the bill. It’s not that the places are that expensive – although some of them are – but that it all adds up so quickly, and a couple hundred gazingas may not cover a dinner for four.

In both Kuwait and Qatar, I make it a point to quickly learn where all the cash machines are, the ones for my bank, and the ones that you can use your US credit card in and get cash. You just never know when you are going to find something in a shop that doesn’t take credit cards, or find that you are low on cash and still have a couple stops before you get home. Like knowing where the clean toilets are; it’s a matter of survival. 🙂

In Qatar, 100 Qattari riyals is about $27.50, so when doing rapid calculations, I figure it is around $25, then I add a little.

We are working on getting rid of the pigeons. It took a while – when AdventureMan went to the management and said he wanted the pigeons gone, they didn’t understand him. We say “pijjens” and they say “oh! pij-ee-owns!” The cleaning crew came and cleared out the awful nest yesterday, and only one pigeon came to try to spend the night. I threw pencil erasers at him (I had to gather them all up this morning) and then clanked a big stick. Today I am going to buy a water pistol.

The cleaning crew asked if I wanted to have my windows washed, and oh, yes, I did. It really helps to have lived here before. I know that if you want your windows washed, you can go to the desk, they will schedule it and they charge you around 500 riyals – still a bargain, by stateside standards – about $128 for a two story house with some very hard-to-get-to windows. But if you ask the cleaning crew on the compound, they will come during their time off and charge about half – and all the money goes to the guys who clean the windows. I now have bright, shiny windows – I don’t think they had been washed on the outside since I left over three years ago. Now – they sparkle!

Banks in Kuwait and Qatar are way ahead of banks in the US with their use of technology. When I took money out of our bank account yesterday, AdventureMan called me immediately and asked if I had just taken money out of the account. They had SMS’d him what had been taken out and what was left!

My household goods were delivered two weeks ago today. There are still a few remaining little nests of things that need places, but – not much! We walk around the house with that satisfied feeling of knowing things are in their place, where we can find them insh’allah, when we need them, and there are no more boxes, no more piles – it looks pretty good! Even AdventureMan got his room all in order – Now he walks out of his room and says “Oh! It feels so good to walk in and everything is put away!” and he has a huge grin on his face.

Little Diamond arrives tomorrow night. We can hardly wait. 🙂

July 13, 2009 Posted by | Doha, Eating Out, ExPat Life, Family Issues, Financial Issues, Food, Friends & Friendship, Kuwait, Language, Living Conditions, Moving, Shopping | 12 Comments