The Boot Scoot and The Pearl

As I mentioned, we really hit the ground running upon our arrival. Since Eric worked all week, Thursday night our neigbors in the cul-de-sac told us they would be ordering in....yes, they have delivery here!!! and we were welcome to join. So, we ordered dinner and spent the evening outside, under the stars, getting to know our new neighbors. While we were eating, many other people were walking around the development, stopping by to say hi on the way....it's great to live in a nice community.

                                                                                     

Our neighbors Wendi and Nick were telling us  about this big fundraiser the next night called the "Boot Scoot" ....I guess it's just a fancy name for a Texan party where they do the country dancing. Many of the American expats living here are from Texas. Texas A & M has a university here so this was the 12th year of this fundraiser. You go, dressed up with the "cowboy/girl" outfit, eat delicious TexMex and dance the two step and other country dances. We still haven't received our shipment of clothing so we didn't really have much to work with. Luckily somone lent Jennie a vest and a bandana. Eric borrowed a cowboy hat. It was quite The night! We did our best to learn the two step but even though we weren't great, we had a wonderful time. We met lots of people from Eric's company and also from other companies who are based here. Never did we think we'd have 300+ Texans in a small country in the Middle East. See above-a photo of the bench I "won" from the silent auction.

        This is a photo of our new neighbors and good friends, Nick and Wendi at the Boot Scoot!

Some more people we met from Eric's work at the Boot Scoot :)

We were also able to explore a new development in Doha called The Pearl-www.thepearlqatar.com.  Absolutely amazing!!!    It's supposed to be able to accomodate 50,000 people. So far, there aren't many occupants but it's an amazing man-made island with high end stores and restaurants. They are still constructing it but it's beautiful.

  Some of the buildings they have constructed as a part of The Pearl-check out the yachts!  We were there on a Friday morning-holy day in Qatar and it was virtually empty.  

A photo of Eric at the Pearl with the downtown section of Doha in the background...it's a little hard to see because of the dust/haze. 

More views of The Pearl-see the few cranes on the far right?

The entrance (from the inside) to The Pearl. 

The parking lot for now and more construction--really a lot of cranes!!

Au Revoir Paris--Welcome to Doha!

Welcome to our blog. We decided to use this blog site instead of shutterfly as this seems a bit more user friendly.  You'll still be able to access it for a while to browse through our photos.

2010 has been a busy year for us so far. We found out at the very end of January that we were moving to Doha, Qatar. We were able to move out of Paris in less than 2 weeks...which if you know anything about Paris, or France in general,...the land where things take much longer to accomplish,  this was quite a feat! While we were sad to leave our home in Paris that we enjoyed so much, we were really excited to be moving to the Middle East.

The winter had been mild in Paris before we left so we packed up all of our winter coats, scarves, gloves and hats. The week before we left, once all of our things were gone, it started to get really, really cold. It was almost like France, Paris in particular was mad at us for leaving so the city was just literally pushing us out.

We, unfortunatley, had to say goodbye to lots of friends. This was really difficult. We made some really wonderful friends in France and while we were sorry to say goodbye, we know our paths will meet again.

We boarded the flight on Saturday morning, February 13 non-stop to Doha, Qatar. It was a very easy flight. A little over 6 hours and since it was during the day, we did our best to stay awake so we could fall asleep easier that night...who were we kidding though?! Once we actually arrived, we were too excited to sleep!! Unfortunatley, it was already dark and there was not much to see. Luckily though, we already had a house waiting for us so we don't have to get settled twice. We are living in a very nice complex here in Doha near the new "Villaggio" mall...google it, it's amazing! The development has many other people living here from Eric's company and we have met many of them so far. They have been so welcoming and kind, it has made the transition a lot easier.

It's really intersting so far to live in Doha...such a young city compared to Paris. Doha is a city of 1.7 million people and growing 9% each year. Strangely, only 300,000 of those people are Qatari. There is a large mix of other nationalities including many laborers from the Phillipines, Sri Lanka and other South East Asian nations.

We definitely hit the ground running as we arrived on Saturday evening around 10pm (unfortunatley, our flight was delayed) and Eric had planned to report to work on Sunday morning. The work week in Doha is Sunday - Thursday as Friday is the Holy Day. While I still will probably say "Happy Friday", it's not terrible as the whole city is on this schedule.

We live in the only cul-de-sac in the development. Each villa is identical. Our villa is at the end of the "sac" as our neighbors call it. We've got a nice group here and everyone is extremely friendly.

The weather has been warm since we arrived. It's about 75 degrees fareinheit in the evenings with a cool breeze and it has been as warm as 100 degrees fareinheit during the day. It gets light around 6am and dark around 6pm.

There is so much more to share, until then...we hope you are all well :)