Jennie and Eric's Adventures: Mom and Dad's Visit-The Arrival: 25 March 2010

We were overjoyed to hear my parents decided to come to visit. They planned the week perfectly being that they arrived on a Thursday night (the start to our weekend) and were here for two full weekends and when our sea-shipment arrived. We had great fun showing them around Doha, hanging at the beach, fixing up our house (my favorite thing to do) and just relaxing.

We arrived at the airport to pay for their entry visas so they were all set upon arrival. Once that was taken care of, we were informed the flight was delayed a bit. So, we drove to a neighboring grocery store called "LuLu Hypermarket"-in Arabic, LuLu means Pearl. We really have been meaning to check it out so we figured it was a perfect opportunity. We sure did make a mistake stopping here. It was 9:45pm on a Thursday night and this store was JAM PACKED with people!! Eric and I were shocked! People told us it gets crowded at night at the grocery stores, but this was ridiculous. We ended up stopping a coffee shop to grab a coffee and headed back to the airport.

My parents arrived shortly afterwards and were escorted by a service we hired recommended by friends to help expedite the immigration process. We were able to get right outside and into the car.

After the long flight, the first thing they wanted to do was EAT! My dad was so excited that there was a KFC here....yes, we actually stopped at KFC to get everyone (except me and my mom) some food. Even our driver, Thajudeen enjoyed some KFC :)

My dad enjoying a box of fried chicken...for those of you that know my dad, he NEVER eats like this...the funny thing is that when he first arrived in the states in from Italy, he told me he used to eat it a lot. It was his favorite. Of course, he's conscious about what he eats so he rarely indulges in something like this...but this is Doha, (KFC in Doha!?) and it's vacation!!

This was a real midnight snack.

Eric and I had planned to head to the beach club to work out in the morning. We were signed up for an 8:30am cycle class. My mom and dad were sure they'd be up by then and would be ready to sit on the beach while we cycled away....we woke up to this note:

We were laughing so hard...we did come back though...Unfortunately for my mom, Dunkin Donuts was closed :( Pretty cool that we even have it here, though!

A note on life in Doha: We are so amazed how Western certain things are in Doha. It's really quite amazing that we have so many American conveniences (eg. Betty Crocker, Skippy Peanut Butter, real Cheerios, etc plus many, many chains such as: Dunkin Donuts, Chilis, Applebees, Fudruckers and the list goes on and on). In a lot of ways Doha is much more Americanized than Europe.

We didn't bring our camera to the beach so hopefully my mom will give me some of her shots. After an enjoyable day at the beach, my dad decided he wanted to grill for dinner. So, he went out to the store to buy us a grill..Eric was so happy!