Holmes In Motion: February 2013

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Shake It Up

We didn’t want to be too predictable, so this week we shook it up and even keep ourselves guessing. I made my first trip offshore and spent the night at our platform. It took about 25 minutes by helicopter to reach the platform.

Source: offshore-technology.com

Around 4pm on Wednesday, Jonathon learned that he was headed to Brussels, Belgium on the 2am flight for work. He enjoyed the cold weather for a few minutes, but then his fingers froze and he wasn’t as jealous of our friends in all the glorious snow storms. He endured the cold and went sightseeing so he could provide these amazing photos for your viewing pleasure.

He came back with waffles and chocolate. My husband is a smart man and knows how to keep me happy. Who knows what next week will hold for us, but we are looking forward to the possibilities. We hope you have a great week too.

Monday, February 18, 2013

Abu Dhabi

Happy belated birthday to Jonna! We celebrated in your honor all week long. We hope you had a fun filled birthday.

Last Tuesday, Feb 12^th was a holiday in Qatar. It was Sport’s Day; a day to promote being active (and decrease obesity). I support any holiday where we get the day off of work. We celebrated by sleeping in and going to the beach. In order to at least say we did something active, we played volleyball, Frisbee, and nerf football (American football, the kind we are too often reminder by the Europeans that you actually play with your hands not your feet).

This past weekend we had a grand time in Abu Dhabi. Abu Dhabi is located in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and is only a 35 minute plane ride away. The UAE is a country made up of seven emirates each governed by a different emir. Think of it as seven different states each having a different governor. Abu Dhabi and Dubai (where we traveled to in December) are two of the seven emirates. The two towns are only 80 miles away from Dubai.

(Look who learned to use a photo editor. This is a real blog now!) We really enjoyed our time in Abu Dhabi. We were uber tourists and went on the Big Bus Tour. It was a great overview of what Abu Dhabi has to offer.

The Emirates Palace Hotel is a seven star hotel and cost about $3 Billion to build.

Chris, these are the building from the article you sent Jonathon.

We toured the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque main prayer room. This Grand Mosque is the largest mosque outside of Saudi Arabia. It can hold 40,000 people. There is a time block in the morning between prayer times when non-Muslims are able to visit. We had to remove our shoes and I wore Harry Potter’s invisible cloak.

Kelsy Potter

Now that we feel settled, we have the travel bug. We are looking forward to many grand adventures over the next few years. We are planning our first large trip to Malaysia in April.

Saturday, February 9, 2013

The Honeymoon Stage Is Over

You guys are in for a real treat, because I think I’m particularly funny today. To escape the endless humor, please select the red X in the upper right hand corner of your screen. Consider yourself warned.

Lately I’ve been having a lot of 1^st world problems. If you aren’t familiar with 1^st world problems, they are problems that people living in third world nations would love to have. Some examples are, “This morning Starbucks was out of soy milk so I had to get skim” or “My fingers are too big for the keyboard on my new I-phone 12.”

I was complaining about one of my 1^st world problems to our board gaming friends (who lived in Oman prior to Qatar). Here is a dramatization of our conversation:

Me: Does your dish washer work well? Ours never gets the silverware clean.

Gamer: (full belly laugh) Are you adding salt to the dish washer?

Me: No. I’m not stupid.

Gamer: (more laughter) You need to add salt.

Me: (blank stare)

Gamer: Seriously you have to add salt.

The villa showed me up again. Gamer #1 showed me the secret compartment where you add salt to the dish washer. I still have no clue why you need to add salt, but I don’t care one little bit because my dishes are oh so sparkly now.

The intent of this post is not to be negative, but the initial moving high has worn off and I am starting to miss simple things that I really used to take for granted. Things I miss:

Obviously all of you
Swiffer

You can only buy mops and buckets here, but the mops stink. The mops look like the ones the janitors used in your elementary school. There aren’t any of those fancy mops that fold in half and squeeze out the water. You have to squeeze out the water but twisting it in your own hands. Mopping takes ten times longer without my Swiffer friend. Treasure your Swiffers people, treasure them.

Spin and yoga class

Some times kicking your our butt isn't as good as someone else yelling at you.

Maple syrup

There actually is maple syrup here, but it costs about $15 per cup. No maple trees in the desert.

Pulled pork sandwiches

To be fair, I have missed pulled pork sandwiches since moving away from Lawrence, but since pork is forbidden it makes it seems so much better. I seriously had a dream about Vermont Street BBQ. It was beautiful.

Running being normal

There are so many things different about running. People stare at me when I go running. It is not as common for females to run here, but since sidewalks don't exist I am forced to go run in the most popular park along the ocean. This park is full of people who like to stare at me. I can't run in shorts. On warm days my sweat evaporates automatically and I am just left with a layer of salt clogging my pores.

Sundresses

I will miss these more in the summer months. My knees miss sunlight.

Seasons

I'm jealous that I'm not in the monster storm on the East coast.

KU basketball

Some mornings we wake-up and are able to watch some hoops while eating our cereal.

Easy communication

Last night we embraced the fact that we lived in Texas for three years and did some two steppin' at the Texas A&M Boot Scoot. There is a branch of A&M in Doha.