We are Home

I’m out of pictures from our Malaysia trip, so it is back to talking about Doha life.  We had a great vacation, but when we were at the airport in KL we were ready to come home.  Then it hit us, it took six months but we now feel like Doha is our home.  This is a big deal people.  We aren’t orphans!   

We just earned our desert camping badge.  We went camping at the singing dunes last weekend and are still cleaning sand out of our ears.  The dunes are in a pretty random location.  Most of the ground is hard in this area except for a couple enormous sand dunes.  They are called the singing dunes because they make a humming noise when you slide down them.  Of course we had to test this, so we hauled ourselves to the top of the sand dunes.  (My muscles are still burning.) 

 

   

   

 

 

  

 

We got to watch the sunset and we ate smores (kind of).  I wasn’t using my brain and thought that when our British friends said they would bring smore stuff that I would be enjoying graham crackers, chocolate, and marshmallow goodness.  I’m not sure if the word cracker even exists in British English, and biscuit means different things to Brits and Americans.

Anyway, I pretty much ate a marshmallow on a chocolate chip cookie and you know I’m never going to complain about eating a cookie, but still not a smore.   

British English and American English can get pretty confusing.  Our office has a little cafeteria in it where we eat lunch most days.  Walking back from the cafeteria, my coworker asked me what the queue looked like.  I thought he was asking how the letter Q was shaped, but he knows English so I was super confused.  I ended up just stopping and staring at him.  After confusing jabber, I learned that queue means line in British English.
 

Here are some more vocabulary differences between American and British English:

American English	British English
Apartment	Flat
Cookie, cracker	Biscuit
Elevator	Lift
First floor, second floor	Ground floor, first floor
Flashlight	Torch
French fries	Chips
Garbage, trash	Rubbish
Garbage can, trashcan	Dustbin, rubbish bin
Gas, gasoline	Petrol
Hood	Bonnet
Mail	Post
Pants	Trousers
Potato chips	Crisps
Stand in line	Queue
Trunk	Boot (of a car)
Stand in line	Queue
Two weeks	Fortnight
Underwear	Pants (I know confusing)
Vacation	Holiday(s)
Stand in line	Queue

Source:http://www.perfectyourenglish.com/writing/american-english-vocabulary.htm

 I am happy because peanut butter is back in my life.  It has been missing for about a month.  A really long, rough month.  I can only buy my peanut butter at one store in Doha and it isn’t the place we usually grocery shop.  The other stores have “peanut butter” but I don’t think peanuts are an ingredient.  I don’t even know how you forget peanut butter, but we were at the store with peanut butter and I completely forgot to get some.  I remembered right when we got home and started unpacking the groceries.  I thought we should jump in the car and head straight back, but Jonathon thought differently.  We were finally headed back to the peanut butter store, but there was a fire at the gas station next door, so the store was closed. (Pretty valid reason) Now I’m conflicted.  Should I eat everything with peanut butter to make up for lost time, or should I ration the peanut butter so I’m not in this predicament again anytime soon. 

 

I’m thinking about all the family running or cheering in Oklahoma City this weekend.  We are with you in spirit.  Big congratulations to Julie’s crew for welcoming a beautiful baby girl into the world.  Please send me some pictures.