Inland Sea

Are you tired of desert photos yet?  If so, then find a different blog. The landscape here isn't changing any time soon.  On the upside, we found water IN the desert, and no it wasn't a mirage.

A couple weekends ago we hopped in our friend's dune bashing vehicle to cruise to the inland sea for some bbq and sun (because we don't have enough of that already).  

The north bank of the Inland Sea is Qatar and the South bank is Saudi Arabia.  

 

 

The Inland Sea is about 60 miles south of Doha with the last 20 miles being off-road and including lots of dune bashing.  Meaning we drove up some of these:

 

 

In January we tried to get to the Inland Sea, ( Remember This? ) but never made it there because we got stuck in sand dunes.  This time we came prepared and were successful.  We were able to pick a secluded section of the beach and make ourselves at home.  It was a nice break from crazy Doha traffic and buzzing cell phones.   

 

 

 

 

 

Pop Culture Graveyard

Sorry for the hiatus team.  Things are still going strong here in Doha.  This picture has entirely nothing to do with today's blog post, but I didn't want to seem too boring so I threw it in.  So let's do this.

I have never argued that I am a cool person, but living in the Middle East I am definitely out of the running.  I read the news online, but I am in a black hole when it comes to pop culture.  When we moved here, I was told a funny story.  Our friends (who we ate Thanksgiving with) lived in Oman for five years.  Their daughter graduated high school and was going back to the States for college.  The mother and daughter attended freshman orientation where a speaker ensured the parents that their daughters wouldn't turn into Snooki.  While everyone around them laughed, the mother and daughter wondered what in the world a snooki was.  This story was funny to me at first, but now it is more scary than funny because this will be me in a few years.

 

Watching television here has the same perk as watching the DVR.  No commercials!  All the channels here are owned by the same government company and funding isn't an issue, so if there is a break during a program, the break is used to show what is playing later that night.  Most of the time, what we watch isn't live so the commercial breaks are just skipped.  In the States, they might show two shows an hour and here they play three shows an hour.  Since I don’t see commercials, I have no clue what is playing in the movie theaters and I have to keep using my cuttingboard and knife because I’m clueless on the latest kitchen toy.

 

It isn't really a big deal that I don’t know what is playing in the movie theaters.  I have gone to the movies twice, and I’m not sure I will be going back while I live here.  The movie theaters are in the malls and filled with teenagers.  It is not usual for someone to answer their phone during the movie and expect the people sitting around you to send/receive at least five texts per minute.  I like to go to the movies to escape, but my movie experiences have increased my stress level instead of decrease.
 

Our TV channel options include 20 soccer channels, American ESPN, the history channel (we watch a lot of Pawn Stars and Storage Wars), cooking channel, MTV, and E!.  We don’t get ABC or NBC, but one local channel plays some popular shows like CSI and American Idol, but that is about it.  We get MTV but it only actually plays music.  I have no clue who is 16 and pregnant anymore.  My only outlet to the tabloid news is the E! channel.  I’m not sure what they play in the States, but here they play Jonas brothers and Kardashians on repeat.  At one point in my life I didn't think that could ever get old, but it has.

 

Our radio station selection is pretty limited.  Every morning we hop in the car to head to work and listen to the Quran lesson of the day which is broadcast on every station.  The lessons last about 15 minutes and then we get to select from five non-Arabic equally awful radio stations. 

     1. General English station is broadcast from the UK.  The DJs are 60 year old Englishmen who usually play music from the 30s and 40s.  The bonus is that this station plays an hour of country on Saturday mornings.

     2. Qatar University has a local and rookie station.  I think they play newer music, but then again I don’t really know what has been going on in musicland the past six months.

     3. French station which plays sweet, sweet techno and house jams.

     4. Hindi music is blasting on the two other stations.

Thankfully, our car has a television in it instead of a CD player.  We only get two TV channels which are both in Arabic.  No need to pimp our ride.
 

My final link to pop culture is facebook, which always has the most accurate and vital information.  It was the last time I was googling a friends’ statuses that I realized I was in the pop culture graveyard where important pop culture information goes to die when nobody cares about it anymore. 

 

I don’t love pop culture, but I feel isolated not knowing what duck dynasty means.  Just don’t expect me to understand any movie or television references any time soon.

 

And with that, I will start celebrating the weekend.

Career Change

Happy Mother's Day to all the mamas in our lives.  We are extremely blessed to have wonderful mothers and to know so many great women who have treated us like their own children.  It takes a village to raise these two crazy cats, and we are slowly advancing toward adulthood.

This week I was offshore, but on an island.  I can handle being offshore when it includes solid ground under my feet and not feeling the motion of the ocean.  The island hosts about 1,000 workers and I would be the one and only female.  Usually this isn't a big deal, except there is a fabulous gym here that I can't use.  Whatever, I had a party with Jillian Michaels in my room.  Whatever = sadness

To keep my mind off how much I miss my husband (I'm testing if he actually reads the blog or not), I thought I would let you in on a little secret of ours.  A lot of people have asked what we have been up to lately.  Our weeks mostly consist of work and our weekends are dedicated to our new goal.  New life plan: become professional wakeboarders.  This new plan is taking up a lot of our weekend time.  It is quite enjoyable. 

Jonathon is wakeboarding in front of one of the Emir’s palaces.  I’m cruisin in front of downtown Doha (West Bay).  Come visit and let us know if you think we are tour worthy.

I have added a little excitement to my work week.  About a month ago, I started attending an Arabic class during my lunch break.  I'm not guaranteeing any level of proficiency, but when in Doha why not learn Arabic.

Have a wonderful weekend and I hope you mothers get some special treatment.  Everyone reading who sees my mama or my mama-in-law better treat them like queens.

Doha Fashionista

Happy May!  The first part of the year has really flown by.  Since I have great style, (haha) I decided to convert the blog to a fashion blog for the day.  I received an email from a female friend traveling to the Middle East wondering what is appropriate to wear.  I figured that I might as well have some helpful posts and not just post silly pictures, so I wanted to share the ‘dress code’ with all of you.  I’m not a super girly girl, but when we found out that we were transferring to Doha my head was swarming with wardrobe questions.  What will I wear? Can I wear these? What about this? 

I’m no expert on this topic, but I am comfortable now in the way I dress.  By that, I mean that I don’t feel like people are staring at me or judging me.  Every morning I just have to think a little more when I get dressed.  I dress to be respectful of other people.  I don’t want to make anybody feel uncomfortable because of the way I dress.  Here are my rules:

1.    Don’t show your knees.  You can wear longer skirts or capris, but hide those forbidden knees.  I joke about this all the time, because to me knees aren’t considered sexy, but here knees are saved for special people’s eyes. ;)

2.    Don’t show your cleavage. Way to state the obvious Kelsy, although this time cleavage also includes showing too much collarbone.  I’m not over here living in turtlenecks, but I am also careful that my scoop neck t-shirts aren’t too wide and my v-neck t-shirts aren’t too deep.  

3.    Don’t wear shirts that can show your armpits.  Meaning no sleeveless shirts or shirts with only little cap sleeves.  You can show elbow, but not your smelly armpit.

4.    Nothing tight.  I usually don’t tuck in my shirts, but this might be because I’m lazy.  If my shirt is a little tighter than I just wear a scarf with it to soften my shape.  Just imagine me looking like Sam the scarf queen.

5.    Updos. Qatari ladies cover their hair, so I prefer to have my hair tied back when I’m at work.  Otherwise my long, lushes locks are the only ones in the office.  This is just a personal preference.

Please note that I usually don’t take self portraits in the bathroom, but my personal photographer, Mr. Jonathon, doesn’t think a photo shoot is a valid excuse for being late to work. 

Here is an idea of what I wear to work:

 

Happy belated birthday Jen and happy early birthday to Sam, Laurie, and Jeannie.  Miss you all.