We had a couple of meetings at work, and we're getting in the groove. Zach is our LAN administrator, which means he's in charge of the computers themselves, Mark is the nuts-and-bolts network guy, and I'm in charge of Zach and Mark. Danna (rhymes with manna) is in charge of the website, and she answers directly to Tim. Beverly is Tim's administrative assistant. And, we hired five local student workers from the University of Qatar who will be coming in to oversee and manage the lab machines and do general setup/cleanup work for us. Let me see if I can remember their names...Ali, Halel, Mohammed...no, I can't remember them yet. I'll get there.
I got some good info from Dennis today. He told me where to find a couple of hardware stores, and he gave me Omar's number. Omar is the "Director of Public Relations" for our complex. I called him today, and we're going to try to meet on Saturday. I want to ask him about building a shade over the patio and a couple other ideas.
We had lunch at Landmark Mall today, at a Turkish place in the food court (the one with the giant clown and the bungee jumping thing). I love the food here, and I'm making a point to prefer local cuisine to McDonald's and that sort of thing, just so I'll maybe figure out what my family might like best when they get here.
This evening several of us went over to the gold souq, where Rosalie needed to pick up some jewelry for herself and for some of the folks who were here last week. I'll have to check the prices a bit more, but it seems like gold is considerably less expensive here than in the States. I saw a really pretty gold and diamond heart ring that made me think of my wife, a small silver locomotive pendant that made me think of my son, and a gold horse-head pendant that made me think of Mallory. There's some really incredible jewelry down there.
We wandered over to a "Family Requirements Store" which was basically a dollar store (or 3.50QR). They have everything from dishes to towels to toys to clothes...most of it low to mid quality, but there's some good stuff, and it's all very inexpensive. I bought an alarm clock for about $1.75. Afterwards, we went to a pizza place where you can get a 10" pizza for 6QR (less than $2). I had a couple of shwarmas, which are sort of like gyros, for 3QR each.
An interesting thing happend when we were ordering supper. Everyone wanted Pepsi except Danna and me, and we asked for water...but the guy acted like he couldn't understand us. I repeated that we wanted water, but he acted like we had asked for something else. I thought maybe he didn't understand "water" and I didn't know the Arabic word for it, so I went to the drink cooler in the kitchen to show him what I meant. They had some water in there, but it was already opened--apparently it was the employees' water; they didn't have any to serve to customers. Then I figured out what was going on...he didn't have what we were asking for, so rather than offend us and embarrass himself by denying our request, he just politely ignored the request and pretended we had asked for something he could give us. He brought Danna an orange soda, and me a Pepsi, and we thanked him. Just like the book said: it's considered very rude to directly deny someone's request over here, so you have to be very careful how you ask for things, and how you criticize anyone.
Anyway, after we ate we walked next door to a bakery (it has a big windmill on the sign) and bought various kinds of baclava (or something very similar). It's very good, though mine didn't have a hair in it, so it was somewhat lacking. :) Later, Suzanne and I rode with Rosalie to the airport, and I drove home. It's not too bad, really!
I have to be at the airport in the morning by 6 AM or so to go to Dubai. Keep checking my Qatar Pics website for updates!
Posted by jon at October 24, 2003 01:02 PM