Just another day in the life...

Well, things are getting back to normal (normal for USA) around here. Kristi's still sleeping & it's 10:40a.m. I did get up at 5:30 this morning, made coffee & put on a load of clothes. By a load I mean, three of David's shirts, one of mine & one lady's undergarment. That equates to one stuffed load in our washer/dryer combo. Note: yes, that is my oven next to the washer. You wash your clothes & then flip a switch & dry them. Sounds great if it would hold any amount of clothes & actually dry them in less than two hours. Oh well, you can't have it all. Anyway, after those two very taxing chores (coffee & wash), I promptly went back to bed & woke up at 9:15am. So much for rise & shine. Well, on to yesterday's treks. David took a vacation day & we drove out to the American School of Doha (that's it in the pic***). We finalized Kristi's registration and visited with the principal. This is a new school that will open just in time for the new school year. We didn't go in it (the new one, that is), but it looks like it is going to be absolutely awesome. From the road, we could see a huge chandelier hanging in the main entrance. They have a thing about chandeliers here...they're even hanging in our bedrooms. Anyway, school starts on Sept. 4th, with orientation on Aug. 30th. Wow, glad we went by there. We had just reserved our flights to return from the states on the 30th. Fortunately, we had not gone by the airline office to pay yet. Later in the evening, we went to the "souqs". These are market areas with oodles of local vendors pushing their wares. All the vendors are ridiculously nice, begging you to come in if you even look in their direction. They are hard to refuse and eager to please. Supposedly, they expect you to bargain. They inflate their prices waiting for you to make an offer. Being the shade that we are, however, works against us in bargaining power. The first one we went in insisted on giving us each a bottle of water, even though we told him we would share. I did see that he had a pair of kitchen scissors hanging up & this was an item I actually did need. They were marked 35 qr. I looked him in the eye ready to beat him down. "I'll give you 20qr" (my book says to start at half the price). I was already chickening out & he knew it. He says, "30 qr". I say, "25qr". Oh well, 30qr it was. I gave the man the money & found out quickly that I'm not a "souq bargainer". By the way, the price for the scissors was $8.25 which was reasonable. Let's just call it a win, win situation. And remember, we did get cold bottled water out of the deal! It was a Godsend while walking the souqs for a couple of hours. My only other buys were a nonstick skillet & some arabic candy that Kristi wanted. *****Breaking News*****Kayla just contacted me via instant message. She is in London & all is well.Let me finish my, oh so long story about nothing. We topped off the evening with a fast food stop at...well, I'm going to let you guess where. Hint: Check out the sign where Kristi is striking her usual, "take a picture of me, pose". Signing out...Syb

***Ok, so that's not the American School of Doha...silly David....this is a sporting complex. Too funny!!