Ramadan is coming to a Royal End

Ramadan is coming to a close at the end of this week and will be celebrated by the Eid Al Fitr holidays all over the Muslim world. Everyone & their brothers will be leaving the country come this weekend to begin their celebrations. So as the saying goes, when in Rome …oops I misspoke, I meant to say London. I can’t sneak anything past you guys. Yes, we’re off to London early Friday morning for a quick 4 night/5 day mini vacation! David & I spent the morning at the Qatar Airways Holidays office working on getting something scheduled on short notice, while Kristi was slaving away at her SAT. Kristi & I have been in the process of getting our residence permits & we weren’t sure if we’d have them in time to travel. Rumor has it that once you start the process, you can’t leave the country or you have to start it over, including the medical portion which was a royal pain. Did I say royal as in “England”? I’m sorry, I just can’t contain myself. Anyway, our permits are not in our hands yet, but tomorrow morning I will be at the post office (pic on left) hopefully handling the last stage of getting them. I should/better have the permits before I leave that place. Kristi doesn’t even know that we’ve taken care of the arrangements. I’m just going to sit back & see how long the news takes to get back to her. I’m counting on Kayla to inform her. She’s been pretty loyal at tuning in on the escapades happening on this side of the planet. We did go to the Great Wall of China last night…the restaurant, that is. The food was great, and even better, it was cheap. After that we did a little shopping at a store called Oriental Carpet. Wow, do you know how much Persian rugs cost? After discovering the answer to that question, we moved on over to the trinket section. They really had some neat things. We stayed there way past David’s tolerance level, so we made him happy with a Dunkin’ Donuts/coffee run. I mean, seriously, you’re never very far away from home over in this country. When you feel a little nostalgic, you can always get your fix at one of so many American venues. I mean, look at the pic below, that would feel like home, if Applebees would only deliver there! I have to be honest with you, though, I haven’t experienced any of that (nostalgia). I’m still soaking
up the uniqueness of this
place.