Hey Arnold!

You may be interested to know that the "Terminator's" got my back these days. I received an email this morning proclaiming that "Governor Schwarzenegger is now following your updates on Twitter". Too funny. Where these random people come from, I have no clue. It's not like I'm in Arnie's fan club or anything. I must have tweeted a "buzz word" that gained attention by his Tweet team. Hey, I'm in his top 50k...haha! I will say, however, that I'd rather him follow me than some of the questionable spammers named @lusciouslylucy or @getluckyat555-5555. Now, don't go Google those I'm making them up, but I do have followers with such salacious intentions. Come on guys, join the Twitter madness. Where's your sense of adventure? Hasta la vista, baby!



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Shea Reporting In

I got an email from Shea (our oldest) yesterday informing me of his new cell phone number in Africa and he casually blatantly mentioned that incoming calls were free (hint hint). I consequently checked out our phone plan (Vonage) and was pleasantly surprised to find that I could call his region for only 17 cents a minute. A bargain, no less. Now, I just have to put, yet, another time zone in my memory bank, which fortunately is just two hours off from Doha's. Anyway, I dialed him up to find out how his African stint is going. He's currently in a hotel which he lovingly referred to as "the hut". Four walls, a bed, decorative live lizards on the wall, and a bathroom with hot water. What more could you want in a country that's vying for the top spot of the world's most underdeveloped nation? More, obviously. Apparently, tomorrow he's transferring to the "nicest" hotel in the city, while waiting for his house to be ready. As he's telling me this, I can hear donkeys braying, sheep bleating, and Shea fussing about the swarming mosquitoes and diving bats. Malaria, here we come. He said, thus far, it's been hotter than all get out, but on the good side the food has been pretty palatable (if you don't count the bout of vomiting and diarrhea that he's already encountered). Oh, when you order a cheeseburger with fries, well, the fries come saddled in the burger, not as a side. I'm finding that Doha doesn't have the market cornered on idiosyncrasies. His first purchase from the child hawking street vendor addressing Shea as "hey boss" (in French) was a sword. Starting price: 50,000 of their currency. Selling price: 1,000 or $2.00 (two dollars!). That's what I call building in a little bargaining room. I told him that he needs to document his experiences in a blog, but he said he'd leave it to me to do the reporting for him. He promises that pictures will follow when he has reliable internet service.

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More Doha Eats on the Way

Food, my favorite subject. Have you noticed the pattern? You would think I weighed four hundred pounds as it is my favorite form of entertainment. When I hear any talk about a new restaurant coming to town, my ears perk immediately. Yesterday, I got a tweet from @dohanews that a new cafe named "Doha Rocks" is opening up in the airport area. First thing I do, of course, is Google it. I was actually very surprised to find that they had a website and Facebook page for it, but both were lacking any good information. What I did run across while looking, though, is that Hard Rock Cafe is coming to Doha. I missed that newsflash somewhere along the way. Hard Rock's website indicates that it's opening in the Winter of '09. I might be a little skeptical about that date, since it is June already and I haven't heard much buzz on that. What I do know, is that a new Applebee's, Quiznos, Burger King, and Cafe Vergnano are seeing their finishing touches. I ran across those by accident while traveling down Markhiya near the post office last week. Having a free standing Applebees, not in a mall or at the ever chaotic Ramada junction (aka cholesterol corner) will be convenient with easy access. I see it in our future added to our other trusted regular dining digs. Keep it up Doha, bring on the food!



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Hostage Crisis in Qatar?

What started as what I thought to be a publicity stunt has quickly turned into someone's worst nightmare. Someone titled Hostage in Qatar has been hitting the Twitter airwaves and his tweets have been relentlessly "retweeted" onto my homepage. I thought it was someone being facetious, just making a play on words like they simply would rather not be in this middle east sandlot. It turns out that "Hostage in Qatar" is a real person that really wants to get out of this country . Apparently, it runs much deeper than that. Keep in mind that I'm more of a chick flick kind of gal and this is more underhanded, double dealing, with a touch of espionage type of made for movie stuff. So, I just pretty much garner what I can from the tweets and blog of this Belgian gent named Philippe Bogaert and try to keep up. It sounds like this guy came over to work on a project, got promoted, became a fall guy when the company folded and is now stuck here because his Qatari sponsor will not give him an exit permit. Ok, to say that my synopsis is oversimplified is an understatement. I just don't want to repeat the story wrong, so please take a moment and check it out for yourself here. Now, there are a few legal twists and turns in his story so I can't truly say who is right and who is wrong. It seems that the jury is still out on that part, literally, since his court dates keep eluding him. Regardless of all the finger pointing, the sad truth is that this guy has a beautiful family back in Belgium waiting for this horror flick to be over. His story is picking up steam as he has campaigned hard to have his voice heard. The Belgian newspapers have picked it up and he has an interview set up with the Gulf Times here in Doha. Publicity is Phillipe's best friend right now. To be continued...


Phillipe's tweets in chronological order
Follow his latest tweets at hostageinqatar
Follow his Hostage in Qatar blog (or you can follow through my sidebar)

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Dohaland

I sure could be diggin' that Snow City that our friends at ILoveQatar conjured up a few months back. With Qatar's hottest May on record since 1993, it would be feeling really good about right now. Since that's not feasible, the next best thing would be taking a cool shower for relief, but a tweet ran across my twitter the other day that said it all. "You know what's hotter than the hot water in Qatar? The cold water". Let me tell you, that twitterer wasn't just whistling Dixie. That brings me to today's subject, construction. Ok, so that transition didn't work after getting off subject and going through the hot weather tirade. I was supposed to work my way from Snow City, but things ran amok from there. Anywho, the ever evolving Doha doesn't seem to be slowing down like its self assigned rival of Dubai. Dohaland is the latest project being launched with a price tag of QR20 billion. Its goal is to bring people back to the heart of the city where the Qataris lived until the 1950's. These plans even include an underground city that is climate controlled providing relief from the heat. Innovation over here has no limits.



It's really scary watching the construction around here. There has to be more accidents than the newspapers report. You rarely see safety harnesses or precautions being practiced. The other day I saw a guy lay a beam on the third floor between two villas being constructed and walk across to the next one.


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