It’s just what I see ….. another slice of my world, this past week.

In the last couple of weeks I’ve been late  posting MyView Monday’s.  Today I’m actually a full week late so if any of these seem outdated – they are!

First, a trip to one of the local hospitals here in Doha, which are not at all like they used to be when we first arrived here 11 years ago! Below is this one’s open atrium complete with waterfalls, internet connections and a cafe.

Yes, if you have to stay overnight the bell boy can help bring your bags up to your room!

Even while waiting around you can sit down and feel almost like a king or a queen for a few moments.

One of the staff will come by with their trolley to see if you’d like a refreshment. Free, of course.

Yes, I’d like a coffee please.

And will you take a look at the doily underneath?

Seriously though, my family back home is going to hate looking at those pictures.  The calm, quiet serenity of it all, knowing that back in Canada hospitals and the healthcare system are squeezed to capacity.  People wait (and die) in overflowing emergency wards.  Specialized testing can take days, weeks or likely months.  Here we walked in and within 2 days had all the cardiac testing done for DD that we needed.  One of life’s blessings for sure.

Another blessing is the weather is absolutely gorgeous here at the moment and I’m finished planting all our flowers in the garden.  I made one last trip to the market to pick up a few more poinsettias.  The vendor didn’t have exactly what I wanted but he immediately rushed off and was back with them in minutes! At times, they can certainly be resourceful around here!!!

As you can see there is always a sea of men surrounding you wherever you go in this country.  The population is currently about 1.25million men to 380 thousand women with the majority of men being expatriate laborers from Asia and India.  No need to worry though as it’s very  safe to wander around here on your own with no trouble at all.

If it’s pots you like there are lots to be found here as well.  Or further along on the left are baskets, mats, bamboo fencing.  Across from that is a bit of fresh fruit and veg for sale.

Just minutes away I passed by the main wholesale fruit and veg market while making my way home.  Men bring whatever you buy to your vehicle using wheelbarrows. I tried to capture a picture of them as they were taking a little break on the side of the road.

Switching from old to new…. this is the Aspire Tower in the background, which I believe is actually supposed to be a hotel that-will-open-eventually…..?? They’ve now built a pedway from it to join with the Villagio Mall.  I just think it looks cool!

We had another short sprinkle of rain one day so of course DD went outside to enjoy it under shelter.  Dear Abby joined her!  Feeling a bit chilled in what was probably +23C weather, they snuggled up in a blanket.

Next, it was on to DD’s piano lessons.

See Mom!  She already has Christmas decorations up!!!!  Why do we have to wait until December 1st…..?????

This one big bobble looks great all on it’s own!

It was my birthday last Thursday and this is the purse DD picked out for me.  It was exactly the one I picked up and had a look at, just a couple days before when out shopping on my own. I guess by now DD must know what I like though helps to buy from what she knows is my favorite clothing store, Mossimo Dutti. Though I can’t fit into their clothes, so I can only buy jewellery and handbags for now.  One day though….. insha’allah.

I’m also glad my family did not buy me one of the purses on the “other side” of the mall that were ranging between $9,000 and $30,000.  Yes, you read those numbers right.  Can you imagine?????

Our next adventure was attending the Holiday Bazaar at the College of the North Atlantic-Qatar.   Any advertisements of events like these have to be worded carefully as it’s best not to actually say it’s a Christmas bazaar here.

For the first time ever in Qatar we were able to sample a freshly brewed cup of Tim Horton’s coffee!  An absolutely wonderful surprise… if you know how much we love and miss our Tim’s.

They paired the coffee with Dunkin’ Donuts though, instead of fresh Tim donuts or bagels. Oh well.  We’ll take what we can get!

Then it was off to The One for lunch.

After a great meal we stopped to look at a few Christmas ornaments for sale in the store…..

If lunch wasn’t enough, we made another stop in the mall for some fresh fruit….

…. on top of frozen yoghurt at the new pinkberry’s!  It tastes as good as it looks!

OK. That is enough of the food and enough of pictures for this week.

Well, except I have to post this picture as it is an example of one of my pet peeves around these parts. Sitting outside the kids’ school were some teenage boys sitting in a car, throwing their KFC trash out the window on the ground. Wait, maybe they didn’t happen to notice the big skip sitting not 5 steps away from where they were parked!!!!  Yeah, right….

What’s up with the big balls, you ask?  They were scattered around Aspire Park the day the big announcement was to be made regarding Qatar’s bid to host the FIFA 2022 World Cup.  (more on that in a future post)

While I was out walking in the park it seems many Qatari women had much the same plan for their morning.

We had a big FAIL when trying to decorate our Christmas tree over the weekend.  All but one of our strands of lights were not working (including brand new ones straight out of the box) so we spent the whole day running from mall to mall in search of some.  Finally, we were successful at Lulu Center.  Also for sale at Lulu’s were both orange and pink trees, if you know of anyone that’s looking for that sort of thing 😉

Or perhaps a Christmas garland archway….

I think we’ll just stick to our traditional tree.

But back to  tree lights.  We had the tree finished, all nicely decorated with  lights all working just fine…. until the next day when the strand right in the middle stopped working!  Dang it – now what???

Well, in trying to get this post up it’s getting rather late so I best be off to bed. Mind you I am practising staying up late this week.  You see, the days start early here.  About 5:30am early, with kids at school by 7:00am.  Which usually means bedtime is about 9:30 or 10:00pm.  But I have a lucky ticket to attend the TEDxDoha 2010 TEDWomen conference here (via satellite from Washington, DC).

The event doesn’t start until 10:30pm so I need to get used to late evening hours!!!!

Until next time ….

(as always, just click on a picture for a closer look)