curiosities

On the signs outside all the salons here, it says "saloon."

I drove around one of the millions of crazy roundabouts in Doha today. Almost a traumatic experience, but I felt surprisingly victorious once I successfully navigated it, although I was whimpering to myself the whole time.

Everyone has a tape player in their car and stacks of music-filled tapes that they listen to while driving. On Qatari radio, they play American songs like "Mambo No.5." On Qatari TV, they play movies like "Steel Magnolias."

I have meetings with Qatar Airways and Qatar Petroleum this week. Probably two of the most important meetings I've had in my career so far. At Qatar Airways, we're asking for ten free tickets to IC in Turkey in August. At QP, we're asking for them to fund our 400,000QR PBoX.
That's a lot of money.

Nobody checks their e-mail religiously, answers cell phones when they should (instead, they answer during meetings) or has voicemail. Sooooo frustrating.

The mango juice is heavenly and the shwarma is delicious.

The city puts little bags on the palm trees up at the top to catch the coconuts when they fall so they don't go in the street.

I don't really feel the heat any more. I wear pants and long sleeves, and I know I'm sweating, but I don't even register that it's over 100F every time I step outside.

When there's an accident in the street, the cars are forbidden from moving. The must stay in the exact same position until the police arrives and gives them a note saying that the scene was inspected. Because people are crazy drivers and because there are a lot of people in Doha, this causes a TON of traffic delays. I saw an accident as it was happening two lanes away from me today.

There are almost no bugs here.

Whenever people hear that I'm part Argentinian, they ask if I can teach them how to Salsa.

The sand here is not so much sand as it is either dust or forms clumps of material almost harder than rock.