Going out with a bang!

Gail: Congratulations again on your 8 years at HP.  Go out with a bang!

These photos were taken right from our living room window.  It was the Eid fireworks display at Katara (Qatar’s cultural center) across the bay from the Pearl where we live.

 

Meeting new friends

The best pancake place in Doha is Ric’s Kountry Kitchen. It opened here in 1997 by Rick, from Oklahoma, who was an oilman in the Persian Gulf. After quite a few years of oil work, he decided to open a pancake place in Doha. Pictured to my right are Ric’s daughter Ashley (Harley shirt) and her best friend Michelle. On the tube is the Miami – Dallas game.  A special subscription needs to be purchased in order to watch NFL games all season. Pancakes, brewed coffee, and an NFL game.  Almost feels like home. Perhaps I’ll start gaining weight now.
This is the first day of Eid, which follows Ramadan. It’s about a 2 week holiday for Qatari’s and other Muslims across the Arab World. Kind of like our Christmas. We expats get only 3 of the days off, but they’re in conjunction with a weekend, so I’m at the start of 5 days off. I’ll get my apartment in order, see a few sights, and do some running. Quite hot and humid (for another month) but I really don’t mind.
Next stop is the Souq, which is nearby Ric’s.  I need to shop for some small baskets to hold all the little miscellaneous piles of stuff I have stashed around the apartment. I need to clean things up before Sheikha Gaila arrives next month. Rather than purchasing the nondescript baskets at Ikea, I decided to hold off and find some more original baskets from the Souq or possibly the Omani Market which specialize in many regional goods continuing the ancient trading traditions.
Happy running. Enjoy the Peppermint Run this weekend!
Eid Mubarak.
Paul

Meeting with a colleague

I had lunch with a colleague from another firm,
at the Sheraton, which is one if the few places that discreetly serves lunch
during Ramadan. His name is Bob Cooper – British fellow. Lives in Dubai and commutes to Qatar each week.

 
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View from the Sheraton.

 

 

Around town

I was just at Starbucks at City Center Mall for some shopping this evening. (Not driving quite yet due to the long process in obtaining a license.) I sat down and started chatting with this fellow, Fadi. We talked for over an hour. He has a metal fab shop in Doha. He has a brother and cousins with businesses in California and Arizona. He’s visited there several times with his family, wife and 3 kids. He offered to give me a lift back to the Pearl just now. Nice fellow. I will treat for coffee next time we meet. He speaks good English and is a fountain of information about things to do in Doha.
Gail, I am serious about taking you on a 4wd sand dune excursion and sleeping in a Bedouin tent far off in the desert. It’s all the rage here in winter.
Love,
Paul

I’m still running

out for a run

Just went for a nice run at the Pearl where I now live. Hot but still really good to stretch the legs. Fortunately the mildly injured soccer muscle up high in the thigh apparently has little to do with running.  Heading down the boardwalk in a little while for an Iftar dinner at a Lebanese place the office was talking about.
Getting medical checks, driver’s license, Qatari ID, work visa is a zany process but fun in a way. Our driver Saaed from Egypt knows the ins and outs of this City as he drives everyone around for these things, and he’s very fun to listen to as he explains the whimsical processes while zipping though heavy traffic and around roundabouts (a crazy British invention almost as odd as positive ground).
Miss you guys. Come visit.
Paul

Meeting with the clients and staff

A few picks from tonight’s Suhoor dinner with the office and client (Q22) staff.

Tournament results and awards

“Q22” below stands for Qatar 2022, which means the organizing committee for the World Cup program that is being planned for 2022.

The Q22 Ramadan Staff Football Tournament got off to a great start this year, with a total of 64 members of the team participating. The whole tournament proved to be an incredible success, with everyone involved having a great time while promoting a healthy and active lifestyle, in line with our Value of Unity and our strategic goals and objectives.

The players were split into eight different teams, with each team playing three group stage matches. Competition was fierce throughout, with just the top two teams from each group progressing to the knock-out stages. In the end, though, only one team was left standing. Solar Power triumphed over FC Oryx in the battle for the championship, claiming an impressive 11-2 victory.

A hearty round of applause to Solar Power (Apostolis Kalogiannis, Joseph Newnham, Hon NG, Khalid Ba-Abbad, Sakis Batsilas and Zaid Mosawy), who just wrote themselves into Q22 history as the winners of our first ever Ramadan Staff Football Tournament.

The captains of the eight participating teams voted to give the Best Player Award to Hon Ng, who was instrumental in the success of his tournament-winning team.

The Golden Boot Award, for the tournament’s top scorer, was tightly fought, with the winner decided on the final day of the tournament. Seamus McLoughney put together an impressive tally, scoring a remarkable 26 goals to edge out Jamie Frost and Hon NG for the title.

Finally, the Fair Play Award, for the team that had the fewest bookings and demonstrated exemplary sportsmanlike conduct on and off the pitch, was given to FC Falcons (Daniel Jonak, Rhali Amrani, Tobias Toon, James Stearn, Fadel Zitoun, Haroon Haider, Rauf Mammadov).

Congratulations to the winners and to everyone who contributed to the success of the tournament. We are already planning more ways to keep Q22 healthy and improve football participation.

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At the office

“The Italian Job”

IFTAR Dinner Logistics Group W Hotel

IFTAR Dinner Paul Ed

Ed Sloan and I at the office

IFTAR dinner, Logistics Group

I joined an office Ramadan Football team.  Our team name is “The Italian Job.”  We’ve won 2 and lost 2 matches so far.  Tomorrow (Saturday) night we will play for the third place title against a team about equal in ability to us, so it should be a good match.  My teammates in the attached photo are from Ireland, Italy, Spain, Lebanon, the UK, and myself of course from potato land in Boise.

As you may know, during the holy month of Ramadan no eating or drinking liquids of any kind are allowed in public during the daytime.  There is a small office lunch room on each floor where staff are allowed to snack during the day, but only in there and it is strictly enforced.  After sunset, however, wonderful feasts with music and entertainment are available, for a price of course, typically at the hotels.  Iftar is the meal after sunset, and Suhoor is the meal before sunrise.  There are other Ramadan tents in the area where hosts invite guests for lavish affairs, but they also have nice tents and meals offered to the poor or working class here.

Two nights ago (Wednesday) we had an Iftar meal at the W Hotel for Ed Sloan, who I am replacing.  Ed is sitting to my left.  He Skyped his wife Sue so she could see our sendoff for Ed.  Sue and I coordinated by email in advance, so that she could give me 20 interesting and little known facts about Ed, that I shared with the group during dinner.  I structured 20 tidbits about Ed, and the staff had to guess true or false for each, and the one who got the most right (Ramesh) won a gym bag.  For example:  “True or False?  Ed once stopped along the highway to run into a burning building to rescue a bird in a cage.”  The answer is “True!”  He actually did that one time.  He saw a house on fire, stopped the car and ran inside and crawled around on the floor to make sure everyone was out.  Fortunately everyone was, but while crawling around on the floor he found a bird in a cage that he brought out and rescued.

Ed has assembled a very fine team of logistics staff from around the world, over the last year.  I’ll be working with this group from this point forward, as our group’s logistics manager.

The staff, from left to right in the group photo by the rugs are:  Ramesh from India (he and his wife have a new baby); Murat from Turkey (he and his wife have two small children); Ed Sloan who is heading back to the U.S.; Paul “The Bachelor” Rotermund who works extremely hard during the week and then jets off to Dubai for fun and frolic on the weekends; Marikit who is a Civil Engineer from the Philippines; me; Michael who is ex military and a very sharp logistics analyst; and Stehpan from South Africa who deals with labor strategies.  In short, our collective job is to monitor and forecast the major materials movement requirements into the country to make sure there is enough port, highway, rail capacity; and material, labor and food supplies to handle the huge building boom in the hundreds of billions of dollars that will occur in this country over the next 9 years.

This evening I plan to swim laps at the Marriott pool, and possibly get some laundry done.  I plan move into my new apartment/condo in the Pearl District this Sunday.  Again, Gail will join me here later in September,

Life in Qatar

Pearl apartment view, pool

The Marina is just steps from the entry to the condo Gail and I are moving into.

Pearl, ships view

Pearl apartment view, Doha Bay

First few days

Heading to work for day 2. Staying at the Marriott in Doha until the apartment is ready in a couple of weeks.Heading to work for day 2. Staying at the Marriott in Doha until the apartment is ready in a couple of weeks.

Dune Jumping

Sealine beach Qatar

meeting with camels

This evening I enjoyed a nice Iftar meal (breaking of the fast after sunset during
Ramadan).  Traditionally such meals are held in tents to accommodate large
crowds but it’s SO hot and so humid that most venues are hosting Iftar (late
night) and Sohour (before sunrise) meals indoors this year.  The food and
decor are a very nice treat here at the Marriott hotel.