Is this Qatar's first bus stop?
I spotted it on an empty half built road in West Bay. As promised, the bus stop looks impressive - a gleaming air-conditioned unit that will offer travellers all the protection they need against the harsh desert sun.
Also see: Qatar Bus Routes Getting Around in Qatar Qatar Travel
We are currently considering what changes to make to the Qatar Visitor website prior to a major rebuild, and would love to get feedback from any users out there.
Global Brands is advertising a position for a restaurant manager on the Qatar Jobs Forum. For more details, or for jobs related discussion check out the Qatar Jobs Forum.
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The American Women's association will be holding their annual bazaar this Saturday at the Intercontinental Hotel Qatar, allowing expats to get their xmas decorations in early. The bazaar is usually a great success, with a huge variety of goods sold. Details are in the brochure below - click on the image for the full size brochure. 
It's entering the time of year when there are lots of events on, and the Qatar Tennis Open will be starting on the 5th of this month before culminating in the finals on Sunday. As usual the event will be held in the Khalifa Tennis Stadium - click on the map at the bottom of this post to see exactly where.
There is also the AWA fair on Saturday at the Intercontinental (more details to follow shortly), as well as their General Meeting at the Interncontinental' s fish market on Monday - registration begins at 9.30, their will be a charge of QAR60 for members and QAR80 for non-members who can enjoy a light brunch and a talk from the Qatar Diabetes Association, after which you probably won't feel like desert! You will need to confirm your attendance first by emailing qatarawa (at) yahoo.com.
There is also the inaugral meeting of the Qatar Birds Club, which is being formed by the The Friends of the Environment under the sponsorship of Bird Life International. This will be held at 7.30 pm at the Friends of the Environment Center. If you want to join you will need to bring 2 passport photos and a QAR20 membership fee (QAR40 for families). You need to confirm this by emailing - we haven't received permission to put up the email address yet, but if you would like to attend you could email us and we will forward it on.
There are also two more rambles taking place. The first will be around the Camel Racing Track, and the second will be searching for winter birds near Al Khor. You will find more details here.
Quite recently I wrote a post commenting on an article written in the Telegraph - Qatar: Land of Sand and Chocolates.
I was particularly suprised about the writer's impressions of the view from the Ritz:
The next morning I was excited to see what lay outside. Pulling back the curtains I wasn’t sure what to expect. The result was a surprise. Pure, yellow desert and sandy nothingness. For miles. Land, seemingly meeting the sky. It was beautiful in its starkness.
As the world economy is rocked by the credit crunch and property markets in America and the UK collapse, Barwa property announce they are going to build a new city.Establishing a business in Qatar means getting used to completely different rules and regulations as well as getting used to dealing with a differnent way of doing business. For starters, in most cases foreign entreupeneurs will not be able to have a majority ownership in their business, even when putting up 100% of the capital, and this usually means receving 49% of the profit. As one businessman explained to me:
You come up with the business plan, you find the money for the business, you run the business, you accept all the risk - and if you are lucky enough to make a profit your partner lets you keep half!
I'm not the best judge of birds, but I believe this to be an egret. The bird was fishing in the shallows of Doha harbour.
Has anyone else had problems contacting Qatar Airways? They used to have their telephone number on the website, but now clicking on Contact Us just gets an email form. I am always sceptical of these in Qatar because so often you don't get a reply.
I did an office search for the number, came to select the office, selected the Doha office - which always used to come up with a long list of telephone numbers - only to get this result:
I tried the Qatar Airways number on our website, but there was no reply, so presumably it has been discontinued.
A quick call to Qtel got me this number, which worked on the second try:
Qatar Airways Tel: +974 4621681
I wonder if they are trying to discourage telephone calls and direct people towards internet booking instead - or am I missing an obvious number on their website?
We have a list of useful telephone numbers for Qatar, but as this shows things change - if you do come across an error, please let us know and we will try to correct it promptly!
Finally a safe topic of conversation...
Sometimes the topics of conversation between expats and locals in Qatar can be a bit limited. It's best not to ask men about their wives (the opposite does not seem to apply), unless you are Muslim you probably don't want to talk too much about religion (it is taken a lot more seriously than in my country, the UK) and there are a number of other topics it's usually best to stay clear of. (See Qatar Do's and Don'ts!)
So the US election makes a great change. It's a really safe topic of conversation, in that nobody in the world outside America wants Mc Cain to win - in the Doha debates only 13% of the audience voted in favour of Mc Cain, and similar figures appear to have been reflected around the world - and everyone can agree with each other quite happily that Obama would be the better choice.
Nevertheless, there is scepticism as to whether he will actually be allowed to win. Several Arabs I have spoken have expressed doubt over whether an America much of the Arab world perceive to be racist will allow a black man to win the election.
It's interesting that William Baker, an American brought up in a Palestinian village, argued in Arabs, Islam and the Middle East that Arabs do not really perceive coloured people from America to be American, but more as a fellow oppressed people. Perhaps this is why Obama is so popular in the Middle East, but it also bodes well for negotiations in the area should he win.
Muslims in the area will note that Obama had a Muslim stepfather, and hope that he may have more understanding of them. Having spent years in Indonesia as a child, he may well have more ideas of how to deal with a completely different culture and mindset, so alien from America, and be able to put aside the bludgeon approach of the Bush years. Certainly more than Palin, who first went abroad in 2007 and whose "gosh-darn I'm a hockey mum" approach bespeaks of a simplicity that would be worrying when dealing with the minefield of Middle Eastern politics.
So, it's nice to have a topic of conversation that you can agree on, assuming that you and the person speaking to are in the 87% of people who approve of Obama. But it will be even nicer if Obama wins the election and manages to restore America's reputation in the Middle East!
Update: It seems that Mc Cain may have even less support than this amongst Qatar Internet Users! A Qatar Living poll gave just 10% to Mc Cain. Obama should be happy with 60%, although a massive 30% say that they just don't care!
As the Qatar Natural History goup have stopped sending emails prior to their trips (they are now relying on their website instead) I nearly missed what will be the first trip (rambling aside) of the season. The trip will take place on Friday, and sounds like a good one, involving a trip to a desert cave and digging for desert roses. For details of the trip check out the QNHG website. See you there!
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