better than a pocketful of change

The cashiers at Carrefour (the Fred Meyer of Doha - and, I suspect, much of Europe) have this odd aversion to making change with coins. Every other time I have shopped there, the bill just rounds down to the next lowest riyal and I get straight bills back. Today, my cashier didn't seem to have coins or the ability to round down and tossed in a faux Kit-Kat candy bar from the UAE instead. This was pretty okay with me!

items purchased in last week

1) Rain jacket (in the color "tamale"): finally. This transaction was performed while considering visiting Thailand in monsoon season. I'm not going, but in the event that I was, my upper body would stay as dry as an over-air-conditioned Doha apartment.

2) Best meal in Doha yet at Turkey Central - mixed grill, hummus, muttabal, cucumber salad and FOUR pies all for just 25 QAR per stuffed stuffed person

3) Worst meal in Doha yet - I broke my "know at least one ingredient of the meal you are ordering when you are trying new things" rule to at an Iraqi restaurant in Souq Waqif because fatett kawaree looked so tasty on the picture menu and it ended up being gelatinous hoof or leg bits on rice and bread. I should have learned my lesson at the meal that birthed this rule: the one time at Sticky Rice in Ithaca when I had that odd fish stew while everybody else enjoyed their boring but delicious curry and pad thai. I was working within the restraints of the rule, technically, as I did anticipate the rice and bread, but I did not anticipate the fact that both would kind of taste like the kawaree on top. Curious as to what animal I was eating (or rather not eating), I asked the waiter repeatedly, "Is this a COW leg? Sheep leg? Camel leg?" Each time I said "COW?", he would respond, "Yes, COW-aree," pointing at his thigh. "Kawaree." So that's how I learned Arabic for leg or foot maybe.

Google tells me it is boiled calf knuckles. Nice. Maybe the waiter was saying cow after all.

3) Tickets to Beirut for Eid Break. Woo hoo! Sorry you had to find out through the blog, Mom. I will take care of myself, and it's a better bet than Pakistan which I also wanted to (still want to) visit. PLUS I'm going with my friend who has already been there. Easy peasy.

Bonus list: Cities I checked for airfare from Doha (and lonelyplanet.com for overviews) in the past 24 hours:
1) Beirut
2) Amman (hopefully will get there on this trip too)
3) Addis Ababa (could have stayed at Mr. Martin's Cozy Place)
4) Karachi
5) Bangkok (discussion went as follows: monsoons! but it's thailand! monsoons! maybe monsoons are fun! oh it is far and expensive and touristy nevermind)
6) Jakarta (rain check for May)
7) Tunis
8) Luxor
9) Nairobi (I am determined to make it to Africa before going home, and will hopefully see one of 7-9 on later breaks)
10) Astana (so expensive!!! will have to visit the Kazakhs next time I go to visit Mongols probably)
11) Suva (no flights)
12) Damascus (though tricky as an American)
13) Male (this is the capital of Maldives, in case you did not know which I did not until I thought about going there)

Choosing a country has been thrilling and totally consuming - pressure to snatch up the last few tickets before all the people flying home for Eid from Doha beat you to it! also adds to the effect.

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Also, not to self-reference too much here, cost of buying gala apples is clearly the standard by which I judge prices in all foreign countries. Can't wait until I get to New Zealand.

More deets

Every other TA seems to have a blog and post awesome pictures so here I am getting internet peer pressured into updating this. Here I go:

My fridge is full of vegetables from all over the world (Dutch leeks, Australian beef, Egyptian olives, Jordanian nectarines)! And my school is full of students from all over the world (Syria, Yemen, Pakistan - okay not quite as far flung as the food). Shopping for the former made me realize that I really must kick this habit of living in countries that are not arable and import all food if I am going to eat local. The selection here is magnitudes better than that in Mongolia, however, and occasionally I can find produce that is cheaper than in America even! (3 lovely gala apples from New Zealand for 4 QR = $1 and change!)

Also, notably, today I spent more than five minutes outdoors during the day for the Very First Time. The event was a steamy walk/swim through the humidity to the grocery store in the City Center mall about a quarter or half mile away. Every time I step outside I find myself sighing emphatically, just once. Perhaps this is a reflex to force deep breathing in order to get a few molecules of oxygen in amongst the gulps of air that is 95% water vapor. Walking this meager distance made me feel even more sorry for the countless day laborers that built and continue to build the skyscrapers (which I imagine to be mostly empty; how many people live here anyways?) surrounding everything and the silent men mopping the underground parking garage at Education City each evening. The parking spots absolutely glisten.

Haven't taken many photos yet - it's at night that the city really comes into itself, I think, and I never seem to have my camera then. The setting sun is pretty incredible here, also - since the humidity is so thick you can look straight at the sun without hurting and it's just a perfect yellow circle in the shimmering hot sky, dropping slowly between scaffolding and lit-up crazy buildings.
I think it's the only natural beauty I have spotted here yet.

That was a segue to an apology for getting you excited about photos in the first sentence. Eventually.

aloha, doha!

Just woke up from one of the most necessary naps I have ever taken. I am seven or eight hours ahead of Virginia-time here in Qatar and consequently woke up at 3:16 AM (about four hours after going to bed) starving and unable to fall back asleep. I rolled around in my big white bed - photos of plush pad + city later, been too sleepy to take any (Sorry danny!) - for two hours, and then had the silly idea of going to the gym!
My apartment is like a long-term really nice hotel with a big shiny lobby and porters and a coffee shop and "saloon" downstairs and, I found out this morning, a tidy little gym with sauna+steamroom+jacuzzi AND a reasonably sized outdoor pool. Went for a run on the treadmill with other folks who were up at 5:30 AM, watching the company coach buses load up with residents from the area and drive off. After coming back upstairs, I realized that I had more time to kill before pickup at 8 and went back downstairs for a swim. Regular swimwear is permitted in the immediate vicinity of the pool, for those curious. The pool is at least twenty five yards long and heated for reasons I cannot fathom, and has the most surreal view of skyscrapers all around you as you float about.
So that was delightful.
We were picked up and taken to work at WCMC-Q and oriented (orientated?). Met a bunch of very nice people - all eleven of us TAs had hung out the night before, but I met pretty much everybody else that I will be working with over the course of the day. Except, of course, the students, who will be arriving this weekend and starting class next week. The school is pretty large and quite new and I am excited to begin work. I am sure I will be even more excited after adjusting to the time zone.

Things I miss from home already: recycling, public transportation, you!

Things I Liked This Summer

In the event that you were going on a road trip, I would recommend the following to you (in order of remembering and in no discernible categories):

(I will be filling this in slowly in the next few months)
(And adding photographs)
(Thanks for your patience)

1) Mother's: New Orleans
So basically everybody else (Madeline Albright, Bill Clinton, and the Bushes several times post-Katrina) has already been here and wrote a thank you photo that is displayed on the wall here. The ordering system is kind of bizarre (order and pay at counter, sit down, have food brought to you - in retrospect this makes sense but it was confusing at the time) but the roast beef and ham po boy (Ferdi special) after several hours of walking and learning about insects was remarkable.

2) Cafe Jax: Eureka, MT
V and I decided that the Best Meal of our trip was here - granted, it was a special after-hours event to acclimate the Czech guests of our hostess to America (roasted red pepper stuffed with goat cheese + prosecco, salmon with smoked gouda risotto + pinot noir, panna cotta for dessert with fresh fruit and balsamic vinegar reduction + riesling - I got to have dessert with the young chef who discussed the food she had prepared, and this is why I remember it all) so perhaps not typical of the restaurant, but I was seated with the owner and her aunt, and learned a bit of the history of the cafe and the area and it was just the most lovely evening ever. Cute counter with lots of legit-looking milkshake glasses.

3) Dos Coyotes: Folsom, CA
Best burrito I have ever had, I think - even tops the Super Calabacitas at Viva in Ithaca - shrimp and paella burrito at this small chain place in the Sacramento area.

4) Big Spoon: Folsom, CA
Build your own soft serve with as many toppings as you can imagine. Malted milk balls? Frosted animal crackers? Pop rocks? All in one pay-by-the-ounce cup of delight? Dreams do come true in Folsom CA (our hostess Kathleen did a lovely job showing us the culinary wonders of the region in the single evening we were there)

5) Los Bagels: Arcata, CA
Humboldt County's answer to CTB. Our local guide pushed the creamy yellow Larrupin dressing on "whatever you get here! really!" and it was quite nice on a tomonion scrambagel for brunch.

6) Pearl Street: Boulder, CO
Mostly just bomb. (Vocab I picked up in Arcata). Lovers of Ithaca Commons, State Street in Madison, or just Fun in General will appreciate the zombie street musicians, joyful pedestrians, pleasantly noisy bars and general vibe.

7) Bryce Canyon National Park: UT
This was my favorite national park of the seven we visited on the trip. I could not get over the hoodoos even on the cloudy afternoon we spent there. They are just so complex and beautiful and unimaginable. Teddy Roosevelt proclaimed the Grand Canyon "the one great sight which every American should see" - I haven't seen that one, but will addend that proclamation with "after they have gone to see Bryce Canyon, since you are almost there anyways." Sunset Point at sunset followed by Inspiration Point at dusk followed by Sunrise Point and the Queen's Garden/Navajo Loop trail in the morning (I told you I couldn't get over the hoodoos) is a sequence I would recommend.

8) Rockefeller Forest: Humboldt County, CA
A friend's dad recommended this patch of trees as "the best stand of mature redwoods there is" - it is, we read later, the largest contiguous stand of old-growth redwood forest in the world. Nice work, Mr. Rockefeller, Jr. The scent of the shorter young redwoods warming up in the shafts of sunlight filtering through the impossibly large trees is one I hope to remember for a long long time.

9) Blue Mounds State Park: MN
Our first official day on the road, we ambitiously aimed to make it to this park before the gate closed at 10 PM. Pulling in at 9:45 was a real achievement - it was the fourth of July, and we heard nearby fireworks going off as we set up our tent. The real magic, however, was the next morning when we woke up at dawn to go for a run around the fenced-off bison preservation area that made up most of the park. The sunrise over the tiny valley full of mist with pine trees poking out the top, the prairie grasses tinged pink orange as sunlight hit them once again, the dew soaking through our sneakers as we squinted at dark lumps in the distance, imagining them to be bison - the euphoria of the first morning of our adventure: all rosy perfection.

10) Napoleon House: New Orleans
After getting our residence permits and liquor licenses in Qatar, we headed to the distribution center or "beer souq" on Thursday afternoon and the first bottle I looked for was Pimm's No. 1. After months in the humidity of Doha I had wanted to relive the smallest part of one sweltering New Orleans afternoon by fixing a Pimm's cup with a slice of cucumber. Napolean House was my favorite of the eight or nine restaurants we visited in New Orleans in 72 hours. We sat out in the courtyard and ate so many kinds of sausages and a muffuletta and I had an Italian soda and snuck sips of Vanessa's Pimm's Cup and our sundresses slowly became unstuck to our damp skin as we cooled off.

11) Kendall-Jackson: Santa Rosa, CA
Another lovely afternoon spent sitting outside and eating delicious small bites - we headed north of San Francisco after visiting the Academy of Sciences in the morning and went on a brief garden tour with a lot of old people. This was not the most thrilling, especially since we were all feeling a little snobby after passing Wines and our touring compartriots' questions about grape characteristics and France were rather dull. I have to note that I was extra impatient because I was not old enough to enjoy the complimentary glass of Riesling as I walked around the garden with everybody else. Afterwards, however, we signed up for a food and wine pairing and were seated outside in the empty garden as practically every employee of the establishment served us tiny bits of chicken terrine and watermelon pickles and truffles along with a rainbow of bright California wine. A real treat was the Viognier that the chef brought out midway that he described as "tasting like roses" which it did in the very nicest way.

12) Michael's Frozen Custard: Madison, WI
The last thing I did in Madison was stop by Michael's and get a chocolate ice cream cone to eat while driving haphazardly down Verona Road to visit Briana's farm. Hugely delicious and exactly the same as it has been since I was small and walking back to Bri's after paddleboating or getting a sundae after soccer practice.

13) Empire Dairy King: Empire, CO
While we are on the subject of ice cream: Recommended by a friend who was a genuine Resident of Colorado, we stopped by this tiny burger and shake place on our way into Boulder from Utah. After a long day of driving, hiking, and anxiously anticipating the mountains, we were hungry and the Dairy King was there for us. One of the two employees working was a teenage boy who slowly but surely served at least a dozen malts, a handful of shakes and five towering soft serve cones to the masses that had gathered there before us that evening. Watching the kid diligently blend malts while avoiding eye contact from the expectant customers took me right back to my summer scooping ice cream at Maggie Moo's. He crafted a lovely hot fudge sundae for me that was well worth the wait.

14) Felix's: New Orleans
After a sticky day roaming around Audubon Park, riding the streetcar up and down St. Charles (I think this was my favorite public transportation of the trip - or at least ties with the ferry in coastal Louisiana that time we almost ran out of gas. It made me feel small and thrilled), and walking walking walking

15) Peaches N' Such: Monetta, SC
16) Strasburg, VA
This is the town where the trip ended one Monday morning - I bought Peapod a tank of gas and she headed back to Ithaca, and Jamie and I drove to my house and we went swimming. We met in this corner of Virginia to see a drive-in movie in Stephens City (Ice Age 3 and Earth double-feature) and go camping (FREE CAMPSITE) in Jefferson National Forest just across the border in West Virginia. This film-watching and outdoor-sleeping required a lot of driving back and forth along a tiny stretch of Highway 81 (which, notably, goes to upstate New York and is what Scythian takes when they come play music for us at Castaways) which featured a sign for the Hi Neighbor Country Restaurant in Strasburg. Naturally we decided this was the place for our Last Meal the next morning, although we drove by plenty of lovely cafes and diners on the main drag as we looked for Hi Neighbor. Tried scrapple for the first time . . . somewhat disappointed. But Strasburg I would certainly visit again.

17) Covington, LA
Live oak trees, pretty downtown, lovely old houses . . . we were only here a few hours visiting but I liked the feel of this town just across the lake from New Orleans.

18) Siesta Key, FL
A bustling beach with balmy blue waters.

19) Toast!: Charleston, SC
We had a travel book for Charleston but couldn't find any of the recommended restaurants as we hungrily walked the brick streets of the city . . . lured in by the sidewalk sign for the breakfast special, Toast! (Google has verified my recollection of the exclamation point in the name) popped up just before we were about to give up and eat pralines for breakfast in the car. Eggs Meeting Street (poached eggs, crabcakes, fried green tomatoes) was a highlight, as was the lone European traveler intently reading his Lonely Planet: America (hefty book) at the bar.

20) Mission: San Francisco
21) Anthony's Cookies: San Francisco
22) Pixar: Emeryville, CA
23) Alabama State Capitol: Montgomery, AL

list 1 of many

Bodies of water I have jumped in - or at least waded in - this summer:

1) Reservoir - Ithaca, NY
2) That fountain in the middle of everything at the University of Michigan
3) Pond at Echo Farm - Check, VA
4) Gulf of Mexico - Siesta Beach, FL
5) Sunfish Lake - Lac du Flambeau, WI (photo credit: Mom)
6) Pacific Ocean - Devil's Punchbowl, OR + Trinidad, CA + Pacific Beach, CA


7) Boulder Creek - Boulder, CO
8) Reservoir - Eureka, MT

Considered deeply but notably did not:
1) Bluebird Lake - Trego, MT
2) Sylvan Lake - Eagle, CO
3) Crater Lake, OR

Next up: Persian Gulf