You Shall Know Our Velocity!

SURPRISE!!!

2011-06-24T07:03:00.000+03:00

So The Littlest and I have been in the US for a few weeks now. I've been wanting to write about our adventure getting here, but we've been pretty busy visiting with family, so I haven't really had time. Unfortunately what usually happens when we come back to US for a visit? We get sick! It seems to go around every time our family gets together and it's the nauseating, throwing up kind of sick and it likes to circulate through everyone. This is probably why I'm getting around to writing cause we should be playing at Trafalga instead of sitting on the couch watching Mickey Mouse Club House. Anyway on to how we got here.

I guess I should start from the very beginning. Back in February I was feeling kind of down and super jealous that Dave was going to New Orleans in March and I was stuck in the Middle East where all the countries around us were falling apart. We looked into flights for The Littlest and me and thought if we were already in the US that we should fly to Utah as well and spend a few weeks with family. I got really excited thinking it would be great fun to just show up at my parents house and surprise them. Of course reality sunk in and we really couldn't spend $3000, especially since we had already taken an expensive trip to Ireland in November and we were planning a trip to Hungary in April, so we scratched that idea, but it got me thinking about my summer visit.

I had promised my sister Rima that she could fly back to Doha with me because I was planning on staying in the US after Dave left in September. Previously I had only either come early or stayed later than Dave, never both, but I figured that this was probably my last chance to do both before we have more kids and who knows what it will be like next summer or the next. Plus Dave's vacation time is extra long this year due to an overlapping Muslim holiday. So I started looking into flights leaving Doha in early to mid June and flying back in early October. 4 months! I was super excited and I knew that I wanted to surprise everyone, but how? I figured I should tell someone and that ended up being Tasha because I just really couldn't keep it from her. We brainstormed and decided that since my mom's birthday is in June that she could throw a surprise birthday party. That way all the family would be in one place. We spent a lot of time talking about the party and how everything was going to work. We told Lonica too, so that she could help make sure everyone was there.

Buying tickets was not as fun. They had gone up at least $800 from last year and things weren't looking good. I wasn't sure we were going to be able to make it work until I got a brilliant idea. What if we had a few day layover in Phoenix and visit my best friend Regan? I know what you are thinking, how could that possibly be cheaper? Well of course I didn't think it would be cheaper, but I found one itinerary that was $200 cheaper than everything else I was finding and I got a free trip to Arizona out of it. In keeping along with the theme of surprise I called Regan's mom to see if she'd help me surprise her. She was super excited and told me that I had made her day.

So with tickets bought I still had two months to wait. And wait. And wait. Finally June 6th arrived and we were able to get on the plane. It was sad to leave Dave behind, but I was so excited to surprise everyone. Our first flight was from Doha to London Heathrow. We left at 11:20pm. I was hoping The Littlest would fall asleep pretty quickly, but he didn't fall asleep for about 2-3 hours. He was in his carseat, so he was fairly comfortable. I on the other hand had a completely uncomfortable airplane seat. I did manage to curl up into a ball and sleep for a few hours. We arrived in London and made our way through the maze to our terminal. I swear we went up and down so may escalators, it was crazy and none of the elevators were very clear with which floor to get off on. Luckily I bought this little contraption for the car seat from here and it was a lifesaver. It was great to not have to worry about a stroller and a car seat and when The Littlest didn't ride in it, I would throw in our backpacks and give my aching back a rest. (I swear my backpack weighed 20 lbs). The Littlest was absolutely crazy at the airport and I spent most of my time chasing him. The last five minutes before we had to go to our gate I found a little kid area and was mad at myself for not seeing it earlier. The Littlest kicked and screamed when I took him away.

We loaded the plane to Dallas and were lucky enough to get a whole row of 4 seats to ourselves and I was able to lay down and take a nap. The Littlest was a pretty hard to handle when they had the fasten seatbelt sign on for about an hour because of bad turbulence (the bad stomach in the throat kind) and all he wanted to do was run around. Towards the end of the flight when the flight attendants were giving out drinks one asked me if I was going to be needing an adult beverage. We were in the back and so they knew how much I struggled keeping The Littlest entertained. She even offered to buy it for me. I thought it was very sweet of her to offer, but obviously I had to turn it down since I don't drink, even on a long plane ride with a two year old.

When we made it to Dallas I wanted to cry. I was so tired and excited and The Littlest was wired. Just one more flight, I kept saying to myself and then I'm going to surprise the flip flops off of Regan (cause if you know her, she never wears socks!). We were lucky enough to find a nice sized play area a few gates down from ours. The Littlest had a ton of fun playing with 3 other boys. They were chasing each other and having a great time. He was devastated when I dragged him away to our gate. He was getting pretty restless as we boarded the plane and I seem to recall saying to myself again and again, "we are almost there, just one more flight." When we were all settled the pilot came on the PA and said the worst words I could have imagined at the moment, "The plane is leaking what looks like oil, they are looking at it right now."

TO BE CONTINUED

Next Step Complete

2011-05-16T20:23:00.002+03:00

For those of you following my progress on joining the foreign service, I got the letter today stated that I've passed the Personal Narrative phase and will be able to take the day-long Oral Assessment over the summer. Here my timeline so far:

Feb 5, 2011 Took Foreign Service Officer Written Test (FSOT)
Mar 4, 2011 Received FSOT results
Mar 23, 2011 Submitted Personal Narrative (PN)
May 16, 2011 Received results of QEP

It says I'll be able to sign up for the Oral Assessment during a five day window (May 23-27). I'll hopefully be able to get a time when I'm back in America over the summer.

Stay posted.

Notes on New Orleans

2011-04-13T17:47:00.004+03:00

Busy Jackson Square with St. Louis Cathedral

After a brief layover in Amsterdam, I stayed in New Orleans for about five days to attend and present at a major conference of teachers of English as a second language. Here on some notes on my time there.

I thought I had come completely prepared, until I realized that I brought the wrong computer cord with me and would need an adapter to be able to plug in my laptop before the battery died. Fortunately, there was a Radio Shack in the neighborhood that had exactly what I needed.
But Radio Shack didn't open till 8:30, and I had been up since 4am due to jet lag. Once the sun came up I wandered around the French Quarter to kill time. I took a walk down super-touristy Bourbon Street. It was completely disgusting. The whole street smelled like a combination of alcohol, urine, and vomit. The interesting thing is that just a block away on Royal Street it's a completely different world, though still a bit touristy. Needless to say, I spent very little time on Bourbon Street. I just couldn't stomach the smell.

Fantastic Blackened Catfish, Jambalya, and Spinach

The thing I was most excited about experiencing in New Orleans was the food and it did not disappoint. On my first day I went out of my way to visit Domilise's Po-boy shop and it was one of the most incredible sandwiches I've ever had. I had always thought I hated seafood but I was open-minded enough to try blackened catfish at the Gumbo Shop in the French Quarter. I made sure to get some jambalya on the side in case I didn't like the fish, but it was amazing. All the food I had in New Orleans, for that matter, was amazing.

Sign at my first conference session

While not going out to eat I spent quite a bit of time at the conference and I think it went pretty well. I gave two presentations that were both well attended (at least 50 at the first and about 25 at the other) and well received.

Exhibit on Katrina at the Presbytere museum. This is a sample of the markings painted on houses indicating who are what was alive there (or dead).

While not eating or attending the conference I did get to see a bit of the city. I went to both branches of the Louisiana State Museum on Jackson Square and learned about the history of the area. They also had a fantastic exhibit on living with hurricanes.

The city is covered with Mardi Gras colors--Purple, Yellow, and Green. I quickly noticed that they're the old Utah Jazz colors (since the team was originally from New Orleans). They really just changed the name to "Utah" and co-opted everything else without thinking about what any of it meant, didn't they?

Quick Notes on Amsterdam

2011-03-24T10:49:00.013+03:00

Flying to Amsterdam I got to catch up on some of last years big movies, all with Dutch subtitles. One of the things I quickly noticed is the Dutch word for "you" is simply "u." "Thank you" becomes "Dank u", and so on. It made me think of when how adults complain whenever young people write something like "How r u?" They're not being lazy. They're simply trying to write in Dutch.

Amsterdam's Schiphol airport is probably one of the best places to have a long layover. Besides having a branch of the famous Rijksmuseum inside the airport that you can visit for free, it only takes about 15 minutes to get downtown by train at a cost of about 8 euros round trip (this is significantly cheaper and faster than getting into London from Heahtrow). I had a layover for about six hours, so it worked out perfectly.

Water, water, everywhere

There are canals everywhere. Probably one every two blocks. My instinct was to take pictures every time I saw one. After taking at least ten I had to stop myself and say, "How many pictures of canals am I really going to take?"

Nothing behind these windows right now but a bed and curtains

They say that even if you're not interested in sex and drugs you should still go to the Red Light District since it's the most historic part of the city. However, when you show up at eight in the morning there are no sex or drugs to be found. Apparently it was just too early in the morning to get high and fornicate. It's a real neighborhood where real people live and they were all heading out for work.
That isn't to say the area is completely devoid of sex. There are plenty of sex shops around, though to be honest every single major European city has an area like this. No big deal. Unless you're from the Midwest. In that case, it's a very big deal.
And when I came back around 10 there were definitely marijuana-filled shops open and prostitutes sitting in their windows leering out at people. Since it was still early and I was one of the few people around, having women in their lingerie gawk at me made me feel really awkward.
Not surprisingly, the Anne Frank House is kind of depressing. Not in a bad way though. You just to be in the mood for it. You can see the whole thing in an hour, and it certainly provides context for the book.
Sadly, neither of the other two famous museums (the Rijksmuseum and Van Gogh Museum) opened soon enough for me to visit. I suppose I'll have to wait till next time.
You typically don't think of Amsterdam as a big culinary destination (a big chain restaurant there is FEBO, which is basically a giant vending machine). I really wanted to try pickled herring, which is a common street food, but since I had to get back to the airport before lunchtime none of the vendors were out and about.

Mayonnaise, Yum!

So I settled on vlaamse frites, which are the Dutch version of french fries (though vlaamse means Flemish). As I understand it, frites are always fried twice at different temperatures which gives them a different consistency than what you'd get at, say, the Golden Arches. They're also served with a dallop of mayonnaise on top and eaten with a tiny plastic fork. Tasty, but it probably would have gone down better with some herring.

And this is how I find out?

2011-03-04T06:44:00.006+03:00

Let me be very clear: Last night I found out I passed the Foreign Service Officer Test. So on to round 2, writing the personal narrative (PN) which consists of 6 very short essay questions about my background and experiences. I have three weeks to write it and send it. After that (if all goes well) there would be the oral assessment, possible language tests, medical and security clearances, and then waiting on the register to get called up for a job. Needless to say, passing the test is big, but it's only the first step.

Now, I wasn't completely sure that I had actually passed last night. I happened to have been on ACT's website (the company that administers the test) and noticed there was a new link available for me to write the PN. As soon as I saw this I went back and checked my email. Nothing. So we weren't sure. Would that link really be available to me if I didn't pass? Lyssa checked the blog of another FSO hopeful family she follows and they got their results. So we stayed up another hour or two. Still no email.

Finally I got up this morning and the email was there. As I expected the letter was there and its congratulations came off as a little anticlimactic.

So How Did I Do?

(I'm going to admit this next section has a lot of math and is maybe a little boring. You may want to skip to the end if you want to see how I did)

The scores for the first three sections (job knowledge, biography, and English expression) are reported in t-scores. Every FSO blog I've looked at has blown off explaining what a t-score is, despite the fact that it's not that complicated. Allow me to try. Most of us are familiar with percentiles from school. If 100 people take the test and you score at the 90th percentile then that means you did better than 90 of them. It's a standardized score, which means that it's based completely on how everyone did as a group. If the group did well, then the 90th percentile means I probably only missed a few questions. If my grade were a percentage, it may be higher than 90%. If the group did poorly, then I may have scored well below 90%.

If you look at the chart above you'll notice t-scores are another way to standardize how everyone did. Compared to percentiles you'll notice that t-scores are spaced at equal intervals (whereas the further you go right or left the more spread out percentiles are). So even though both mark a score of 50 as average, being in the 90th percentile is closer to a t-score of around 62. Again, it's important to note the difference between standardized scores and percentages. In school, scoring 70% is considered average, whereas a t-score of 50 is average.

With all that said, the majority of scores will be around 50. To mark the test they added the t-scores for the three sections. Though theoretically the best total score would be 300, earning that high would require absolute perfection. Since the curve gets smaller at the ends simply missing two or three questions could easily drop your t-score down into the 60s (which again, isn't bad). They were looking for a total score of at least 154. I've heard that this number is pretty standard, though sometimes it's higher if they're not looking to hire as many people. If we divide 154 by 3 we see that the average score necessary for each test is only 51 1/3--in other words, only slightly above average. I scored better than that in all the categories (though just barely on the biography) and got slightly over 60 on the English expression. Since my total score was higher than 154, they marked my essays.

As I mentioned in my previous blog, I felt really good about my essays. I was lucky and got two topics I liked and knew a lot about (unlike when I retook the GRE this summer). The essays were scored out of 12 (I assume they use some sort of 6-point rubric and add the two together, but I can't say for sure). I got a perfect 12/12. Seeing how I'm a writing teacher, anything less would have been unacceptable.

To anyone else reading this who took the test, congratulations if you passed, if not, better luck next time! At the very least I hope those t-scores make a little more sense.

Sleeping

2011-02-27T16:22:00.002+03:00

Since the Littlest was 14 months old he has slept in a toddler bed because he had decided that a crib wasn't cool and he could climb right out. I was afraid he would crack his head open on our tile floor so we switched his crib into a toddler bed earlier than most people. This has caused some problems. Our nighttime routine consists of reading, teeth brushing, prayer, and "tuck, tuck, tuck" (tucking him in with his blanket) and of course we can't forget "ca ca" (Mickey Mouse). He's gets tuck, tuck, tuck too. Then lights out, with the door shut and locked (I know, I feel bad locking it, but if we don't he just opens the door and walks out. Before he could open the door we just shut it, so I guess it is the same as just closing it, right?) Almost every night we hear him stirring around in there. Most of the time, within a half hour or so the noises stop and he's asleep. Sometimes he's not though and we find him like this:

The Littlest up much too late. Underwear around his ankles and on top of his head. I think he was trying to be a super sleuth like Tigger!

Of course, most of the time we find him asleep, but almost always somewhere else in the room, not in his bed. Here are just some of the places we have found him:

Sleeping on the rocking chair with baby "Ca Ca"

Falling asleep while trying to get dressed. There are pants around his ankles. Makes me wonder if he tripped and fell and then just decided to stay on the floor and fall asleep.

And our favorite:

In the closet

When I opened the door to his room and he wasn't in his bed I wasn't surprised, but as a scanned the dark room I didn't see him. After my heart skipped a beat I decided to check his favorite hideout spot. Not only was he asleep in the closet but he had closed the doors once he was in there! The next night the same thing happened. Silly boy.

Every time we find him somewhere we grab the camera, but today we couldn't; when we tried to open the door it wouldn't open. He was laying down right in front of the door, with underwear on his head and around his ankles. It freaked me out that he might have fallen, so I pushed on the door until it woke him up and moved him to his bed.

The Littlest sure keeps us on our toes. I can't believe he falls asleep in these odd, super uncomfortable places. Makes me wonder what he thinks of his bed. I'll definitely post more pictures as we find him in these weird places.

Foreign Service Officer Test

2011-02-05T12:29:00.004+03:00

It seems like we've been redefining our lives and talking about the foreign service non-stop for the past few months. It seems so strange that only today I finally got to complete the first step--taking the written exam. I've tried to psych myself out and think of it as more of a performance than an assessment. See, back in high school I was a state finalist for humorous monologues in the state theater competition. I remember thinking to myself how much I wanted the judges not to assess me just on that one performance, but hoped that they could see it as the culmination of several years of work. Well, of the eight finalists I took eighth place (but at least I was still a FINALIST). Nevertheless, my hope for the test was still the same, that it could be a chance for me to show off my knowledge, skills, and experiences, rather than a simple test.

Thanks to a non-disclosure form I signed for ACT I can't go into too many details, but I can talk about the test's format. The first section is 60 questions and covers job knowledge. This can range from anything from the Constitution, foreign policy, US and world history, US government, American culture, psychology, computers, basic statistics, and management. Needless to say that preparing for the section felt a bit like preparing to go on a game show. The state department has a list of some 30 or 40 books you can read to help you prepare to enter the foreign service. I read probably 10 of them. I'm pretty sure none of them addressed a single question on the test (except for "Public Policy in the United States." If you're preparing for the test I highly recommend it). There were a handful of questions where I outright knew the answer and several I wasn't sure on but could narrow it down. I don't feel like I was blindly guessing on any, which I suppose is a good sign.

The next section was the Biographic questionnaire, which essentially asks me questions about my personal life and experiences that would qualify me for the foreign service. As I understand this section can't really hurt you, but rather it rewards those who have a more complete background. For the most you just have to answer Likert scale questions or state how frequently you do something. They occasionally ask for you to write out detailed examples. This seemed like the hardest part as all of the sudden no names or examples would come to mind. They also don't let you write that many words, so you have to be concise.

The next section was English grammar and usage. As someone who teaches EFL writing, I felt really good about it. On the practice tests I took I'd only miss a few questions. I feel like I did just as well this time, if not perfectly.

Assuming my score on the other sections is high enough (and I feel like it should be) they'll mark the two essays I wrote. It's my understanding that the essays are the part that makes or breaks most candidates. Now, I can't disclose any of the specifics, but when I saw the first randomly generated topic I was stunned since it had a lot to do with some of the things I've been researching at work. I had to pause for a second to contain my excitement and remember that I only had thirty minutes to compose the paper. I also felt really confident about the second essay (though it wasn't on my area of expertise). The whole thing only took about 2 1/2 hours (time was allotted for 3 1/2, but I am a speedy tester).

So all in all I feel I did well. We'll have to wait 3-5 weeks to get the scores. If I pass I'll get to write a personal narrative where I explain exactly why I should work for the foreign service. If I didn't pass I'll have to wait again till next year to try again. In the meantime I just want to take a break and get back to work (which starts back up tomorrow anyhow). As much fun as reviewing the constitution on a daily basis and reading all about jazz music is (since the FSOT study guide seemed obsessed with jazz) I'm going to enjoy not having the burden of an assessment on my shoulders for a while. For the past 24 hours I've felt simultaneously calm and eerily on edge, so it's very good to have it out of the way. Although now with all the adrenaline, I want to go punch a camel in the mouth.

Private blog vs. public blog?

2011-01-21T14:09:00.004+03:00

I'm debating about making this blog private. Since we are far away I like everyone to be able to see pictures of us and what we are up to, but I really don't know who is reading this, so I don't add as much as I'd like to. On the other hand I want people to be able to read it if they want to without making them jump through hoops. Any thoughts? Would you still read it if you had to log in? (not you mom, don't worry it will be the same for you)

Let the waiting begin!

2011-01-07T20:57:00.005+03:00

So remember back in October when I made the big announcement that Dave was going to try to get into the State Department? Seems like forever, huh? Well Dave got an email today saying that he can take the written test in February. Luckily he doesn't have to go to the US to take the test, he can take the test at any of the US embassies that are giving it. We thought he'd have to go to Kuwait or Oman, but he can take it here in Doha. I'm happy cause we really don't have the money for another trip right now. Not only did we take an expensive trip to Ireland, but Dave is going to New Orleans in March for the TESOL conference where he is presenting, not one, but two presentations (This conference is the biggest conference for Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, I'm so proud!). I'm also super jealous that he gets to go back to the US, but as payback he is going to have to go shopping for me at Whole Foods and Target.

Anyway, so after 2 and half long months of waiting we are now officially waiting for him to take the written test, and then waiting to see if he passes. If he passes he'll write a personal narrative, then we'll wait to see if they like him enough still for the oral assessment. Then we'll wait for the date to take the oral assessment. Then if he passes it, he'll get a tentative job officer and start security and medical clearances, which we'll have to wait for those to go through and if they do then one final assessment will be done and if they still like him he will be placed on the Public Diplomacy register. Then we'll wait for his name to get low enough on the list to be called and then we'll finally get to stop waiting and he can start his dream job. If you haven't noticed the theme here is waiting. There is going to be a lot of it. If everything went perfectly Dave could be sitting in training a year from now. I kind of doubt it will happen that quick, but who knows. The problem is it could be anywhere from a year to never. If he doesn't pass the written exam or the oral assessment he'll have to wait a year to take it again. It could take quite a while to get a security clearance because of all the different places we've lived. The good news is Dave doesn't have a criminal record and has good credit, so while there are a lot of different places to check there shouldn't be anything to worry about. One thing that we have going for us is if you know any other languages and can pass a phone test that can bump you to the front of the line on the register. Hopefully Dave can pass the Spanish and Hungarian tests without too much trouble. He is also studying Russian because it is a critical needs language and gives you more points if you can pass it. So if you want to help and you can speak Russian, Dave could use a tutor.

For now I'm going to just sit back and wait. That's all I can really do right now anyway. I think this might be my time to learn patience. I feel I've already waited a long time and it's only just begun.

Today as Flash Fiction: Odinochestvo

2010-12-18T21:48:00.004+03:00

Odinochestvo

The roar of fighter jets in the sky woke me up on an unusually chilly May Day morning. Having grown up near a military base outside of Kazan the noise was a welcome sound, reminding me of the warm days of childhood. In addition, I was on the second day of a cold and so the crisp weather was able to alleviate my fever, though not my cough.

There was the faint smell of someone burning rubbish in the neighborhood as I made my way toward Red Square where a parade was already in progress. Line after line of soldiers in brilliant uniforms, pressed and ironed with care, marched in unison. Their faces were somber as they marched by, but the large crowd that had formed were smiling, cheering them on. Proletarii vsekh stran, soyedinyaytes'!

One of the onlookers had brought a small radio to listen to the commentary: The special guests of honor are a group of farmers transported to the capital for the first time. Together they look on to witness the fruits of their labor. But it’s more than just agricultural workers here today: Movie stars, athletes, lawyers, doctors, and journalists are all in attendance. And on top of the dais, Premier Brezhnev sits, looking on. We’ve hooked him up to a machine that will monitor his heart rate throughout the proceedings. So far, it’s holding steady at 81. No doubt, when I looked up to see him, the Premier was seated next to a large machine and a bundle of wires was coming out of his shirt.

Following the troops came a procession of Russia’s finest tanks and we joined together in singing. Glory to the Fatherland, united and free! The stronghold of the friendship of the peoples! The Party of Lenin, power of the people, it leads us to the triumph of Communism! The radio said that spontaneous outbreak of our nation's anthem had moved Comrade Brezhnev to tears, but his heart rate remained the same.

At last came the piece de resistance, a seemingly never-ending arsenal of missiles and rockets, each one larger than the one before. We all proudly watched them roll by. Children looked on with awe at our nation’s mighty, bellicose might. Old babushkas smiled through their leathery skin, thinking of all they had witnessed of the Fatherland’s great past. I coughed into my fist and was handed on a folded-up piece of paper. On the exterior was written: Act natural and pass this note on. I cautiously opened it and read:

These are not our country’s tanks. These are not our country’s missiles. We’ve been invaded.

In horror I realized that the letters СССР were missing, and instead of the familiar sickle and hammer, another unfamiliar nation’s flag was plastered on all the tanks and weapons. Throughout it all, the Premier’s heart rate remained steady.

I dropped the note in the gutter and looked across the crowd. They were all smiling and acting normal. If they had realized what was happening, none of them showed it. I coughed again, and casually made my way out of the crowd toward a side alley. As I reached the head of the alley I noticed there was a woman inside, crouched in the corner, burning in flames. I took a closer look and recognized her. She was called Yuliya and we had been friends some time ago, though it had been four years since I had seen her. Her blond hair had been charred black. She reached her hand out to me, clearly begging for help, but what could I do? It broke my heart that this was our reunion, to see her there with smoke billowing out of her eyes, but given the circumstances I had to be wary of my actions. None of us had any idea of who these invaders were or what the future held. Our nation was in danger and anyone could have been watching my actions.

I cleared my throat and left my friend alone to die in the alley, making my way to the very front of the jubilant mob. I raised my hands and cheered at the top of my lungs. My throat ached, nonetheless I cried out all the louder. I wanted to wake Lenin from his tomb with my cheering. A true patriot! I took the hands of two comrades at my side and sang the last verse of the anthem. We see the future of our country. To the red banner of our glorious Fatherland we shall always be selflessly true!

And I thought Americans didn't even like soccer

2010-12-13T09:26:00.010+03:00

Living in Qatar, it seems all anyone can talk about as of late is the country's winning bid to host the 2022 World Cup, beating out Australia, Japan, South Korea, and the United States in the process. Qataris are obviously ecstatic, though the American mainstream media and video bloggers seem to feel cheated. Even President Obama went as far as to say that FIFA had made the wrong decision in choosing Qatar over the US. My Qatari students don't understand this reaction, calling it poor sportsmanship, and saying that Americans should be congratulating them, not mocking them (to be fair, my students should know that there are plenty of people out there who think anything President Obama says is wrong. Of course, these same people typically aren't too fond of Muslims...) Is this just sour grapes and bad sportsmanship, or do the losers really have a point? After all, it's good sportsmanship to congratulate the other side when you feel the game was fair and the other team won based on merit. Whenever you feel that the game was not fair, however, it is not unusual to complain.

Both sides claim that they "deserve" to hold the largest sporting event in the World, and for whatever reasons the other side doesn't. I decided to look deeper and try to understand the arguments each side is framing--not to say which one is right or better--but simply to help both sides understand each other.

The American Argument

The arguments being made by Americans are similar to those being made my Australians (who are also very unhappy for losing out). When they talk about "deserving" to host the Cup everything is framed in terms of current technical qualifications. They'll talk about infrastructure, existing world-class stadia, and their overall ability in the past to host major sporting events. When they talk about how Qatar doesn't deserve to host the Cup they only talk about Qatar's current lack of qualifications. Their infrastructure is next to non-existent. They currently have no stadia that could be used for a single match. On YouTube, one video blogger joked that he couldn't even find tiny Qatar on a map, and that his television is bigger than the entire nation. Showing how small the nation is serves the argument that they will not be able to host hundreds of thousands of fans from across the globe.

Now, to be fair, let's remember that it wasn't a bid to host the World Cup next week, but in twelve years. In that time, Qatar could be ready to host. As such, the American arguments will point out how unrealistic many of the Qatari plans are (of note are building the longest bridge in the world to connect Qatar to the neighboring archipelago nation of Bahrain, and building an entirely new city, Lusail, in order to meet FIFA's requirement that the venues be located in separate cities). Then of course there's the issue of the summer heat, never dropping below 110 F. The Qataris are planning to use new cooling technology in the stadia to combat this, but again you can't air condition the whole country. (Thankfully, some very smart people are saying they should just hold the World Cup in January. Hopefully this will work out.) All these plans are seen as too ambitious and risky. And so the argument goes: Qatar may be ready in twelve years, but we're ready right now. Of course, this may simply be one of the fallacies of bidding for sporting events so far in advance. With proper investment and planning, what place in the world wouldn't be ready to host the World Cup in twelve years?

And so countries like the USA and Australia made their bids accordingly, highlighting their technical qualifications, which they felt would be the main criteria on which they were judged. It's easy to see then why they would be unhappy losing out to a country that fails in terms of their qualifications. The only possible explanation is that the rules were changed in the middle of the game. It started out as usual, being about qualifications, but seemed to end up being about taking the game to new locations. This is certainly what led one member of England's failed bid for the 2018 World Cup (which will be Eastern Europe's first World Cup, hosted by Russia) to claim that had they known that taking the tournament to new locations would have earned bonus points, they probably wouldn't have bothered bidding at all.

I would think that Qataris would be able to appreciate this line of reasoning as a result of their failed bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics. Oddly enough, one of their bid's strengths was their qualifications. Having just hosted the 2006 Asian Games, Qatar already had 75% of the facilities up and running to host the Olympics. Since the Olympics are hosted by cities and not countries they only would have to improve the transportation in the capital, Doha, not the entire country as they'll have to do with the World Cup. The IOC actually gave Qatar higher marks than the ultimate hosts Rio de Janeiro in nearly all categories (except for experience from past sports events and project legacy). As such, more than a few Qataris were upset to have lost out to Rio, whom they had beat in nearly every criteria. Now, there wasn't nearly the media backlash we've seen with Americans losing the World Cup bid, true. But there were also plenty who pulled the race card, claiming how the IOC was trying to keep the Arab world out.

The Qatari Argument

The argument I most often heard as to why Qatar deserved to host the World Cup running up to FIFA's decision was that the Middle East had never hosted the event before, and deserved a chance. I'll admit, at the time I made fun of this line of reasoning, which goes a little something like this: We exist. We've never held this event. Therefore, we deserve to hold it. The problem is, nearly every region of the world could make a similar argument. Why not hold it in Kazakhstan, since Central Asia has never hosted the event? Or Antarctica? For that matter, why not Australia (who was actually also bidding for 2022), since the South Pacific has also never hosted the World Cup?

It wasn't until I spoke to some students about it that I really understood what this argument i all about. One of the Qatari bid's slogans was "Let's Make History." I made the comment that winning the bid was not the history they were going to make, but it was actually holding the event twelve years from now. One of my students disagreed and said, "No, teacher. The first and most important thing is that we beat America." Now again, to be fair, had the United States won I don't think they'd be gloating and saying "I'm glad we won the bid, but I'm more glad we beat Qatar." Nevertheless, the statement explains the very essence of the Qatari argument. They look at the footballing world as us and them, elites and inferiors, insiders and outsiders. But football, they argue, does not belong to one group, it belongs to everyone. They see the system that has been in place as unfair, only allowing certain nations to host while excluding others. Everyone should have a chance. On top of this, the Middle East is a huge region of the world that is trying to come out of obscurity and be better understood. If anyone deserves the chance, they argue, it's us.

Again, I think a lot of American sports fan can appreciate this line of reasoning--especially if they follow NCAA Division I Football (American football, that is). This system is basically exactly the same as what I described above: you have the elites and inferiors and the system is set up to favor the elites. The same arguments are made every year by high quality non-BCS teams like Boise State and the University of Utah--we deserve a chance to play for a championship as much as anyone else. And you could also easily imagine the reaction that would occur if any non-BCS team did manage to win the championship--every non-BCS team in the country would be celebrating and making comments about how important it was that the BCS lost.

The "Real" Definition of Deserve

Again, my attempt was not to say one side's arguments are more deserving than the other, but to help people on both sides to see and understand where the other is coming from. Ultimately though talks of infrastructure and uniting a region have little to do with it. The only truly accurate statement we can offer is that Qatar deserves to host the World Cup because they convinced at least 12 of the 22 apparently capricious men who control football that they should. Admittedly, FIFA needs much more transparency in the future regarding their decision-making processes so that countries feel they have a sporting chance of winning before investing millions of dollars. But for 2022, this was the only requirement, and admittedly, they did a bang-job. Sure, a lot of people will allege shady backroom deals, but there's no way we can say any of this for sure. All we can say is that a lot of it was thanks to a brilliant PR campaign, which included these videos which were shown to the FIFA delegates before they voted. I'll admit, they do come across a bit as Adidas advertisements, but I defy you not to be moved by them. They really make it seem like the Middle East hosting the World Cup is one of the most important things that could happen in the world right now. As a point of comparison I've also included the videos Russia produced and they are super corny (like the moment where Arshavin heads the ball in slow motion in front of a green screen with an image of one of Moscow's Seven Sisters in the background). Enjoy!

Film 1 from Qatar 2022 Bid on Vimeo.

Film 2 from Qatar 2022 Bid on Vimeo.

Film 3 from Qatar 2022 Bid on Vimeo.

Russia's Bid Videos

The Littlest's 2nd birthday

2010-12-04T19:11:00.005+03:00

Recently, the Littlest turned two. I seriously can't believe he's getting so old, well actually I can because the terrible twos have definitely arrived. He's sure been turning on the water works to get his way, laying on the ground screaming in all the most inappropriate places, and decided that naps are for babies, which, of course he isn't one anymore so he acts out more until he falls asleep on the couch while watching Scooby Doo, but that is for another post. I love that little guy and we had to have an excited day planned for him. So in the morning before we got up we decorated the living/dining room with red and gold streamers and Winnie the Pooh decorations. When he woke up he got pretty excited and wandered around the room pointing and saying "Pooh". Then we took him to City Center Mall where they have an arcade/amusement park. He "rides" the toy cars and such (you know the kind you are supposed to put money in and then it moves, but cheap parents don't actually put the money in to turn them on? Yeah we are one of those cheap parents... even on his birthday) I probably would have since it was his birthday, but Dave had to work (I know on a Saturday! I was really annoyed, but what can you do?), so we just let him run around and he did have a good time (because he doesn't know any better, he just thinks they are fun to climb into, letting them move would mean that he's have to sit in it longer than 5 seconds!). After that we took Dave to work and then headed home so we could get ready for the party. My friend Amy came to help, which was a lifesaver since I always try to do more than I can handle. I was trying to be a good mom and not order out food since the Littlest wouldn't be able to eat it and I wanted him to be able to eat the food at his own birthday party. It was hard trying to come up with something that he would eat, our friends would it, and that didn't cost a ton or that would be hard to make for 20 people. Yeah, we had 20 people come over for his birthday in our apartment. I wouldn't say our apartment is small, but it's not really great for throwing parties. Anyway back to the menu. I tried to pick the Littlest's favorite things which is kind of crazy since he barely eats anything and I knew nobody would want to try his formula, but I think we had a good allergy and kid-friendly dinner. Oh and vegan friendly which was good since one my friends is vegan and I know she was excited to be able to eat almost everything Okay so the menu was:

Corn dog Muffins (basically corn bread muffins with chopped up hot dogs... They ARE good, I promise)
veggie plate with hummos (which was really good, but I think the Littlest had an allergic reaction to the hummos :(
fruit grapes and apricots
Winnie the Pooh cake
homemade soy ice cream (blueberry cheesecake and cookie dough, seriously so good!)

Amy was in charge of making the corn dog muffins, so that I could cut out and decorate the Winnie the Pooh cake. This turned out to be a huge challenge. One of the many disadvantages to having a kid with egg allergies is making cakes. The taste is still good, but the eggs really keep the cake from crumbling. I tried to combat this by freezing the cake. I guess I should have done it for much longer because I had major crumbling problems. I was afraid that the cake would be too hard to cut if I froze it over night, so I baked them the night before and left them out on the counter overnight and then put them in the freezer in the morning. Next time I will just put them in the freezer cause after 10 minutes the cake had defrosted and was falling apart. Then came time for frosting the cake. I made the frosting and everything was going fine with that, but then it got weird. I think it has something to do with the powdered sugar cause it was really grainy. I haven't been able to make a good frosting since coming here and I used to make them all the time at Medallion Manor and used to tease the other cook who said she couldn't ever get it right. Now I know better. When I put the red dye for Pooh Bear's shirt it wouldn't mix all together. I was freaking out. I tried a few things to see if it would mix in, but it didn't and I was short on time so I used a store bought frosting. I hate using that kind, but it did make a nice red shirt and a great yellowish color for Pooh Bear's fur, but we weren't in the clear cause I had a limited supply of frosting to cover a cake that was falling apart! I got the shirt and head all done cause I figured those where the most important parts then went to the legs. Total disaster. Finally I grabbed the glob that used to be his legs and threw it at the wall, I mean put it aside and decided that he had lost his legs in a tragic accident. Amy's step daughter suggested I just draw some paws on. She's a smart girl. I had the black icing from a bottle (I was so happy to see that it was dairy and egg free!) to do an outline and make eyes, ears, nose and mouth, so I just added two paws at the bottom for his feet and it worked out perfectly. Thanks! She also helped finishing decorating and cleaned up a little for me.

Today as a Run-on Sentence

2010-11-22T23:59:00.003+03:00

Hell

It's a common sight sirens whirring blue in the night the homeless set up their cardboard boxes just outside the front gates to stay warm a putrid flaming rubbish heap surprisingly lovely parks and heaths throw up blood and piss in the train station Oliver Cromwell would be proud next to the city of gold treasure you hoard in the ground will be lost on the labyrinthine roads so the taxis can charge more than you expect the worst of people ludicrous paranoia they always expect the worst of people cutting costs like the air conditioning the customer to queue without complaining is fine but assault will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law still the staff are friendly but inefficient the phone is always on hold a job you no longer believe in a life that is no longer yours and no one answers emails no one ever answers emails.

Today as Flash Fiction

2010-11-21T23:26:00.003+03:00

The Irish Wake

I arrived late for my own funeral and snuck in the back, hoping to go unnoticed. As I looked upon the bereaving crowd, I was somewhat happy that I had missed all but the final eulogy. I whispered to my secretary Ciaran the service continued. "Good funeral?" I asked. He made a big "okay" sign with his fingers, but didn't say a word. As the final speech finished and the organ groaned a requiem, Ciaran took me around to shake hands with the mourners.

"It was a lovely funeral," an old woman noted.

"You truly will be missed," said an old man with rosy cheeks.

“Won’t you reconsider leaving us so soon?” a little girl asked.

I turned to Ciaran, a bit confused. "I don't know any of these people."

He ignored me and took me to see the coffin. "It's made of the finest rosewood," he declared. "We've spared no expense. Ah! Here comes the undertaker. Let me introduce you."

A small balding man in a black suit came to me. We shook hands. "Wait a moment," I said. "I know you. Aren't you the town postman?"

Ciaran nodded, "You may be right. It is a very small town." The undertaker took me to inspect the coffin further.

"You’ll notice that this coffin is equipped with a little bell. If after your burial you are, in fact, still alive then you should ring this bell loudly and someone will come right away and dig you out." He demonstrated the bell and had me give it a ring to, just to be safe.

Ciaran whisked me away to meet my driver. “We’ve arranged for you to be taken straight to the cemetery for the continuation of the services,” he said. A hearse pulled up to the curb and as the driver got out I recognized that he was the same balding man in a black suit, though this time wearing gloves and a cap.

“Wait a moment,” I said. “I know you. You’re both the town postman and the undertaker.”

He opened the door and signaled for me to enter. “That is very likely, sir. It is, after all, a very small town.”

With the door closed the postman drove slowly and intentionally, taking great care to assure that no accident would delay my arrival. As we turned the corner I noticed a decapitated dog’s head lying to the side of the road. I should have taken it as a bad omen.

After a few minutes of driving he asked if I would answer a question. I nodded my head that I would. “You were a great man of noble status and renown,” he said. “What are you going to miss the most about your life?” I paused to think, as up to this point it hadn’t occurred to me that this really was the end and that tomorrow morning the sun would rise without me and life would go on as usual.

“The early years,” I finally said. “When I was young and free and I’d run through the green hills that seemed to go on for miles. Back then my life could have taken any direction. Anything was possible.”

The driver smiled and approved of my answer. “We have arrived,” he said, opening the door for me. I stepped out to find that we had not in fact gone to a cemetery as I had expected, but the bog a few kilometers south of the village.

“Why have you taken me here?” I asked. Then I recognized the place. It was my great-grandfather’s bog that he had farmed over one hundred years ago. I saw that the ground where I stood was sacred. I leaned over to pick up a clump and let it run through my fingers.

It was at that moment that I was bent over that my driver leaped and crushed my skull with a large rock he had found nearby. My body fell to the earth and the mud dirtied my face. At last my body slowly sunk into the bog—a hallowed sacrifice—never to be seen again.

Today as a Poem

2010-11-20T23:25:00.000+03:00

In(Memory of Those who Have Died)somnia

To fall asleep at night
I count corpses falling off the Cliffs of Moher

Their lips smile while blood eyes blink,
They spread their powerful limbs to freedom.

Illiterate, because the schools failed them,
The rocks below tear their mighty arms apart.

“Number us!” they beg. “We don’t know how many we are!”
They long to be sheep—jumping over the wall, dodging cars in the street.

But when the banshees whisper they groan, awaiting their turn,
I drink warm milk and impatiently lie awake.

Yet these are wily zombies, they chain themselves up
together and demand I yell “Jump!”

But thanks to soporific milk I’m fast asleep,
dreaming of the dead dancing, holding hands.

Today as a Poem

2010-11-19T23:23:00.000+03:00

Cartographically Banshee Sheets

Though upon closer inspection
the forgotten fertility Goddess'
lips tease Neptune!

Her womb is dry, cracked earth
but the people believe
(sometimes)
so her fields are green,
but only when they sleep.

Consequentially, the sheep can graze,
and on Christmas and Easter
we'll eat too much
shank followed by much needed gasp
inducing naps during Mass.

In June and July the tour buses come,
too tall to pass,
but the Kassa sells tickets anyway.

How do I work this thing? Is anybody out there?

2010-10-20T10:31:00.006+03:00

I know, I know, I said I would post more. I'm definitely not a good blogger. Things have been crazy since coming back. We've been in Qatar almost two months and man has our thoughts changed since the first few days coming back here. When we left the US we told everyone that this was our last year in Qatar and that Dave was going to start the process of applying to PhD programs in the US and Canada. We thought we had everything planned out for us. I was excited to get back to living in the US and Dave was excited to further his education and get out of teaching English as a Foreign Language. The Littlest, well he has no idea what is going on. On arrival back I noticed that Dave was frustrated with preparing his Statement of Purpose letter. I didn't want to nag him, but I felt like he better get really working on it cause I wanted him to send in his applications early and get it over with. Then one night we started talking about the finances of going back to school. I had talked to a friend who attended McGill and she told me that the chances of me being able to find a job there would be very slim since I don't speak French. That worried me because I knew that I needed to make some kind of income to keep us from weighing to much of the financial burden on student loans. As Dave started looking into what McGill had to offer, it became very clear that this PhD was going to come at a huge cost. There were other schools he was going to apply to, but McGill was his top. The other schools didn't come out any better and we were looking at getting into 6 figure debt for this degree. All for a job that would pay about what he is getting paid now. We weighed a lot of options. Dave even considered getting a law degree. We just could not see how we could ever live comfortably with that amount of debt hanging over us. I know other people have huge amounts of student loan debt and they find ways to pay it off, but I think the amount it would have to be was just too much for us. So, are you dying to find out what crazy adventure we have set out for us? Well after a lot of discussing, talking with friends and family, and prayer we are preparing for a life in the Foreign Service with the US State Department.

So what does this mean to our average blog reader? Maybe nothing, especially if I keep up the whole being a bad blogger or maybe you'll get to hear about all our crazy adventures. That said, we have a long way to go. First Dave will need to take the written exam. The next one is in February. Luckily, he can go somewhere nearby rather than flying back to the states. Hopefully it will be the first part of February as that is his mid-year break. So we'll probably be taking a trip to Kuwait or Oman. If he passes that test he will be asked to write an essay with his statement of purpose. If all goes well with that he will be asked to go to Washington DC (or somewhere in the US) for an oral exam. We are hoping that it will take place while we are there over the summer to save money and taking time off of work. If he passes that then comes the dreaded security and medical clearances. This are pretty intense. It doesn't help that Dave has lived in 5 different countries and worked for 2 different foreign governments (in Hungary Public Schools in two different locations and Qatar University is operated by the government and he is considered a government employee). We aren't sure how that will all work, but since he hasn't ever been arrested and has good credit (that's right, they are going to look to make sure we aren't in loads of debt and that we are making our payments on time) there shouldn't be any problems. These clearances can take 6 months to 2 years. One of our friends was living here while they were doing his security clearance and it took about 8 months till they got a job offer. I'm guessing it will take longer for us, but who knows. I'm not sure if you are told that you passed the clearance or if you just wait for a job offer, but if it doesn't happen in 18 months then you have to start all over and take the tests over again. Hopefully we won't be one of those people. We are put on a list based on which area you want to work in (Dave wants to do Public Diplomacy) and depending on needs and your place on the list decides when you will get a job offer. Once a job is offered you can accept or defer. It seems most people get a 2 month notice from what I've seen. Then we'd move to Washington DC for training and where we will bid on our first post. Depending on where we are going, we'd be in DC for a 3 months to 9 months depending on when we are needed and if Dave needs to learn a new language. As crazy as it all sounds we are very excited. I've been reading a ton of blogs written by FSOs (Foreign Service Officers) and their spouses to learn the ins and outs, which is why our house is an absolute mess. Dave is studying for the written test. The Littlest is as adorable as ever.

So this is the "new" plan:

We are probably going to sign on for another year at Qatar University. Not really what we want, but this is a good job for Dave and I think will make it easier on us in the long run.

Dave's career will be abroad, which means we probably won't live in the US until he retires unless he takes a post in Washington DC for a time. This is crushing for me, but I think it's whats best for our family. Our plan is to buy a house in Utah at some point, so we'll have a place to come home to when we come to visit (and let me tell you it is going to be carefully chosen and I told Dave it was mine and I was going to make it EXACTLY how I want it, since I can't control what kind of circumstances we live in abroad).

Don't worry we'll keep you posted when we find out important details of this adventures. If you are actually still reading this I'll reward you with some cute pictures of The Littlest!

This was taken back in May, but I thought he looked so adorable I had to put it on here.

He likes to be covered up like that sometimes. Isn't he pretty?

My sister, Rima made him that vest. Even though it's still wicked hot here I just had to take him to church in it. I took a bunch of pictures of him trying to get a cute one, but he was running around and all the rest of them came out blurry.

He just thinks he's so cool with his hat and binky. We have since ditched the binky, but he still looks good in his RED SOX hat.

I still have a ton to blog about and hopefully will get around it soon. I actually have ideas ready, just need to type them up. One day at a time though. Maybe tomorrow. Now time to get ready and clean the house!

Days Like This

2010-09-27T06:30:00.003+03:00

We spent the weekend fighting off colds, so needless to say when I had to wake up early Sunday morning to get to work I wasn't feeling very well to begin with. Even still, who could have guessed that my day would consist of one misstep after another?

I gave myself an hour to make the commute to work, thinking I'd make it with time to spare. In the past I've been able to make the ten mile drive in 20-30 minutes, but a number of factors have piled top of each other which have made traffic particularly terrible this semester. First of all, there are too many people living here now. It's very clear that a whole new boatload of people showed up over the summer, and none of them are carpooling. On top of that, they've closed a major intersections in the city that's near our apartment, which has made a mess of everything (as well as closed the closest freeway entrance to us). Finally, they've closed the freeway exit I'd normally get off at, meaning I have to get off earlier in one of the more crowded parts of town. It took me about an hour to get to where there was just one roundabout between me and work. I ended up having to wait here 40 more minutes because, unbeknownst to me, only one of the three lanes normally feeding into the roundabout was open. So yes, it took me a grand total of one hour and forty minutes to drive ten measly miles, for an average of six miles an hour.

I rushed over to class which ended up starting 20 minutes late. Thankfully, I didn't have any problems there. I did let them out ten minutes early though so I could go and make copies for my next class. I had planned to do it before work, but obviously wasn't able to do so. So now I rushed over back to my office to make copies, and wouldn't you know? I can't get the copy machine to work. I'd have used the other one in our office except it's completely broken with parts and bits and pieces lying all around. So I quickly modify my lesson plans, and thankfully one activity ended up taking much more time that I had anticipated (but in a good, thought-provoking way, not as busy work), so again, class went very well.

I grabbed some lunch at the food court and as I was racing over to the faculty lounge where I could enjoy it I bumped into a colleague who mentioned that I looked really energetic.

"Really?!?," I replied. "Cause I have a cold and it's been a long day." I think I simply looked excited to get some food.

Afterward I went to the restroom, but I couldn't get the toilet to flush. I kept trying, but it didn't look like water was going into the bowl. Now, nearly all public restrooms here come equipped with a hose that shoots water, which I assume they use to wash everything down (which also explains why nearly all the men's rooms here are always wet). I tried to flush and spray at the same time, hoping to get it all to go down. Unfortunately, I was holding the thing backwards and shot myself in the chest. On the bright side, the next time I tried to flush, it had no problem doing it on its own.

Monrovia = Feckless, El Segundo = Hidden Gem, College Girls = Unwitting Entertainment

2010-09-03T00:02:00.004+03:00

From Primm we ended up in Southern California and at a cemetery in Monrovia where some of my grandparents and great-grandparents are buried (supposedly). I was thinking the whole thing would only take about thirty minutes tops. We'd go in and ask where they're buried, find the markers, and move on. Apparently though, they don't have an actual organized record of where people are buried (I think it might be on some sort of card catalog) and after nearly two hours of searching they couldn't find any of my relatives, despite the fact that I had given them their full names with aliases, birth and death dates, and even the section of the cemetery they were buried in. We had randomly found my great-uncle buried, which was surprisingly since we weren't expecting to find him. So at the very least it wasn't a total waste of time--it only felt like one. As we left they apologized and said that if we find any more information we should come back and try again. What kind of information were they hoping for? The exact GPS coordinates of the markers?!? The address of someone who could do their job more efficiently?

The whole afternoon had seemed for not but was saved by a visit to my old college friend LeeElle in El Segundo, a quiet LA suburb just south of LAX and right up next to the beach. It has a delightful main street, gorgeous weather, and of course, good friends. We reminisced, ate some fantastic Chinese food, and went for a short nighttime walk to the beach. Everything about the experience made me forget about how I need to have my dead family members reinterred someplace I can find them.

Sadly, we couldn't stay too long since we had a five-day pass to Disneyland and only four and a half days left in California. We arrived around 11 pm, one hour before the park closed. But since we wouldn't have any other days, we went to the park and waited in line for Space Mountain for an hour. It would have been pretty miserable, if not for the comments of some college girls in front of us.

"Why do they call it Space Mountain? It's not a mountain made of space." (Of course, if we follow this logic anything except Stone Mountain, Georgia is inappropriately named. That and the potential Rock Mountain or Mountain Mountain).

About twenty minutes later one girl turned to the other and declared, "O two H."

"Wha?!?" replied the other.

"You know, it's like water," replied the first. "H two O, only backwards." The first girl was perplexed.

"What you said doesn't make any sense," she ultimately argued. "What you said is two parts oxygen and one part hydrogen. Water is H two O."

The first girl was vexed. "No, you don't understand. It's backwards."

"I know!" the second asserted. "But what you said didn't make any sense." It went on like this for another few minutes. I was hoping it would have lasted forever. Or at least as long as the line.

Las Vegas = Meretricious

2010-08-30T05:44:00.004+03:00

We're back safely in Qatar now and jet lag aside we are absolutely exhausted. For the past three weeks we've always had something on our plate. Here's a small sample:

We stopped off in Vegas on our way to Southern California. We didn't have a lot of time, but we still decided to take a drive down the strip (which was pointless, because traffic was awful). I had looked online to find the buffets in town according to locals. I wanted something a little more special than just what I could get at Chuck-a-rama. It was a toss-up between the Rio's which features cuisine from around the world, and the Paris, which s cuisine representing several different regions of France.

After waiting about an hour to get in we got some very good (albeit overpriced) food. The lunch price would have been far more reasonable, but nearly $25 for a dinner buffet seems a bit much. There was a day when they offered cheap buffets to lure people in to gamble. I think they've since realized that people will come in for gambling's sake alone and that they could charge whatever they felt like.

We must have, however, been using some cheap diapers on the baby since when he had a, er, bowel movement, it leaked out onto his clothes. Despite having clearly broke the bank on the decor and everything else at the resort, the restroom at the buffet was ridiculously small and dirty. I had to change the Littlest on the floor. I didn't have anything to replace his soiled clothes with , so he spent the rest of the time walked around the hotel in his diapers. It was his first "What happens in Vegas" moment.

As we exited I noticed a sign advertising the Osmonds performing in town. Directly next to it was an ad for an all topless review. I quietly sang to myself "One of these things is not like the other." As we drove away to our hotel in Primm, I tried to think of what word I would use to describe Vegas. I had spent the entire month of June prepping for the GRE and as such had studied a lot of vocabulary. There was a word I was trying to remember, but couldn't come up with until I got on the internet later: meretricious. I'll leave it to you to look it up (thefreedictionary.com's definition is particularly apt).

Lebanon - Day 1

2010-05-17T11:00:00.004+03:00

Martyr's Square with the Al Amin Mosque

Last weekend I got to take a trip to Lebanon in order to present at the conference of the Association of Teachers of English in Lebanon (ATEL). As my plane landed in Beirut on Friday morning it was pretty hazy, but you could still make out some of the houses and trees on the mountainside. Now I've been to a lot of different countries (25 at this point), and it usually takes quite a bit for a new place to feel "foreign" to me. Where you can and cannot smoke is usually a good indicator. So when I was waiting to pick up my suitcase at the baggage claim and there were several people smoking there, I did feel like I was in a foreign country.

Upon collecting my bag and getting a taxi, I made a major mistake: I got into the cab before negotiating a price. I was under the impression that all the taxis at the airport were metered and honest, so when I saw that mine didn't have a meter, I immediately knew it was going to cost me. I asked the driver how much it would cost and he answered $40. This is like three times as much as it should cost. I immediately told him that was too much, but it was too late to negotiate. I suppose I can't feel too bad, since these guys are probably overworked and underpaid. I keep telling myself I paid him a fair price and an incredibly generous, 200% tip.

Once I got everything put away at the hotel I went for a walk along Beirut's long corniche (which is just what they call a waterside promenade in Arabic). Doha also has a corniche, but it's nowhere near as long, plus there were tons of locals out walking, jogging, swimming, playing backgammon, or fishing, most of which you also won't see in Doha. It was hot, but nowhere near as bad as in Qatar. I figure it was around the high 70s to low 80s with heavy humidity. With the occasional cool breeze from the Mediterranean it felt perfect.

Martyr's Square Detail

I walked about two miles till I made it downtown. I checked out Martyr's Square, which was where the Ottomans executed suspected Lebanese secessionists during World War I. During the Lebanese civil war from 1975 to 1990 it was a no man's land, as most of the fighting occurred downtown. Up close to the statues you could see how one was missing an arm, and all of them were covered in bullet holes.

St. George's Cathedral

On the corner of the square stands the Al-Amin mosque with its glorious blue dome. I took my shoes off and went inside briefly, then went next door to visit the Marionite Cathedral of St. George. What I thought was interesting was that all the icons of Christ, Mary, and other saints had their names written in Arabic, I thing I never would have considered but I suppose makes complete sense. At one point as I was walking around the area, I heard the call to prayer from the mosque followed by church bells ringing from the cathedral. It made me smile.

At this point I figured it was time to walk back and see if I could find my way back to the hotel. I had bought a map downtown, so I figured I was going in the right direction. I must have made a wrong turn someplace though, cause after about half an hour I realized I was nowhere near where I needed to be. What made things worse was that the map had the street names listed, but the street signs only listed street numbers. I had to navigate my way home based solely on the names of neighborhoods. At the no point was I terribly worried, it should be noted, since there were taxis everywhere and I could just have one take me back to the hotel. Needless to say, I felt really excited when I finally got back to an area I recognized and made it back to the hotel.

I stayed in the hotel a bit to cool down and chat with Lyssa on Skype before heading back out to find something to eat. I bought a lamb sandwich from a snack bar that was pretty good and walked around some more. It was around this time that it hit me that I was in Beirut--a city where for over a third of my life was synonymous with war and destruction, and I was just nonchalantly walking around. I never in a million years would have imagined that I would have had such an experience.

Pigeon Rocks

I headed over to Beirut's most famous natural site, the Pigeon Rocks. They're basically just two large rocks jutting out in the sea. I got there in time to watch the sunset, and wished that my wife and son were around. There were tons of people around snapping pictures.

I was planning to eat a lot of delicious Lebanese food on this trip, and expected to be able to find a place on every street corner. I was surprised to find that to not be the case. Yes, there are places for Lebanese food, but it seemed that cafes, pizzerias, and pubs were far more abundant (at the very least in the area I was in). So I figured I'd go with it and got a pizza for dinner. They made it Neapolitan-style--just the way I like it, and I had another introspective moment: I was in Beirut, eating pizza, being served by a guy named Hussein who speaking to me in broken English and French. I only ate about a quarter of the pizza and took the rest home with me and put it in my room's fridge. I heated it up and ate the rest of it each morning for breakfast (savvy travelers take note!) I got a good night's rest and got ready for the conference in the morning.

New Blog

2010-03-28T21:53:00.005+03:00

So I figured we weren't keeping this blog up to date enough that I needed a second blog to neglect. Actually, I had some things I wanted to share with a larger audience than just family and friends, and so I decided to use it as a separate forum.

Basically, the past week we've been celebrating a different holiday from around the world pretty much everyday. Learning a little bit about the culture, playing games and listening to music, as well as eating some great food. So, if you're interested in culture, food, celebrations, or simply making the world a better place, I hope you'll join us at:

http://everyreasontocelebrate.blogspot.com/

We'll of course try and maintain this one with all our adventures and baby-related shenanigans.

Here he is looking tough because he no longer ever wants to wear a shirt and I drew the Hungarian flag on his arm.

Here he is with a black eye because he fell in the bathtub. The reason he's unhappy is because I pinned him down to take a picture of his black eye. Isn't it the saddest face ever?

Neglect

2010-03-10T14:48:00.004+03:00

I guess I've been neglecting the blog. I keep thinking that I'll update when something big and important happens and even then I don't get around to it. I looked to see just how long it has been since I posted and it was May 27, 2009! So here is an update on a few things:

The Littlest
- is a VERY BUSY little boy! He likes to get into everything. He climbs on the furniture with no understanding of gravity and needless to say has quite a few bumps and bruises.

-He has a severe milk allergy. Remember the post back in September? He ate strawberry yogurt and we had to take him to the ER. Well in January we finally found the pediatric allergist at Hamad and he diagnosed him with it. He was getting sick almost every month and we'd end up in the ER for breathing treatments. He is now weaned and taking a bottle with Neocate formula and he hasn't been sick (fingers crossed) in over a month.

-He is saying a few words like, momma, dadda, nem (no in Hungarian), egy (one in Hungarian sounds like edge), what's that?, tickle-tickle, and a whole bunch of other things I haven't figured out they mean. He loves to get the phone and put it to his ear and "talk" on it.

-Balls. He is such a boy! He has soccer balls, baseballs, basketballs, footballs, even cricket balls. Plus a those plastic balls for a ball tent thing. He loves them. He kicks around balls and is actually pretty coordinated with kicking. He throws cricket balls just like you're supposed to by walking a few steps forward and throwing and letting it bounce. We have a little tikes basketball hoop and he loves to throw the ball in.

-He loves music. He loves to dance and believe it or not his favorite show is Wheel of Fortune. You know the music that they play during the toss up part where they solve the puzzle as the letters show up? He loves that and when it comes on he dances his head off. I always knew he'd love music. When I was pregnant and we went to church he'd dance around to the hymns. He sings as well. I hope that he has a good singing voice like my Dad.

Lyssa
-Not much going on here for me. I'm just being a stay-at-home mommy and loving it. The Littlest is getting to be such a fun little boy. I love that I get to be home with him and give him a lot of attention.

-I'm trying to get the Littlest through this whole allergy thing. It's been pretty tough. I went dairy free at first because I was still nursing, but once he was weaned I started again. I have to say that I did feel better not eating all the dairy. I wouldn't go completely off again, but I think it helped keep the chocolate out of the house. Anyone with dairy-free tips would be helpful.

Dave
-Busy with work. They cut his class hours, but he's still just as busy as ever. He's working the afternoon shift, which is nice. He never has to leave for work earlier than 10am, so we get to spend the morning with him.

We have a year and a half longer here and we're trying to make the most of it. On Saturday we took a trip over to the camel races. They weren't doing any races, but they were taking some of the camels for a run, so we drove along side them for a while and got some pictures.

Flat Tyrell with camels, (I'll post about that later) if you look closely the guy in the back is looking at the camera and smiling. They got a big kick out of us driving next to them. The Littlest was asleep, of course, the whole time.

The fun didn't end there. Next we drove to some sand dunes and played there. The Littlest the sand, even tried to lick it off his sands.

It was so windy!

We couldn't just go home after that, so we went to the beach. We didn't have swim suits or even towels. I figured we'd just hang out by the water a little bit and then go home, but the Littlest had different plans. He walked right up to the water and kept going. He loved it! He kept splashing in the water, sitting in it, getting all soaked and we let him. The sun was starting to set, so we decided it was finally time to go home. The Littlest was soaked, so we had to take off all his clothes and let him ride home in his diaper. Good thing it's warm here!

I'll try to blog more often, but I can't promise anything. Somebody keeps me way too busy :)

I love this picture! I think he looks a lot like Dave. Look at that big forehead!

Emirates

2010-02-13T21:38:00.011+03:00

View

The past two weeks have been the mid-semester break from school, so we took the opportunity to visit the nearby United Arab Emirates last week. Though we spent most of our time in Dubai, we also visited the capital Abu Dhabi, as well as the mostly-disappointing Sharjah, and the lovely desert oasis town of Al Ain. Here are the highlights of the trip:

Seeing Dubai's famous architecture

Tall

Dubai has a skyline that is quickly rivaling those of other cities like New York or Chicago. Sometimes it felt like we were in New York, and other times like we were in Las Vegas, or maybe Disneyland. Probably the most famous building now (and by far and away the world's tallest building) is the Burj Khalifa (and in case you were wondering, burj is simply Arabic for tower). We had planned to go up to the observation deck on top, but weren't able since the night before there was some electrical problem and the elevators broke and some tourists were stuck halfway down in the elevator for around 45 minutes before they could get them out. Since then, they've closed the observation deck indefinitely until they can get it fixed. We enjoyed looking at from the roof of the parking lot of the Dubai Mall next door, which also offered a great view of the Dubai Fountain show nearby.

Beach

Dubai's other famous building is the Burj al-Arab hotel, which is shaped like a sail and easily one of the most expensive hotels on Earth. We enjoyed looking at for free on the nearby beach, which the Littlest enjoyed playing at.

Moment

The Oasis

Trees

Unlike Qatar, the UAE is surprisingly green. Yes it's a desert, but there are lot of trees and landscaping (well, from off the road at least). We took about a two hour drive south to Al Ain, which is known for its beautiful palm tree oasis which we wandered around in.

Touch

The only other thing worth mentioning about the town though, is that it's where an ATM ate my debit card.

Cricket

If you didn't know, I love cricket. Pakistanis and Indians here get confused by it, since I'm American and as such am not supposed to know anything about it. But I do, and I love it. There was a tournament going on in Dubai and Abu Dhabi while we were there to qualify for the T20 World Championship (think of i as more or less like the World Cup, only for cricket). None of the big cricket nations were there, like India or Australia, but rather smaller nations like the Netherlands, Kenya, and even team USA! (That's right, we have a national cricket team). So we made a point of going, especially since admission was free. We watched Afghanistan beat Scotland, and then caught the second half of the Netherlands against Kenya. Afghanistan ended up winning the tournament, which means they'll get to play in the actual championship this May in the Caribbean, which means that I'm watching them on TV, I'll get to say that I got to see them in person.

Sheikh Zayed Mosque

Mosque

Okay, since I'm the only one involved with writing or reading this blog that's interested in cricket, I'll move on to something else. On our last day in the country we visited the gorgeous Sheikh Zayed Mosque in Abu Dhabi. The mosque is the 6th largest in the world and is spectacularly decorated.

Cover

For modesty reasons, they made all the women cover their heads with a shayla (a headscarf) and cover wearing an abaya (basically just a black dress).

Chandelier

The decoration was very impressive, though I couldn't decide if I completely liked it. The chandeliers, for instance, looked like they were made of candy.

Wall

Above the qibla, which is the golden crease in the wall there which indicates the direction of Mecca is written in Arabic "Allah." Surrounding this name are qualities given to God written in Arabic, including Al-Kareem (The Generous), Al-Kabeer (The Great), Malik al-Malik (The King of Kings), and a bunch of others I couldn't understand because my Arabic isn't very good.

Shopping

Apparently there's nothing to do in the Emirates except buy stuff. We were there during the end of the annual Dubai Shopping Festival so there were sales and other specials all around town. Around town were decorations for the festival which featured what looked like a family surrounded by a shopping bag. I felt like that was a good metaphor for Dubai: good place for families--but you're going to feel like you're trapped in a shopping bag.

Though we barely went shopping at all, we did spend a lot of time in the various malls. Of note was Ibn Battuta Mall, which is a theme mall which includes different sections based on countries the great Arabian explorer Ibn Battuta visited. The end effect is basically like Epcot Center, that is, if Epcot Center were a mall.

We spent a lot of time in the malls for the Littlest's sake, since there was always something to entertain him there. They had some gigantic toy stores where he could play and jump around on a trampoline.

Store

The only real shopping we did was at IKEA, which was nice since we don't have one in Qatar and home furnishings here are expensive and tacky. We just bought some shelves to put spices, and a few other things. I really only included the picture cause I like the way the logo looks in Arabic, that, and for the benefit of Lyssa's sister Tasha and her husband, IKEA-boy.

So I suppose it was mostly highlights and a very good trip. Besides losing my bank card, the only other annoyance worth mentioning is that when we got to the airport to go home, they couldn't find our reservation. We quickly figured out that the reason was because our tickets were mistakenly issued for March 11, not February. We had to wait stand-by for our flight, but were able to get on. Then when we got to the airport they lost our stroller, and we had to wait around an hour or so for them to find it. And as if the night hadn't been long enough, customs stopped us on our way out wanting to know what a certain item was in our suitcase (which turned out to be the shelves we bought at IKEA). Needless to say, it felt good to sleep in our own beds that night.

Balls!

2009-12-12T10:04:00.005+03:00

In Hungary Santa doesn't come on Christmas day, Jézuska, or little baby Jesus comes instead. Santa comes a few weeks earlier and typically gives out chocolate, candy, apples, and nuts. He doesn't leave it under the tree, instead he leaves it in, er, people's shoes. Even though the Littlest still a little too small (and allergic) for chocolate and candy, Lyssa insisted we celebrate a day that gives her free candy. As such, all three pairs of her shoes did overflow. We did get the Littlest some red apples, which are mentioned all the Hungarian Christmas songs, so all in all it was pretty successful.

Otherwise, I could spend the rest of this blog telling you about the week back at work, and how much fun it is to teach girls coming back from a week long vacation who are already pretty burned out as it is, but I'll resist. Instead, I wanted to tell you a little about the Littlest's newest love: balls.

Yes, it's true. The Littlest is such a boy. For his birthday we got him a football, er, soccer ball, and he loves picking it up and throwing it around. I've tried to teach him to kick it by picking him up and dribbling around the room (which he loves).

In the end though, he just wants to pick it up. So maybe he'll just end up playing goalkeeper, though with our genes he probably won't have the armspan for it. So I'll kick it to him, he'll grab it and throw it to me, and I'll kick it back. It's really fun that we now have something that we can play together.

We also have a football, er, yeah that's the right word, that we got him over the summer. He'll carry it around sometimes, but it's a little hard to get his hands around it, so he mostly just uses it as a chew toy.

We have a baseball and some tennis balls around also that he loves throwing around, so I got the idea to get all my cricket stuff out to see if he could bowl over some stumps (you'll have to forgive me the cricket terminology, I wanted to see if he'd throw the ball at the stumps and knock the bails on top off).

This is by far his favorite, he gets so excited when I take the cricket gear out. He'll throw the tennis ball at it a couple of times, and completely miss. But then he'll get distracted by the bails. He loves them. He gets all giddy and laughs when he plays with them.

Come to Berlin, Before it's Too Late

2009-12-08T19:44:00.006+03:00

For her music video "Come to Berlin", Barbara Morgenstern stands in various parts of the city, mostly forgotten parks near derelict buildings and abandoned factories, which she describes as "places that are about to disappear, or have already." Indeed, Berlin has more construction projects at any given time than any other European city and the city is nearly unrecognizable from its former self. The tour books all say that Berlin is a city that is constantly reinventing itself, though I'm sure the pessimist would rather call it an identity crisis. For a city that had such a turbulent history over the past century, there are very few signs of it. On our final day in town, we made an effort to see what we could of the divided Berlin.

In the last verse, Barbara Morgenstern sings "Und meine Mutter in den 60er Jahren ist mit der S-Bahn ins Fremde gefahren", which translates roughly to "And in the 60s my mother would take the S-Bahn to a foreign country." I believe this is a reference to how all the subway and commuter trains would still go through East Berlin, only they wouldn't make any stops until they got back to West Berlin. They called the East German stations "ghost stations", except for Friedrichstrasse station, which due to its being a major transfer point on several West Berlin lines was the only station on the eastern side of the Wall where West Berliners could stop. Then it was a maze full of passport checkpoints, cameras, and security agents. Nowadays though, you'd hardly be able to tell as people rushed to catch their trains, stopping only to grab a bite at a fast food chain.

Street sign on Karl-Marx-Allee

We had better luck at Karl-Marx-Allee, one of the few streets in town that got to keep its communist-era name (which is quite remarkable, considering there are no Nazi-era names anymore). The boulevard was designed to be residential, but to highlight the achievements of communism, and so all the buildings are in a monumental Stalinist style. It was really something to behold as we walked down for about a mile.

Christmas trees being sold across from a massive apartment building

Even though Stalinist architecture was never popular in Hungary, this was the first place in Berlin where we really felt like we could just easily be back on the streets of Budapest (even though, again, there is not a single street in Hungary that looks the same). Since it was so amazingly cold, we stopped only at a small market to a candle bridge (which I'd been looking for everywhere).

Me, freezing on Karl-Marx-Allee

All of the buildings on the street are protected as historical monuments, and cannot be changed or altered, though if you look just one block over, you'll see more modern, gentrified apartment buildings. Overall, it was one of my favorite places in Berlin, since it was someplace where the past was hidden, but out in the open.

East Side Gallery

Our next stop was to the East Side Gallery, one of the few remaining segments of the Berlin Wall which has been painted over and now functions as an outdoor art gallery. Many of them had strong political messages relating to freedom and the fall of the wall.

Important dates in the wall's history

Lyssa commented how going there helped make it all seem a bit more real.

An East German Trabant, breaking through the wall

Various walls throughout the world

I said how strange it was to think that where we were walking thirty years ago was a no man's land, and we'd have been shot for being this close.

We came to this painting and the saying on it really struck me: "He who wants the world to remain as it is doesn't want it to remain at all." Just the same as I wouldn't want to learn science from a textbook published in the 1950s, I don't really want the city to be exactly how it was in the 1950s either. Things need to change and improve. I think sometimes we forget how chaotic the last century has been in Europe. In World War II all the bridges in Budapest were destroyed and Dresden was burned to the ground. Surely I had no problem with those cities being reconstructed.

It reminded me a bit of my trip to Sarajevo in 2005. As soon as I left the train station I saw the skeleton of the Parliament building, which hadn't been rebuilt since it was destroyed by fire bombs and mortar attacks in the 90s. It was truly one of the most haunting things I've ever seen. But since then it's been rebuilt, and is a shiny new skyscraper. As much as I wanted to take Lyssa to see that burned out building and feel the things I felt there, I've got to admit, it is probably far more advantageous for the Bosnians to have an actual building to house their government in.

So I guess what Barbara is saying with her song isn't so much that change is bad, she's simply saying to come now. Hurry before it's too late. I would admonish you all to do the same. If you can afford to, please visit Berlin, visit the world. If not, take a good look at your own neighborhood. Right now it's hard for me to go back to South Jordan. It is not the same city I grew up in. Even my parent's neighborhood where the houses are the same is different. None of my friends live there anymore. In fact, pretty much all of their families have gone. I don't recognize the place. Some change is good, some is bad, and some just is.

For those keeping score

2009-12-06T21:35:00.003+03:00

At my mother's request, I'm including a list of all the different countries we've visited, so you can all keep score. These are more or less in the order they were visited. The only rule we have is that airports don't count. We also count places that are not sovereign nations, but are typically considered separate countries. Our philosophy behind this is that if you had been to Guam you wouldn't say you've been to the United States. This, however, does not apply to US states or Canadian provinces, which all belong on a separate list.

Countries

Dave

1 USA*, 2 Turkey, 3 Germany*, 4 Argentina*, 5 Bolivia, 6 Hungary*, 7 Austria*, 8 Czech Republic*, 9 Slovakia*, 10 Romania, 11 Croatia*, 12 Bosnia and Herzegovina*, 13 Serbia*, 14 Poland*, 15 Italy*, 16 Vatican City, 17 Slovenia*, 18 Denmark*, 19 England*, 20 Canada, 21 Qatar*, 22 Hong Kong, 23 Puerto Rico*

Lyssa

1 USA*, 2 England*, 3 Italy*, 4 Vatican City, 5 Mexico, 6 Hungary*, 7 Poland*, 8 Slovakia*, 9 Croatia*, 10 Slovenia*, 11 Serbia*, 12 Denmark*, 13 Austria*, 14 Czech Republic*, 15 Canada*, 16 Qatar*, 17 Hong Kong, 18 Germany*

The Littlest

1 Qatar*, 2 Hong Kong, 3 USA, 4 Germany*

*indicates that the national capital has also been visited. In the case of micro states, such as the Vatican or Hong Kong, these have not been included.

So I'm pretty clearly ahead, having been to six countries Lyssa's never been to, whereas she's been to one I haven't. The Littlest is very far behind, but pretty accomplished for his age. . I doubt he'll keep that up.

German States

Did you know that Germany is one of a handful of countries with states? Sixteen of them, in fact. So, since we've got some new ones, let's put that list up also.

Dave

1 Saxony*, 2 Berlin, 3 Brandenburg

Lyssa

1 Berlin, 2 Brandenburg, 3 Saxony*

The Littlest

1 Berlin, 2 Brandenburg, 3 Saxony*

Okay, okay, so we've all been to the same ones, except in a different order. I've actually been to a fourth one, I just don't know which since my father can't remember where we were for two days on our way back to the USA when I was seven.

No Place Like Germany for the Holidays

2009-12-04T08:25:00.002+03:00

In front of the Brandenburg Gate

Both of us agree that it is wonderful simply to be back in Europe. Even though we've never been to Berlin, the sights, smells, and sounds were all famaliar, and we've felt very much at home here. On several occassions I've mentioned to Lyssa just how happy I am with the weather: pure autumn, overcast and in the 40s (which after a year and a half in the Middle East is a welcome change). Here are some of our favorites about being in Germany for the holidays.

Christmastime

Christmas Market in Dresden

Late November to the end of December is a fantastic time to visit Germany since they take Christmas very seriously here and Weihnachtsmarkts (Christmas markets) pop up everywhere, selling gifts, decorations, and traditional food. Now, we'd been to similar markets in Hungary, Slovakia, and Slovenia, but they just don't compare to German ones in scale or in quality. We've bought several ornaments to hang on the tree and a ton of food. In fact, I'm sure most of our meals have been eaten standing up in the cold at a Weihnachtsmarkt. Our favorites? We can't get enough bratwurst, especially since the mustard is so good. We've also enjoyed the occasional boulette (kind of a cross between meatloaf and a hamburger), crepes, chocolate-covered fruit, potato soup, potato pancakes, and of course the Berlin classic, currywurst (sausage covered in curry powder and drenched in curry ketchup). And since we're on the topic of buying things...

Shopping

Christmas tree that is more ornament than tree at the KaDeWe department store

We've bought a ton of gifts for the Littlest we hope he's going to love. He's been pretty keen on toy cars recently, so we couldn’t resist picking up a Hot Wheels-style ambulance, fire engine, and two police cars (one of which is a tiny "smart car"). All of them have the writing in German, which is pretty cool. Even though it's pure kitsch, I also bought him a slightly larger toy Trabbant, the infamous car produced under the GDR. I've looked everywhere at children's books also, wanting to get him something in German, but that wouldn't be too difficult. We settled on one which teaches the colors in German, which I thought would make for a good start. And speaking of the German language...

Language

One of my favorite things is how much I've been able to speak German. When I came here five years ago, I couldn't even ask for a train ticket. Don’t get me wrong, my German still isn't very good, but I have been able to order food and take care of other business, which is good, since it seems that no one over 30 here speaks any English.

Museums

Ishtar Gate

We've been able to visit some very good museums. For Lyssa, the highlight has been the Pergamon Museum in Berlin, with the massive Pergamon altar. The Littlest loved it since you're allowed to go up on it, and he climbed all the way to the top. Even though the museum gets its name from the altar, Lyssa's favorite was seeing the beautiful and blue Ishtar Gate, the original entrance to the ancient city of Babylon. I personally enjoyed the Jewish museum, which illustrates the lives of German Jews since the Middle Ages to modern times. Other noteworthy highlights included seeing Bruegel the Elder's Netherlandish Proverbs at the Gemäldegalerie and then seeing Raphael's Sistine Madonna with its famous cherubs at the Zwinger in Dresden.

Note the cherubs at the bottom of the painting

This is our friend Jason's favorite painting. I hope he is crazy jealous.

Getting to take Lyssa someplace I've already been

Enjoying a pretzel in Dresden

If you look back far enough in this blog, all the way back to 2004, you'll see that I went to Dresden (but not Berlin) five years ago. When we lived in Hungary after getting married, I took Lyssa to several places I'd visited before, but we never made it as far as Germany. So it was pretty exciting for me to take her to Dresden and then to the LDS temple in Freiberg, both of which I'd already been to. To be honest, the first time I came here though I wasn't the master traveller I am now, and basically just wasted time and wandered around. I didn't even realize there was a really famous painting in Dresden until I was getting ready to leave and saw pictures of it all over a tourism office. When I went to the temple, I walked all the way from the train station (about 1 1/2 miles) with all my bags (since I didn't realize I could put them in lockers at the Dresden train station). I had just barely missed the session, but instead of staying for the next one (or even dropping off my bags) I walked back into town, trying in vain to find some breakfast. I ended up hiding in a public restroom in the park for about 40 minutes, just to stay warm (I pointed the same restroom out to Lyssa as we walked by it).

Outside the Freiberg Temple

The trip this time went much smoother, though we did have to rush a bit. We got into Freiberg in the nick of time and opted to take a taxi to the temple, just to make sure we wouldn't miss the session. I went to the 8am session by myself while Lyssa watched the Littlest in the temple hostel, then she went to the 10:30 session. We then went to a Christmas market in town, before heading back to Dresden.

In front of Dresden's recently rebuilt Marienkirche

But it hasn't all been good times

We almost didn't make our flight, since we were stuck in the passport control line for at least an hour in Doha. The line simply wasn't moving, but we somehow got through in time to make it to the gate. When we got to our first pension, the place seemed pretty much abandoned. We kept ringing the bell, but no one for reception responded. As it turns out, the woman who owns the place is only comes in the mornings. She left our key for us in the cafe next door, but we had no clue. We sat out there for at least half an hour, frustrated, until another guy with the same problem called her and got it straightened out. Other than that (and that she put us in the wrong room without a bathroom for the first night) everything was fine.

Adorable, but unhappy

The Littlest has been a real handful the whole trip also. The problem is that he's big enough to walk and explore, but too little to appreciate the things we want to see. So if we let him on his own he'll go places he shouldn't (a big no-no in museums) but if we hold him or keep him in his stroller he freaks out. He also hates having to put his big coat on, which is such a shame because he looks crazy adorable in it.

There were probably a couple other annoyances also, like the guy who wanted to sell me 20ml of Cola for 4 euros at a Weihnachtsmarkt. Sure, 2.50 of that was for the glass, but isn't that still a little overpriced for a glass that only holds up to 20ml?!?

Heading Home

2009-11-27T10:41:00.003+03:00

Street in Old San Juan

I again woke up very early and got everything together to head home. Since my flight didn't leave until around 2pm, I figured I could head out to Old San Juan one last time. I arrived early before all the crowds and easily found a parking spot. Then I wandered around town, just exploring really, with no one but the stray cats (and there were a lot of stray cats) and the occasional jogger to keep me company. It was quite nice having the place basically to myself.

Ponce de Leon's tomb

I figure I walked a good five miles this morning, a lot because I walked the entire length of the old city walls and back. Besides seeing the charming houses, the highlight was visiting the Cathedral, where a small and humble tomb stands marking where the famed conquistador Ponce de Leon is buried.

Walking along the old city walls

At this point though, it was really quite hot out and I was drenched in sweat. I bought a piraguas, Puerto Rico's answer to the snow cone and made one last stop at the San Felipe fortress, which stands on the very edge of the islet. It was on par with the fortress I had visited the day before, with similar impressive views. But at this point I was tired. I soon headed back to the car and drove back to the hotel for a little bit of rest before heading to the airport.

Castillo San Felipe del Morro

My only concern at the airport was finding one last fix of Puerto Rican cuisine. The food court was full of the usual standards I didn't want to eat--McDonalds, Subway, and the lot. I finally found a cafe which served Puerto Rican sandwiches as well as a few other classic dishes. So I was able to get one final delicious taste of pork, rice and beans, all covered in sofrito.

I made a few souvenir purchases including a deck of Spanish playing cards with the Puerto Rican flag on it, a box of Puerto Rican candy for Lyssa, and a Christmas ornament with Santa arriving a cruise ship. I slept a little bit on the flight and was pretty soon back in New York where I had a massive five hour layover with nothing to do. I bought some American candy and chocolates for Lyssa, but was having a really hard time staying awake. My flight didn't start boarding until 9:20pm, and I figure a good hour before then I was really struggling. I even at one point found a quiet corner of the airport, sat down, and just rested my eyes for a few minutes. The moment I got on the plane I was completely out, and slept a good four to five hours. I wanted to sleep more, but I also didn't want to mess my schedule up too much. So I watched a couple of movies, of note was the film Moon with Sam Rockwell. I had heard it was on par with 2001 or Solaris in that it was a thinking man's sci-fi. It was pretty good and interesting, but I don't know that it was quite as good as those other two.

Lyssa hadn't left for the airport by the time I landed so I called her. Even though the flight was packed nearly everyone was transferring to another flight, so I basically just walked through passport control, waited at the baggage claim with four other people, and quickly made it through customs. Lyssa wasn't quite there by the time I got out, but I only had to wait around a few minutes and then I was on my way home.

I only had two days of work to attend to, since Thursday marked the beginning of Eid Al-Adha, the start of the Hajj, or the pilgrimage to Mecca. Even still, with jet lag was a pretty rough ordeal to teach my classes, and having Thursday off was a very welcome treat. We attended a big thanksgiving dinner with some other Americans which really hit the spot.

We also recently celebrated the Littlest's birthday. We had a bigger party in mind, but lot of people we know are out of town. We're also going out of town, just not yet. On Saturday morning we're going to fly up to Berlin where it will be cold and the halls will be fully decked out for Christmas. So expect to hear all about that in the upcoming days.

From Ponce to San Juan

2009-11-25T20:42:00.004+03:00

El Vigía

I woke up around 4am on Saturday and started grading students' papers. When the sun came up, I went out and walked around the main square a minute so I could still see all the Christmas lights up. Then I got in the car and drove the hill to see El Vigía, this giant futuristic cross that overlooks the city. The grounds were closed, but I was still able to take in some views of the area from up above. Quite lovely.

Panorama of Ponce

I drove down hoping to park in this garage where I had parked almost all of yesterday. The place had few cars in it, so I was kind of surprised that no one else was there. When I pulled in this morning, however, a guy stopped me and told me it was the parking garage for government vehicles only, and that no public parking was available. Whoops. It probably would have helped had there been a sign--any sign--explaining what is and isn't allowed. I got some change together and put it in the meter by the hotel.

One-way sign in Ponce

I walked around town one last time, stopping in the cathedral as mass got out, and going to the main market hall to get some breakfast--ham, eggs, and very good toast. I got some sort of meat-filled pastry on my way out that was also very good. I thought about going to one of the local museums, but ultimately didn't feel very up to it. I instead got packed up and in the car. After one last stop at Wal-Mart for some Christmas decorations, I got back on the autopista and headed for San Juan.

After about an hour I got off the road and took a detour to find Lechonera Los Pinos, which I had seen on an episode of Anthony Bourdain's travel show. A lechonera is basically a restaurant that specializes in all things pork, and this place was supposed to be one of the best in the country. After taking a winding road for at least 15 minutes I finally reached the place, and was pretty surprised to see what a big deal it was. It had a good sized parking lot with its own security telling everyone where to park. Now, I have to confess up front that I let my pride get the best of me here. Instead of going up to order and telling them I didn't anything about pork, but that I knew I wanted pig, rice and beans, I wanted to play it cool and just started pointing at things, having no idea what they were. The rice and beans were good, but the stew I ordered to go with it was very clearly fish--really stinky fish at that. I did my best to eat around it, but in the end I just had to throw it away. There was no way I could eat it. I humbly went back to the counter and told the woman working there I would like about a quarter of a pound of pork to go. This time I was not disappointed.

When I finally got what I wanted

The meat itself was very tasty but it was the skin that was amazing. It was crunchy and salty, contrasted with the slight layer of fat underneath. I picked at it as I drove back to the autopista and then up to San Juan.

I had put the address for my hotel into Google Maps, so I felt pretty confident that I'd find it easily. No surprise, the hotel wasn't anywhere close to where Google said, so I ended up driving--a lot. I ended up on a one-way road to Old San Juan, which is a confusing labyrinth. And wouldn't you know, my only map was in my trunk. I drove around in busy traffic for at least thirty minutes, just trying to find a place where I could get out and get the map from my trunk. After that, I easily got back on the main road. However, I still didn't really know where the hotel was, and ended up just as lost in a different part of the city. At this point my map was somewhat useless, since they don't mark the names of most streets, so I had no idea where I was. By luck, I ended up back on the street the hotel was on. Since traffic was light I was able to slowly cruise down it until I finally found the hotel and was able to check in.

View from Castillo San Cristobal

After I was finally settled, I drove back to Old San Juan, this time intentionally. I parked about 3/4 quarters of a mile away (where I could park for free and wouldn't have to deal with traffic) and walked to Castillo San Cristobal, the largest fort built by the Spanish in the Americas. I was able to use my National Park Pass to get in for free and tour the area. There were some truly spectacular views of the Caribbean, the old town, the city walls, and the other fort at the end of the islet. The fort was also filled with several guard towers which were originally built by the Spanish and are currently a symbol of Puerto Rico.

Guard Tower

I thought about visiting more of the Old Town since I was there, but I had quite a bit of a walk back to my car, and most stuff worth seeing was going to close soon. I decided to instead head back to the hotel and just relax, grade papers, and talk with Lyssa on Skype. I figured I would again wake up early in the morning, and have enough time to go back to the Old Town and explore before heading to the airport.

The Conference

2009-11-22T12:03:00.004+03:00

Driving down the autopista

I got up around 6:30 the next morning and got ready for the day. I got packed up, grabbed some breakfast at the hotel, and checked out. I was hoping to hit the road by 7am, but the shuttle to the rental car place was taking its precious time. Probably about twenty minutes later I was able to hit the road. I made my way through San Juan to the autopista, Spanish for freeway. Though to be honest, for those living in the Western US, you wouldn't recognize is it as a freeway, as it was kind of unkempt (for those who've lived in Pittsburgh, it makes the Parkway West look like a super highway). But its looks aside, you can go 65 on quite a bit of it, so we'll go ahead and call it a freeway.

It was about an 1 1/2 hour ride down to Ponce, where my conference was. There are a couple of toll booths along the way. I thought I'd be smart and got off the autopista a bit before one and just take a highway into town (to save myself apparently only 50 cents). This is when I learned that the map they gave me at the rental place wasn't wholly reliable, that or need they need to increase the number of traffic signs around the country (both are true). I got a little bit lost and was pretty soon right on the coast. A couple of lucky turns later and I somehow found the highway I was looking for and was back on my way.

Conference Welcome Sign

I got to the Hilton with plenty of time to register, say hi, and get my presentation together before my 10:35 start time. I checked out the copy of PRTESOL Gram they gave me, which is a publication Puerto Rico TESOL puts out. I flip through it and found that they had printed a copy of the article I had written based on my presentation. I was really surprised by that. I was a little concerned when 10:35 came around and only two people were in the room. I gave basically the same presentation at Qatar's TESOL conference earlier this year and only two people showed up. We ultimately got off to a late start, but in the end I figure at least 30 people were there. I had run out of handouts at this point. The presentation itself went pretty well. It was rushed though since they only gave me half an hour (I was expecting a full hour). Everyone was nodding their heads with approval throughout and several people complimented me on it in the end. One woman told me she had just written a book on the same topic and wanted to ask me to write the preface for it. Another guy told me he enjoyed it, but was disappointed I didn't give more examples from teaching in Qatar (which he attributed to me being rushed). At any rate, I was really shocked by the whole experience. Had I really bamboozled all of these professionals into thinking that I'm credible?

I attended another session after that. There was supposed to be a free lunch, but the line was forever long, and I didn't know how much longer I'd be able to handle being awake. So I got in the car and headed into town. I had my problems earlier with the maps and lack of road signs, but I quickly realized how unreliable Google maps is in Puerto Rico. In fact, I'm pretty sure Google hasn't sent anyone down here, ever. The downtown area is exclusively one-way streets, but accordingly to Google they're not. So the directions it gave me were completely useless. On top of that, most of these one way streets aren't labeled as such, so the only way I could really tell which way to go was by leaning around the corner and seeing which direction the cars were parked.

Christmas tree in the hotel lobby

I eventually got to my hotel and it was very nice. It had tall European style roofs and just felt old and historic. They also had Christmas decorations up (although it should be noted that the weather has been much hotter than it's been in Qatar as of late). I got all my stuff in and headed out to find some lunch. I grabbed a hot dog with everything on it, which appeared to include chili, onions, cheese, ketchup, mustard, and crumbled potato chips. It's a combination that surprisingly worked, but wasn't completely filling. I went around to a place serving comida criolla, or basically New World food, something purely Puerto Rican. They gave me a pastel (kind of a pastry with meat inside), a big serving of rice and beans, and turkey. It was all very good and tasty. They told me after it was a dish served for Christmas, only when they pronounced it they didn't say Navidad, but rather Navida', since dropping the letter "d" (and lots of other letters for that matter) is a big part of the Puerto Rican accent. I'm used to it with some words, but overall I've had a bit of a hard time understanding the accent at all times, especially when they lay it on thick.

Cathedral in Ponce

After a good lunch, I strolled around the old town to walk it off. I walked into a store selling lots of Christmas things (though nothing I really wanted) and an old man came up to me and asked "trabaja aqui?" (Do you work here?) I should my head and said no, but it does make me happy that I'm in a place where someone may confuse me with a native. I don't get that much anymore in Qatar. I got it absolutely everywhere in Europe. Probably my favorite thing I found from exploring was a store selling jeans. Out front they had the bottom of the mannequins displaying them, but had them turned backwards with the bootie sticking right out. You'd probably never see that at a store where white people shop.

Talk about bum cakes, my girl's got 'em

I headed back to the conference for one final session on the day. I wish I had been able to do more. I did feel like an outsider pretty much the whole time though, since I was basically the only one who has never taught in Puerto Rico. A lot of the people knew each other and I, well, knew no one. They'd also make references to things that I simply didn't know about. But ultimately, if I ever wanted to take a job here (though I don't imagine they get paid very well), I've got an article published here and have presented at a conference. I think that would go in my favor.

After the conference I went up to Wal-mart, at Lyssa's request. We don't have them in Qatar, and as a result we can't really buy anything cheap for the baby. The stuff they have there is usually overpriced and not really what we'd want in the first place. So Lyssa had a big long list for me, and I think I was able to get most of it taken care of. From there I drove back to the hotel and took one last stroll around the main square. It seemed appropriate to buy an ice cream and sit in the square to watch the fountain. But ultimately, I was very tired, and decided to call it a night.

Flying to Puerto Rico

2009-11-21T11:15:00.004+03:00

I do have pictures, but not the cord to upload them. So till I get back to Qatar, you'll have to settle for my words. On Thursday morning Lyssa dropped me off at the airport to begin a long trip to Puerto Rico where I'd be presenting at the Puerto Rico TESOL conference. The first leg of my journey was flying to JFK in New York (about a 12 hour flight). Fortunately Qatar Airways gives you plenty of movies to watch, so I entertained myself watching the following:

G.I. Joe: You know, this got awful reviews, so I had pretty low expectations. I actually found it moderately enjoyable (largely due to the fairly cool ninja characters).

Transformers 2: Also got bad reviews, but I figured G.I. Joe wasn't so bad, so I might actually enjoy it. I've got to be honest though: I think this is one of the worst movies I've ever seen. I found it offensive and boring at nearly every level. I hate every detail of this movie: even the character's names (Sam Wickity? Seriously?).

Up: Having finished with the guilty pleasure movies, I moved to things I actually wanted to watch. I found this one really delightful and thoughtful. It's also a very good-looking movie. I could have just stared at those colorful balloons all day.

500 Days of Summer: This movie is still pretty formulaic as a rom-com, but the leads were very likable and I could really relate.

Dr. No: So Qatar Airways has every single James Bond movie in their catalog. Having exhausted all my other options, I decided to start with the very first Bond flick. The production values are pretty low, but Sean Connery makes it all work somehow.

In a lot of ways I feel like James Bond, traveling from the Middle East to the Caribbean. At various points I had to ask myself--is this really my life? Is this actually what I do? I've got to admit I'm incredibly lucky to have these kinds of opportunities.

We landed in New York where I saw something I hadn't expected--Autumn. Now this may not mean much to you, but I haven't seen fall since 2007, and I gotta admit that as we flew over Brooklyn and I saw all the red and brown leaves and the light drizzle of rain, tears definitely swelled up in my eyes.

I had plenty of time to soak it in, since I had about a five-hour layover. That may have been enough time to go out and do something, but since I hadn't thought about it before I didn't bring any warm clothes with me. So I just kicked it for a while. The Jet Blue terminal has free WiFi so I got to talk to Lyssa a bit. But it was late there, so she went to bed. I wandered around the terminal half awake, since my body thought it was much later. I was honestly surprised to look at a clock as I ate dinner to see that it was only 7pm. I was worried that it was like 10pm, and I had missed my flight. Needless to say, by the time I finally got on the plane, I had no trouble sleeping on it.

We got in to San Juan around 1:40am. I made reservations at the airport hotel, but I had to wait at least 30 minutes at the baggage carousel. When I finally made it up to my room, I got a few things together for the morning, chatted with Lyssa for a minute, and finally laid down to sleep for about 4 hours so I could then pick up my rental car in the morning, and make the drive to Ponce, where the conference was being held.

Halloween: The Final Moments of Freedom

2009-11-07T14:43:00.007+03:00

The Littlest as a pumpkin

I have been crazy busy at work. I started teaching an overtime class last Sunday, which means 3 days a week I'm at the office for 11 hours. Even with all that time I've found it hard to stay on top of things at work, let alone keep you all updated. So a little bit of catching up is in order.

The last bit of freedom I had was the weekend of Halloween. On the Friday before we got together with some friends for an all soup dinner (that is to say, witches brew) and watched Halloween-themed TV shows (though the Great Pumpkin didn't go over quite as well as the most recent Simpson's Halloween episode). We dressed the Littlest as a pumpkin, but he didn't want to keep the costume on for long.

Our Halloween Pumpkin

The next day, Halloween proper, we visited Lyssa's friend Gita, who she knows from a Mother's playgroup. There were four little kids there, all dressed up. One, a Bulgarian boy named Boris, had facial hair drawn on and it terrified the Littlest. He'd run away in fear. When they wiped his face clean to feed him they got along much better.

They had a ton of Thai and Lebanese food for us to eat. It's a combination I've never though would work (let alone for Halloween, but then again Halloween doesn't really have its own specific food besides candy), but it was definitely delicious. It made up for the fact that the weather is still in the 90s, the leaves aren't changing color, there's no candles out for All Soul's Day, and overall there's no indication that autumn is upon us.

Lyssa was able to take the Littlest to get a blood test (at the ominously named Al-Borg Laboratory, which would translate to "The Borg Laboratory." We trust the Littlest won't be assimilated). Sometime this week we should get the results and find out exactly what food he has an allergy to, so we can keep him away from it, which will be good, since we've been trying to feed him three solid (and messy) meals a day.

The Littlest enjoying a meal

At work, students have been getting ready for the midterm (this coming Saturday) and handing in cause and effect essays. Their topics are all pretty bleak: AIDS, diabetes, depression, and teenage suicide to name a few. Aren't there any happy causes or effects left in the world?

With the little free time I've had I've been putting together proposals for presentations. This morning I put together a proposal to present at the TESOL Arabia conference in Dubai this March. I feel pretty optimistic about it. I had a proposal accepted to present at the Puerto Rico TESOL conference the 20-21 of November. So that's going to be my first real business trip. It's going to be a lot of travel in a very short time (basically half-way across the world and back in one weekend) and involve a 7-hour time difference. I'm not really sure when I'm going to sleep. But one thing is for certain, I'm going to eat as much famous Puerto Rican cerdo as possible while I'm there.

So at any rate, it's going to be a busy month. We'll do our best to keep you up to date on it.

Back to the ER

2009-10-23T11:47:00.004+03:00

On Sunday, Lyssa showed up with the Littlest as I was finishing up work. His face was really red and he wouldn't stop crying. Lyssa thought he was just tired of being in the car, but his eyes looked swollen and we realized he was having an allergic reaction to something, so we rushed to the pediatric ER for the third time this month.

I was pretty concerned for him on the ride over, cause traffic was heavy and he didn't look so good. In addition to the swollen eyes, he had developed a red rash over most of his body. Once we got there though, we didn't have to wait very long. They gave him a shot and he seemed to do better. We had to stay 30 minutes in the waiting area to see how much he improved. I took the opportunity to grade papers, but after a few minutes the Littlest threw up all over the place. It was pink, from some strawberry yogurt he had eaten earlier, which we figure was probably what had caused the reaction (despite the fact that we'd given him both strawberries and yogurt in the past). We had to take off his clothes since they were covered in vomit, and we didn't have anything to change him into. His rash seemed to improve quickly from this point, but since he wasn't wearing anything he kept scratching himself.

He wasn't completely improved after 30 minutes and was wheezing a bit, so they admitted him. They gave him two breathing treatments and some steroids to help with the rash and wheezing. The Littlest fell asleep during the first treatment and from there it got pretty boring. After about an hour the rash was totally gone, but we had to stick around for another breathing treatment. At this point though, we knew that he was totally fine, so we just wanted to get going.

Since getting back the Littlest has been okay without any problems. In fact, Lyssa took him to the zoo the other day (where she tried to feed the chimpanzees popcorn and they reached through the cage to grab her. It was scary). We are going to keep him away from strawberries for a while though, and make sure we always has some spare clothes handy. Just in case.

Video of the Week: Saudis Launch Hi-tech University

2009-10-21T08:27:00.008+03:00

My students told me that the last few videos I had shown in class (one on force feeding victims in Mauritania and the other on poverty and war in Congo) were depressing, so I promised them something happy for this time.

I chose this video on King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (or KAUST for short) in order to introduce a lesson on Compare and Contrast. Before starting the video I asked who had been to Saudia Arabia and about 3/4 said they had.

"Do you like it there?" I asked. They mostly responded in the affirmative.

"Would you want to live there?" Nearly everyone said no, never.

Then we talked about how women are treated there, as it's typically considered as being one of the countries with the fewest women's rights. Women cannot go out without being fully covered by an abaya (and they have modesty police enforce this). Women are not allowed to drive (or even ride a bicycle). The universities there are completely gender segregated. Well, until now.

I used this video to have the students practice comparison words (similarly, just as, also, etc.) as well as contrast words (however, nevertheless, although, etc.). The whole activity went pretty well.

As a final note, one thing I like about this video is that the perception is usually that the governments here are the ones who are oppressive. But you can see that the King wants the country to be more progressive, and it's the people who are the ones who are going to take time to convince.

Cultural Insights

2009-10-16T09:34:00.007+03:00

Insha'Allah written in Arabic, with it's counterpart "Masha'Allah", meaning "God has willed it"

We're now three weeks done with the semester, and it's been going really well. We've had some interesting cultural exchanges. For example I talked to them about the Arabic phrase "Insha'Allah", which translates to "If God wills it." Arabs will say this for just about anything. I remember I was talking with a student last year who was failing the class about what she needed to do to get turned around. She said she'd do it, insha'allah. I was a bit annoyed at this, as though she was shifted the blame from her to God if it didn't work out. So I told my students this story and they were surprised that this would be how an American would react. They consider it to be an incredibly respectful thing to say, not just to God, but to the person they're speaking to also. This was the first of many cultural insights during the past few weeks.

We watched two videos in class the last few weeks in order to give them insights into some other cultures, as well as teach them critical thinking skills. In one class I showed them a video about victims of gavage (force-feeding) in Mauritania. They were pretty grossed out about it. The idea I had about it though was to show how people all over the world do horrible things to their bodies in order to look beautiful. In Mauritania, fat is in, so people force feed their children to get fat. In the West we have anorexia, bulimia, fad diets, and smoking to lose weight. It's really all one.

The following week, I showed them a video about Congo that went over better, though it's also a bit disturbing. Basically, Congo and Qatar are similar in that they have trillions of dollars worth of resources. The difference is that the people in Qatar are very wealthy and the Congolese are poor. So in watching the video students had to come up with questions they'd like to ask the people in the video. They came up with some very interesting responses.

Couldn't get through the airport with this

One other thing I've been doing is soliciting Qatari recipes from students. There really aren't any Qatari restaurants in town, you can only get it at home. So a girl wrote me one for a chicken stew. She did a real good job, and even included several of the ingredients in a bag, claiming that I wouldn't have any of them at home. Oddly enough, we have about half of them in the kitchen (notably ginger and cumin, though I'm not sure what the mysteriously labelled "spice" was). The bag looked quite a bit like it was filled with narcotics though, which was good for a laugh.

Delicious stew

The stew itself was very good, it reminded me quite a bit of Indian shorba. I added a little bit of chili powder to mine to give it a little kick. We had enough for leftovers the next day and it was even better reheated. Hit me up if you want the recipe.

Speaking of food, last night we finally went to the Fruit and Vegetable market. I'm not sure why we hadn't done this before. It's a lot cheaper than going to the grocery store because it's wholesale, plus it's also right by our house. It took us a while to find, but when we did, we got way more food than we'd normally get and spent about half as much. We are suckers for not doing this earlier. While on the topic of bargains, we also bought tickets to see the Sony Ericsson women's tennis championships at the end of the month. After the Grand Slam tournaments it's the biggest one on the calender, and being held right here in Doha. The top 8 ranked women in the world will be there, including both Williams sisters. Total cost to us, about $11 a ticket, or a bit more than going to a movie here. You've got to love a country totally run by dudes who puts cheap sporting events up as a political priority.

The Littlest with his favorite book

The Littlest has been adorable the past few weeks, but he's also been sick. The university finally shelled out for us to have private insurance here, which means we've got a lot more options as to where we can go. It'll probably be more useful once we want to see a dentist, since none of the private hospitals or clinics here are set up as well as the state run ones. No surprise, we took him first to the private clinic, who told us just to take him to the state-run children's emergency room. He had a real high fever (about 104 F), so we didn't have to wait very long. The doctor figured he had the flu, but they're not doing swine flu tests in the country anymore due to limited resources. I suppose it doesn't really matter, since they treat it the same with anti-virals no matter what. He's been doing much better now, though to be fair he was always really active and jumping and playing around. Aside from the fever, cough, and a runny nose, you'd never know he was sick.

The best part of course, is that the total cost of all of this was nothing. Absolutely free. I fail to see how that's a bad thing, nor am I afraid that this is socialism encroaching upon us. Actually, it's not socialism at all, since we live in an ultra-conservative absolute monarchy. A 2006 survey actually ranked Qatar as politically one of the world's least free. And yet, the people here are incredibly happy and don't appear in any way disenfranchised. Now to be fair, Qatar is probably a bit of an exception, since an absolute monarch can be (and usually is) incredibly cruel and abusive. But one of the things I've really noticed about living here is that when people are affluent and happy, with food in the belly and a roof over their heads, they really don't have any scrupples about politics. It's a very intersting contrast to the US right now, where people are terrified of losing their rights, yet get to pick their leaders.

The Return

2009-10-09T08:27:00.004+03:00

September 27 marked my first day back in class as well as the day Lyssa and the Littlest came home. Hopefully, she'll get around to writing more details about it, but she told me the flight was uneventful and that the Littlest slept through most of it. From my end, I came home from work and was exhausted. I napped for at least two hours, which gave me only a little bit of time to clean before going to the airport. Her flight arrived about an hour and a half early, which I anticipated since mine did too. I left around 6:00 and got to the airport in about 20 minutes. The monitor said her flight had landed when I got in, so I lined up with the other mass of people, waiting beyond the security checkpoint. I waited and I waited, and she didn't come. A little boy was hit by the sliding door exiting the security area, so he turned around and hit it back. The men around me and I had a laugh at this, and yet she still didn't come out (Lyssa later explained to me that the Littlest had a huge diaper-related disaster as the plane was landing, so she had to attend to that). I waited a good 40 minutes when finally they came out of security and I got to see the Littlest smiling. He really didn't smile at me though. I think it took him a while to remember who I am. Lyssa drove us home so I could sit back with the Littlest and sing songs to him. It seemed like over the course of the car ride he went from "You look familiar, have we met before?" to "I know you, you're my daddy!" to "Get me out of this car seat! Waah! Waaah!!!"

The following weeks haven't had too much to tell. The Littlest is very happy to be home and he walks around all over the place. A lot. Like he's totally done with crawling. He does get into a lot of stuff, as he is one curious kid. He hasn't had a hard time with a hard tile floor, though he is constantly banging his head on our coffee room table. I think they're both pretty much over the jet lag now, though with allergies and the Littlest being sick it's been harder to adjust. They thought he might have the flu, but he's been doing much better over the past few days. At any rate, it's kept us from going out and seeing friends or doing stuff.

The first week of class is usually a bit dull as it's our orientation week. We go over syllabi and course expectations, as usual, but we can't begin teaching the class proper since the bookstore conspires against us, making the actual textbooks available the week after. So it's a week of rules and getting-to-know-you games. My personal favorite getting-to-know-you activity being for the class to go around and share an embarrassing or frightening moment from their life. I do this for several reasons. First, it's a lot more entertaining than having the students just list off likes and dislikes, and you get to see a bit more of their personality also. Second, from a pedagogical point of view, you can't be embarrassed when learning a new language. You have to open your mouth and talk, not being afraid of making mistakes. So it really relaxes the classroom atmosphere. Anyway, here are some of my favorite stories from the bunch:

Several of the stories involved the girl going to the wrong place. In one, the girl thought she was knocking on her parent's door at the hotel, but she didn't realize she had got off the elevator at the wrong floor. She was quite surprised when a large Kuwaiti man answered.
Another girl stepped into a white car, thinking it was theirs and waited for her dad. There was a guy she thought was her cousin asleep in the back. Her dad eventually came, asking her why she was in the car. The guy in the back, a complete stranger, was awakened by their conversation. Now to be fair, every other car in this country is a white Toyota Land Cruiser, so her confusion is understandable. If anything, I'm surprised that sort of thing doesn't happen more often.
Another girl was in Saudi Arabia waiting in line at the mall food court. What she didn't know was that there were separate lines for men and women, and she had gotten into the wrong line. She got a lot of dirty looks. What makes the story even better though is that her last name, Al-Thani, indicates that she's a part of the Qatari royal family. You all laugh and mock, but do you know who her father is?!?

Pork Kebabs

Another girl was vacationing in Interlaken, Switzerland. Her mom and she got lost walking around the town and were soon starving. They walked into the first restaurant they saw. The mother sat while the girl went to order food. They asked her if pork would be okay, and my student said yes. Now, if you weren't aware, pork is haram to Muslims, or forbidden. My student, however, only knew that pig was forbidden, and didn't know that pork and pig meant the same thing. The food arrived and came out as kebabs, which they thought was familiar. They ate it and thought it was delicious, though later that night they threw it all up (probably because their systems weren't used to it). Nevertheless, they went back to the restaurant the next day, attributing the vomiting cake they had eaten later that day. This time, however, the mom was with her when they ordered the food, and was very surprised to hear her daughter order pork. "Don't you know what pork is?" she asked, and proceeded to yell at her.

Summer 2009 in Review: Grand Circle

2009-09-21T12:26:00.003+03:00

Lyssa and the Littlest at Sunset Point

A few weeks later we went with Lyssa's mom to Bryce Canyon and the Grand Canyon. Both were magnificent.

Bryce Canyon

Lyssa and I had gone to Bryce Canyon when we were first dating, so it was a bit nostalgic to go back. We first took in the views from Sunset Point, but the Littlest didn't seem all that impressed.

We think he looks like a Sallay in this one

We did get some cute pictures of him though! Lyssa's mom watched him for about an hour while Lyssa and I went on the same hike we did when we were dating (and I felt the same frustration when we finished going up some rough switchbacks and still had a ways to go). Still, when we were down in the slot canyons and enjoying the forest and hoodoos below, we couldn't complain.

In a slot canyon on the Navajo Loop trail

Out of breath, but loving the view

We had a little picnic and went over to Inspiration Point to take in the canyons from a different viewpoint. We got to Bryce Point right before the sun went down. We tried to get some good family pictures, but the Littlest just wanted to play.

Getting the movie star treatment

After Bryce we drove down to Kanab, which claims to be Utah's "Little Hollywood" since so many Westerns and other films were shot there. We stayed at Parry Lodge, where all the actors stay. Many of the rooms will have nameplates of the stars who have stayed in the room. We saw the rooms John Wayne, Frank Sinatra, and Ronald Reagan stayed in. No one famous stayed in our room. Well, until the Littlest strikes it big.

Grand Canyon

View from the North Rim

The Grand Canyon was also nice, since I hadn't gone since I was a child. I had always heard the North Rim wasn't as pretty as the South, but there are still some spectacular views.

The Littlest strapped in for a hike

Waving

Getting ready to head back

St. George

The Littlest loves a good swim

We stayed the last night in St. George on the way back. We relaxed a night at the hotel and went for a swim. The next morning Lyssa and I went to the temple do a session. My parents got engaged in the Celestial Room there, so it was neat to go there with Lyssa. We spent the rest of the afternoon visiting church historical sites in the area. When I was a teenager, I remember going to Brigham Young's Winter Home with some friends, so it was interesting to go back and see how much my tiny teenage memory remembered.

Brigham Young's Winter Home

St George Tabernacle, site of the famous "Windows of Heaven" talk

So for those of you keeping score, we figure at this point the Littlest has been to 3 different countries or territorial units (Qatar, Hong Kong SAR, and the USA), and 6 different US states (Texas, Utah, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and Arizona). All before turning one year old. The real kick in the pants, of course, is that he's not going to remember any of it.

Summer 2009 in Review: Family Reunion, Idaho, and Wyoming

2009-09-20T10:00:00.005+03:00

So, I'm back in Qatar now. Lyssa and the Littlest won't get here till the end of the month. Though I'm sure you'd all love to hear updates about my trying to overcome jet lag and going to to orientation meetings, I'm sure you'd much rather hear about our summer vacation and look at pictures.

Family Reunion in Tremonton, UT

In the end of July we went to the Golding family reunion in Tremonton, UT. It was the Littlest's first time camping.

The Littlest waking up from his first night of camping

Outside the tent, with a nice view of the mountains and stream

Playing outdoors

We all around had fun with family. The Littlest enjoyed meeting new cousins and family members, Lyssa enjoyed seeing family she normally doesn't get to see, and I played a little baseball. On July 24th (which is a state holiday in Utah), we all drove out to Promontory Point, where the transcontinental railway was completed with the driving in of a golden spike. Since we went on a holiday, they had a reenactment that was fairly interesting to watch. We all enjoyed seeing the old trains though. The only drawback was that it was miserably hot the whole time.

Historic Trains

It should be noted that we bought a bunch of baby books about trains for the Littlest. I think we're trying to program him.

It was pretty hot most of the trip, and we spent a lot of time trying to stay cool however we could. We also went on a short nature hike, which was pretty muddy. On the last day we packed up camp. Most everyone else went home, but a few of us had decided beforehand to drive up to Yellowstone and spend a few days there.

That Day We Spent in Idaho

We headed up I-15 and stopped in a few places in Idaho along the way. We had lunch and went to Wal-Mart in Chubbuck, a suburb of Pocatello. It was all pretty white trash (albeit, Wal-Mart is pretty white trashy wherever you go). I've often joked that Eastern Idaho seems about 15 years behind the rest of the country, and the 90s soundtrack at the pizzeria we went to seemed to confirm this (when was the last time you heard Crash Test Dummies?) The radio claimed it was only the "90s at 9" segment, but we were there at lunch.

Enjoying the landscaping in Idaho Falls

Idaho Falls was much prettier. They've got some lovely urban landscaping with the waterfall and the temple.

Rexburg LDS Temple

We also stopped in Rexburg to see the temple and I can't imagine ever wanting to go to school there. I know some people love it but I would be bored out of my mind.

Idaho-redeeming View

My brother-in-law Clint and I were hoping we'd find a hotel room for the night, but Lyssa's sister Rima insisted there was a free campground along the way. Just when we thought we'd never find it, we finally did with about 30 minutes left of sunlight to set up camp. It was located next to this gorgeous lake with literal purple mountains, and overall it redeemed Idaho for all of us.

Yellowstone

Lyssa and the Littlest at a small waterfall

Yellowstone was wonderful, albeit a bit crowded. We had a cabin near Mammoth Hot Springs. Sadly, Lyssa was sick to her stomach the first day (there was actually a bug going around the entire family reunion) and our niece Clarissa was stuck home sick the next day. The trip also confirmed in my mind how stupid people are. Despite signs everywhere warning you to stay on the boardwalks (since the ground is unstable and could swallow you up) you still saw people tightrope walking on the very edge of the boardwalks or reaching over to touch the hot springs.

Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone

Old Faithful

Our niece at the heart-shaped hot spring

Tons of Bison, Everywhere

Grand Teton

Enjoying the view of the Tetons

On the way back we drove through Grand Teton NP, but we didn't get to spend much time there since road construction between the two parks seriously slowed us down. The only other downer for the trip was that Lyssa's sister Tasha lost their GPS that they had just bought specifically for this trip. They thought it might have been in one of the dumpsters in Tremonton, so we stopped off after midnight on our way home. We found several trashbags from the reunion and tore them open, but couldn't find it. All the while I thought about how funny it would be if the police came and caught us digging through the garbage by the Tremonton Public Library.

The Littlest's First Day in America

2009-07-05T15:44:00.005+03:00

Family picture with a Saturn V rocket

My great Uncle Paul would often tell us how they arrived to Ellis Island on the 4th of July, and as such he always called himself a "Yankee-Doodle-Dandy." In similar fashion, our flight touched down in Houston late in the afternoon of July 3, meaning that the Littlest's first whole day in the nation would be America's birthday.

Heading toward customs I commented to Lyssa about how disappointing America looks whenever you get back. I pointed out garbage on the ground, stains on the carpet, and the interior that hadn't been updated since the 1970s. "I always remember America being so much nicer," I said. Though to be fair, I think it's really just that airports in America are crappy, which always makes for a poor first impression.

We got through immigration and customs surprisingly fast (usually they grill you with more questions, like: Why on Earth did you leave America? Why should we let you back in? Who do you think you are?) My brother Peter and his family picked us up and then drove us to their home. We spent some time catching up and talking about education (since both he and his wife work as math teachers in Houston), and had a little pasta for dinner. In the meantime, the Littlest got to make two new friends in his cousins.

The Littlest and his cousin

Aside from having to go out to buy some allergy medicine for Lyssa (since Pete's family has cats) and forgetting about how American money works (to be fair, I gave the cashier that extra one unaware that the sales tax for the $3.99 allergy meds had sales tax included), the evening was mostly uneventful. We all went to sleep at a decent time and woke up the next morning at a normal time too, which hopefully means that jet lag won't be too much of a problem.

We had breakfast tacos for breakfast, which apparently is fairly standard in Houston. It's a similar concept to a breakfast burrito, though I'm not exactly sure how (to be fair, I'm not totally sure on the difference between tacos and burritos anyway). We drove about an hour south to the Johnson Space Center to spend the 4th of July learning about the nerdiest of all patriots--astronauts. Lyssa and I had already been to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and this one was comparatively smaller and more child-orientated. We took a tram tour which provided some humorous moments (because come on, Kennedy really does have a cartoonish voice) and some inspiring ones (like visiting the current mission control room or a grove of trees with a tree planted for all astronauts who died in service). Overall, I walked away in awe of how brilliant this men and women are. I mean really, where did they come up with this stuff?

Hanging out in the Rocket Park

We headed back to the visitor's center for lunch and saw some of the different exhibits (including moon rocks, and little details of life on the International Space Center). Lyssa tried Dippin' Dots for the first time (it is afterall the ice cream of the future), and we headed back home, fairly exhausted.

We went out to eat at a nearby Tex-Mex restaurant which was wonderful, and totally patriotic too, since it is technically Texan food. I spoke a little Spanish to the waiter which again--totally patriotic--since most of the land we acquired from the war of 1812 was from Mexico and people have been speaking Spanish there longer than they've been speaking English (sorry English only advocates, it's true). We went up to the lovely Woodlands area and waited around a bit for fireworks. They finally got started around 9:30. Apparently we weren't in quite the right spot, since there was a building in the way obstructing about a quarter of the view. They were nevertheless impressive, and more importantly, less crowded than the fireworks display over downtown. The only setback of the night was the traffic was pretty bad getting back to the freeway, but once we got on it was smooth sailing.

To America, happy birthday, and to the Littlest, happy first day in it.

Hear the Littlest Laugh

2009-06-28T00:11:00.003+03:00

The Littlest has learned several new tricks. He's not quite crawling yet, but he is scooting around backward and incredibly mobile. It's tricky to make him laugh, but we occasionally find some little thing that makes him giggle hysterically. First it was throwing a pillow up in the air and catching it before it fell down on him. Today we found out that he also likes hearing books slamming shut. For those of you who can't wait till we're back in Utah next week, you can enjoy this video.

The Anniversary III

2009-06-07T10:32:00.004+03:00

Three Years Ago

We recently had our third wedding anniversary and we actually celebrated it. We were living in Hungary for our first wedding anniversary and it fell on a Sunday. So we went to church and then spent the afternoon in Budapest, the highlight being going to the old Synagogue and seeing some depressing displays on the holocaust. We were in Pittsburgh for our second anniversary, but Lyssa was pregnant sick and we didn't do anything. This year, since the semester is already over I had the day off of work, so we spent the entire day celebrating.

Lyssa woke up and checked her email to find a little e-card I had made with pictures of our wedding day, wishing her a happy anniversary. More importantly, it had the number of a local spa which performs reflexology (which Lyssa has been dying to have done). Originally I had planned to get her a gift card, but since she'd have to call and make an appointment anyway, I figured it would be nicer to have the personalized card. I will say though, it took her a while to find the card. She checked all her facebook updates and read at least three or four other blogs before getting around to checking her email. She got a huge smile on her face when she finally did.

We went over to the Villaggio mall to walk and pick up some groceries. Lyssa ducked into the Virgin megastore to buy me some DVDs (one about Sri Lanka and the other about Berlin, both of which we're considering a visit to). While she was there, I went to a florist and bought a bouquet of three red roses, one for each year we've been married. She got done shopping before I did, so I was able to sneak up behind her waiting for me and surprise her.

We grabbed lunch at the newly refurbished Turkey Central (one of Lyssa's favorite restaurants which had shut down for a few months for renovations) and ate houmus, taboule, and kebabs for lunch. Christian was exhausted by this point, so we ended up back home so he could take a nap. In the meantime we watched the Sri Lanka video. It made us really want to go. Lyssa especially loved the footage of the elephant orphanage in Pinnewela. We'll have to see how much money we have lying around, I suppose.

We got all dressed up and dropped the Littlest off at a friend's house (his second time being babysat), and went to a Hyderabadi only Indian restaurant. Indian food in the United States tends to all be from the Punjab region, which although it is delicious, is only a small representation of all the sub-continent's cuisine. Hyderabad is especially renowed, so I thought we'd give it a try. We started with an absolutely delicious soup, followed by a prawn cocktail. Neither Lyssa nor I really likes seafood, but we really didn't understand our waiter and we apparently ordered the prawns. They weren't too bad, and we managed to eat them all. We also got a very tasty curry, as well as Hyderabad's most famous dish: Hyderabadi biryani. The rice was so soft, it simply melted in your mouth. All in all it was an excellent meal, truly fitting a wedding anniversary.

More milestones

2009-05-27T14:01:00.006+03:00

Here are all the new things the Littlest is doing:

He puts his arms out when he wants me to pick him up.

He gives kisses, its kind of like the way a dog 'kisses', so I end up with slobber all over my face, but it's still adorable.

He is getting his first tooth. It came through just the other day.

He will move in a circle when on his tummy.

He plays with his toys and tries to read his books.

He will stand if you hold his hands.

He can sit up all on his own.

He loves to jump! We had to buy him a jumperoo cause our arms were so tired from his jumping all the time. It cost twice as much here as it would in the states, but I think it was worth it.

And of course be an adorable little guy. Here are some more pictures of him to look at.

The Littlest eats rice cereal

2009-05-03T21:39:00.005+03:00

So tonight the Littlest got a new treat, he tried out rice cereal! I have to say I was quite nervous to give him new food. He's just growing up so dang fast. Didn't I just bring him home from the hospital?

He loved it! At first he was like what the heck is this stuff? But after a few spoonfuls he was whining when I didn't get it in his mouth fast enough. So cute.

Last Day in Hong Kong

2009-04-25T17:04:00.008+03:00

Slightly Nervous

It's taken us a while to get up to date on this. Here goes. After spending a long day at Disneyland we were pretty beat, but still wanted to fill the last few hours in Hong Kong productively. We took the bus back to Tung Chung where we hopped aboard the Ngong Ping cable car from which we enjoyed fantastic views of Lantau Island. Lyssa spent most of the time cowering in the corner, a little bit afraid of the whole experience.

Postcard View

After coming around a mountain top, we saw the Tian Tan Buddha, which is the largest seated, outdoor, bronze Buddha statue in the world.

Tian Tan Buddha

Upon getting off, we headed over. To get to him, we had to walk up 268 stairs with the Littlest strapped on to me.

Po Lin Monastery

Coming down the stairs, we walked over to the nearby Po Lin Monastery and visited some more Buddhist temples. The architecture was again impressive, though sadly it was incomprehensible to us, since we really had no idea what anything meant or represented.

Hong Kong Temple

We took the cable car back down and Lyssa seemed to do much better the second time around. We hopped on the subway to head back into town for some last minute sightseeing. We made it to New Kowloon to visit the LDS Hong Kong temple, which was very small so there wasn't much to see. Some missionaries were coming out (the mission house is on the same complex) and then talked with us for a minute and took our picture. They referrred us to across the street, where a new stake center was being built.

Too young to remember

Good-bye, Hong Kong!

We walked over to a nearby shopping mall for lunch and to change the Littlest. Lyssa finally broke down and went to McDonalds, but I got more noodles. At this point all the walking around we had done around the city caught up with us and we were totally pooped. We crawled back to the subway and went back to the waterfront to enjoy one last view of the city. We had a fantastic time there and would love to go back (I would absolutely take a job there).

First time in a major body of water

We took a ferry back to Mui Wo and hung out in the hotel, relaxing until it was time to go. We took the opportunity to finally go to the beach which was a thirty second walk from our hotel room and let the Littlest dip his feet in the South China Sea.

Our flight didn't leave till 1:50am. We got to the airport around 11pm and were looking for some food. Lyssa was craving chicken strips and there was a Popeye's chicken. I wanted to pay with plastic, but they said they only took cash, so I had to run around trying to find an ATM. I finally get some money and run back, but as soon as I get there they tell me they're closed. So not only do we not get any chicken strips, but I also got more Hong Kong dollars than I needed. The only place we could find that was open was another noodles place, which Lyssa didn't want. She got spring rolls instead. But other than that, and the Littlest freaking out as we boarded (we did get to board first as result though). All in all, a successful trip.

The Littlest

2009-04-22T13:46:00.006+03:00

Everyone keeps asking me for more pictures of the Littlest. Well I have finally gotten around to putting them on here. I usually take pictures of him almost everyday, so I have a lot to choose from. Here are some of my favorites from the last few weeks:

Hong Kong Disneyland

2009-04-17T19:27:00.007+03:00

When we decided to go to Hong Kong, Dave reminded me that there was a Disneyland there, I was so excited. We knew that it wasn't as good as the one in California, but we figured with a baby we wouldn't be able to do much anyway. Dave's friend told us to be prepared for disappointment since they didn't have very many rides. We even said that if we got bored within a few hours it would be okay if we just left and went somewhere else. To our surprise, it ended up being a lot of fun. From our hotel we took a bus to the subway. We took the subway one stop and then hopped on the Disneyland Resort Line to the park. It was so cute.

Dave holding the mickey-shaped handles

Aren't those the cutest windows?

I dressed the Littlest in a cute Mickey Mouse outfit that my my mom gave him. Within the first ten minutes, he had a diaper blow out and his Disneyland outfit was ruined. Luckily I was prepared with not one, but two more Disneyland outfits with Tigger on them and he wore both of them.

We decided to go on Space Mountain first, since it was the only ride that the Littlest couldn't go on and we figured that later in the day the line would get pretty long. That never happened. The wait was always less than 5 minutes. Why? Because, I guess, the Chinese are afraid of roller coasters. At the start of the line was a cast member who's sole purpose was to inform guests that Space Mountain is a roller coaster. They even have a little handout that explained the ride in multiple languages. While I was on the ride, Dave watched as people got to the start of the line, took the handout and talked to the cast member, then turned around and walked away. Is Space Mountain really that terrifying? We thought that was pretty funny.

Me and the Littlest in front of It's a Small World

After the fun of Space Mountain, we took the Littlest on some rides. First we went on the Buzz Lightyear ride, then on The Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, and then It's a Small World. We thought that maybe the Littlest would enjoy the rides, but he didn't seem all that interested. We did go on the Jungle Cruise which was pretty fun. It has a different ending than at Disneyland and Disney World. In the line a little girl starting talking to me and the Littlest. She was really out going and friendly. Her brother came over and talked to us too. He asked me to guess his age. I guessed 8 and he got a disgusted look on his face and said, "Good guess." She asked me how old I thought she was. Now since he was 8 and she was younger, but not that much younger, I said 6. She was so surprised I got it right. Then he asked if I could guess his name. I think he was mad that I got his age right and wanted me to not get his name right. I asked him what it started with. He said an "A". I was trying to think of what boy name was popular 8 years ago, so I said Alex. You should have seen the look on his face. He was so annoyed that I got it right and said, "but what is my real name?". I wonder what the grandmother was thinking this whole time. I started to feel a little like a stalker. I really don't know how I got it right. Then of course the little girl wanted me to guess her name. She said it started with an "M". I guess Madison, but her name was Madeline, but went by Maddie. Close enough. Maddie really liked me and when we got onto the boat she came and sat by me instead of her family. She got so excited when we saw animals and said, "Look they're real, they're real!" It was really cute. She got scared about half way through and crawled onto the ground and would not get up again. Poor girl. The ending was kinda scary. It had fire and smoke and really freaked the Littlest out.

We decided to take the Littlest on the carousel. I wasn't sure how he would do on a horse, but I really wanted to get a picture of him on one, so I decided to climb up on it too. The ride lasted about 20 seconds. It was so short.

Me and the Littlest on the carousel

Within a few hours we had gone on every ride that we wanted to. Dave told me that it was up to me whether or not we stayed. I was having a lot of fun. It was not very busy at all, so I decided that we needed to spend the rest of the day there.

Neither one of us had been on the Teacups ride in a real long time, so we decided to try it out. I was afraid I would get sick, but it was a lot of fun.

Me on the Teacups ride. I picked out the purple and pink cup, my favorite colors

We saw one of the 3D shows and went to one of the LIVE performances. All is all it was a nice, relaxing day at Disneyland. If we ever move to Hong Kong, I'm sure we will get annual passes.

We had one more day in Hong Kong, but I'll have Dave write about that.

Still catching up on Hong Kong

2009-04-14T15:30:00.006+03:00

Smoggy view from the Peak

Day 3
We got off to a late start since we had lunch at home. Our plan was to go up the Peak today to see views of the whole city. The line wasn't as long as it had been the day before, so we were optimistic. Still, we waited at least 45 minutes to go to the top. The view was impressive, but it was a fairly smoggy day, so it wasn't as impressive as it would have been on a clear day (here's a panoramic view of what it could have looked like). Still, it's always fun to be looking down on skyscrapers.

Family Picture from the Peak

The whole ordeal took us a lot longer than we had planned, so it ended up being around dinnertime when we got back down. We wanted to find either a good Cantonese or Szechuan place for dinner, but our guidebook was a little bit off. We ended up eating at a Malaysian restaurant in Lan Kwai Fong, a district where only rich white people and tourists go. Fortunately, the meal wasn't too expensive and was pretty all right.

You can kind of tell there's a light show

From there we walked over to the harbour in the hopes of catching a boat across to Kowloon. Every night they hold a light show across the skyline, and we figured we'd get the best view from there. However, the show started while we were still on the boat, so we didn't get quite as good of a view. It was still pretty neat to watch.

Day 4
Ugh. This was pretty much a transit day. We slept in, had breakfast, and hung out. As it turns out, our friends could only host us till Monday, because they had family flying in later in the evening. So we had arranged to stay at a hotel in Mui Wo, closer to the airport and Disneyland, for the remainder of our stay. So after packing up, we took a taxi to the closest subway station, Shau Kei Wan. From there we had multiple transfers until we got to Tung Chung near the airport on Lantau Island. From there it was a 45 minute taxi ride to our hotel. All this with our bags, stroller, and baby.

We were pretty worn out by the time we got there, so we decided just to hang out and enjoy Mui Wo. It's a small resort area that was formerly a fishing village, so it still feels very rural. It was nice to see a completely different side of Hong Kong. We walked over to the wharf where there was a large marketplace selling all kinds of food. We sat down to eat and I finally got the Szechuan I had been looking for. It was worth the wait. From there we hung out in the hotel and took it easy. I spent a bit of time in the sauna and Lyssa relaxed in the room with the Littlest. We needed all our strength, since the next day we went to Disneyland. But I think I'll let Lyssa tell you about that. It's more of her thing.

More about our Hong Kong trip

2009-04-13T14:50:00.004+03:00

Incense Coils in Man Mo Temple

Day 2
On Saturday we took a taxi downtown and went to a fancy restaurant in a hotel for Dim Sum. Dim Sum is basically getting a bunch of appetizers. They usually bring it out on little carts and you point to what you would like, but this restaurant we had a paper menu that we wrote our order on. Dave and I ordered wantons with shrimp in sweet and sour sauce. Now when I think of wantons I think of meat wrapped in a fried wanton, but instead we got plain fried wantons and then the shrimp was in a bowl with mixed vegetables in sweet and sour sauce. I normally don't like sweet and sour sauce, but it was delicious! We also got pork-filled dumplings, and spring rolls. It really was better than any Chinese food I've ever had. Yay for MSG! (Probably).

Lyssa at Man Mo Temple

Next was to Man Mo Temple. I've never seem any buddist temples so this was pretty interesting. They are so colorful and full of incense. It was pretty smoky in the building. Saturday was Qingming, which is the Chinese Day of the Dead, so everyone was burning incense and papers to their ancestors. Not only were people lighting insense sticks, but there were insense coils hanging from the ceiling. They looked like beehives.

Dave and the Littlest in SoHo

We walked along Hollywood Road, the first street in Hong Kong that was full of stores selling Chinese statues and decorations. We stopped for smoothies and headed to SoHo, where I bought a cooking brush at a kitchen store. Dave and the Littlest took pictures while waiting outside.

Looking toward Wan Chai on Hong Kong Island

Then we went to Victoria Harbor on the Kowloon side to get a view of Hong Kong island. There are so many skyscrapers in such a tiny area. It's amazing.

We decided that we better get some dinner. We decided to eat at a Pakistani restaurant. I got Chicken Tikka Masala, which was excellent. Dave got Lamb Vindaloo. Our friends were worried that we wouldn't like the place because the area was kind of seedy. But it looked like anywhere in downtown Doha, so we were totally fine with it.

Heading to Temple Street

Then we went to Temple Street to the night markets which were full of cheap souvenirs. I got a fan and Dave got a game called Mahjong. The markets were full of knock off purses and clothes. I had a lot of fun.

By that time we were exhausted and realized we had been out for ten hours and it was time to get back and get to bed. We took the subway back home.

Who Says We're Not Spontaneous?

2009-04-05T06:56:00.005+03:00

We haven't done nearly as much travelling as usual (well, any travelling)
since coming to Doha. Part of this is because Lyssa was pregnant when we
got here, and after that we had a new baby to take care. So all along,
we'd been planning to spend Spring Break quietly in Doha, with me mostly
sleeping and lying around. Last Monday, however, Lyssa suddenly changed
her mind and said he had to get out. I suggested a cheap trip to Bahrain,
and she said, no. We had to leave the desert.

So we looked into a few options. Our first thought was Hungary, but we
couldn't find anyone to stay with on such short notice, and it's not the
easiest place to fly to. We next looked into Seychelles, a tiny, tropical
archipeligo nation north of Madagascar. We found a pretty good deal, that
was a bit more expensive than we would have liked, but still not
expensive enough to outright say no. We spent a night going back and
forth, trying to decide. Ultimately, a look at the weather report for
Seychelles (which forecast thunderstorms all week) managed to convince us
to look elsewhere.

We had also thought about going to Hong Kong, since I have a friend from
Pitt who's teaching there. She responded to our email and said that they
had room and could show us around town. The only caveat was that her
husband's parents were coming on Monday, and that it could only be for
the weekend. We were a little dismayed at first, but then we figured if
we got a hotel for a couple of nights we could make it work. We bought
the tickets that Tuesday night. Who says we're not spontaneous?

Our flight left Doha at 1am, and in many ways was the dry run for taking
the Littlest back to Utah, since the flight was exactly half as long.
Needless to say, he did very well. He had no problem with taking off or
landing and spent most of his time asleep. It was a bit tricky for us,
since we felt more crammed than usual, but we're optimistic we could do
it again for twice as long in a few months.

We arrived to Hong Kong around 2:30pm. We got through passport control
extra quick. They let us take the express line since we had a stroller.
We got some cash and tickets for the train and we were off. Our first
impression was that the area is amazingly beautiful. Islands topped with
green mountains surrounded the glistening South China Sea. This was
the Littlest's first time on a train, and he loved looking out the window as
all the scenery rushed by. All the pictures you see of Hong Kong make it
look ultra-modern, so we were surprised by how industrial the city was,
as we drove past shipyards and docks. The thin residential skyscrapers
have a slight layer of soot on them that reminded us a bit of Europe. It
was a pleasant change from all the dirt-covered buildings in Doha.

From Hong Kong Central station we took a taxi (another first for
the Littlest) to the other, far more suburban side of the island, where my
friend Kathryn lives. She was still at work but left the door unlocked,
which was fine for us, as we enjoyed the view of the mountains and trees (which we never get to see in Doha) and just slept until they got back.

View from our friend's apartment. Very different from Doha.

Around 6pm we went out on the town, taking the bus to Shau Kei Wan, a very Cantonese neighborhood with few ex-pats around. We went to the Golden Vegetarian restaurant, which featured several dishes using vegetables, soy, and tofu to imitate meat (which is considered an art form here, and was actually very good). For desert, they gave us a cup full of beans flavored with sugar and coconut milk. Don't let the look on my face deceive you, it was actually pretty tasty.

They told us it's called "Singapore Cha Cha"

Jet lag hadn't caught up with us yet, so we took the subway (another first for the Littlest) to Causeway Bay, a major shopping district to look around. We meandered past neon signs in Chinese, but there wasn't anything we were too interested in buying. We were happy just to look around and soak in the city.

Shopping in Causeway Bay

It got to be around 10pm and we were quite tired so we headed home. Hopefully that means we're adjusted to the time zone and will have no problems with jet lag.

Arab League Summit

2009-03-31T12:04:00.002+03:00

Yesterday the Arab League held it's annual summit here in Doha. I caught a little bit of it on television and found it pretty interesting. Though the news mostly focused on how Omar Al-Bashir, the president of Sudan, was in attendance despite an ICC arrest warrant placed against him, I was more drawn to what they had to say about education in the region. Since coming to Doha I've often felt that many of my students are just a bunch of spoiled rich girls who could care less about learning English, and how much happier I'd be if I were in a poorer region where I could really empower people by teaching them English (the problem with that is, of course, the poorer places don't pay very well). But in hearing many of the delegates speak yesterday about education it has really changed my mind. The Gulf area has improved in the field of education, but it still isn't perfect.

I've complained several times to Lyssa and other teachers how the students typically don't act like university students. They won't bring books to class (probably because they don't have backpacks, they just stuff them all into their purses), they won't do assignments when I ask them to, they'll leave class without telling me where they're going, or they'll talk on the cell phones while I'm lecturing. It always made me mad, but it never hit me until now that it's my job to teach them how to be university students.

I was talking with some other teachers about it, and one of the problems is that there isn't anything for young people to do in this country. Honestly, a lot of students sign up to go to the university just to get out of the house. It's hard for someone with that attitude to be motivated to do much of anything. It's a bit too late for me to make any major changes now, since it's mid-semester, but next semester I plan on being a lot more strict up front. At least when it comes to them bringing their books to class. Sheesh.

Scarface

2009-03-24T14:42:00.004+03:00

So this is what I woke up to this morning:

Why do babies scratch their faces? I've been trying to clip his nails, but its just not enough. He still manages to do damage to his face. Just the other day he did this:

Its kind of hard to see in the picture but he has two little scratches under his eye. So just when the cheek was healed he scratched his forehead. I want my cute scratch free baby back. How do I get him to stop scratching his face?

Cultural Lessons from Shopping

2009-03-14T17:53:00.006+03:00

Having lived in a few different places since getting married, we've noticed you can tell a lot about a place, its people and its culture, by what stores they have in the mall. When we lived in Hungary, it seemed that every other store in the mall sold shoes. Admittedly, most of these were small boutiques that seemed to only sell twenty shoes max, but even still it seemed an inordinate number. Pittsburgh's malls had pretty much the same stores you'd find anywhere in America, though each one also had at least one Pittsburgh sports memorabilia shop. One had at least four.

Jewelry at the Gold Souq

Here in Qatar, we've also noticed the stores and tried to figure out what it says about the people who live here. One of the first things we noticed on arrival, since Lyssa was pregnant and extra sensitive to smells, was perfume. After that are the jewelry stores--particularly watches, since every Qatari male wears one. There are a ridiculous number of places to buy cellphones, which I suppose balances out that there is currently only one service provider in the country. Finally there are the home furnishing stores, which is again understandable due to the climate. In the summer heat, you're going to want to spend most of your time indoors.

There seems to be a normal number of women's clothing and fashion stores, which seems a bit strange since most Qatari women cover themselves with an abaya. They still wear the latest fashions, just no one can see it in public. In my mind, this defeats the purpose of wearing expensive clothes, but does say a lot about Qataris.

What has struck us the most, however, is what's missing: namely bookstores. When we lived in Hungary every mall had a bookstore, and the larger ones would have at least two. Why, the little town we lived in with 40,000 residents had at least four bookstores in the downtown area. That we're aware, Doha doesn't have any real bookstores. There's Jarir Bookstore which advertises itself as "not just a bookstore." I think they could easily add on to that slogan, "in fact, we're mostly not a bookstore." You walk in their massive store and it's all electronics and office supplies (or look at their website and see if you can find even one book). You have to go upstairs to find the actual books. And even then, the selection is weak at best. They have mostly best sellers and new realeses, a moderate collection of classics, and anything beyond that is slim pickings. I've gone to several bookstores trying to find a decent book to teach myself Arabic, but at best they'll only stock a cheap Arabic phrasebook that doesn't even use the right alphabet. The other side of the room is the Arabic section, where I was able to find a cheap Arabic-English dictionary (they didn't have one on the English side).

Virgin Megastore

Then there's Virgin Megastore, which has a selection similar to Jarir's. But again, that I'm aware there's no store that sells purely books, or even mostly books that we can tell. We were in the Virgin Megastore today though when I realized something even harder to come across than books: classical music. They had one small section in the store with maybe 20 different titles available. They didn't have any Beethoven, but they did have several albums of symphonic versions of pop music.

To be fair, I can understand the lack of classical music, since that does come from more of a European tradition. But Arabs have a long history with books. During the dark ages, it was the Arabs who wrote down and continued the scentific studies the Greeks had begun. Sadly, I don't think you could find a book about that here. In the meantime, the National Library is closed indefinitely for renovations (as is the National Museum). There is a national theater, though every time we drive by it the place looks empty. Before I sound too critical of the country, it should be noted that twenty years ago Doha was still basically a tiny village. While a modern downtown skyline is developing a cultural scene is slowing growing as well. Last December the Museum of Islamic Arts finally opened. Admittedly, the building is a bit more impressive than the actual collection, but it's a start.

Still Getting Around to it

2009-03-09T17:18:00.005+03:00

Raising him to get used to disappointment

I haven't really adjusted yet to the new semester. Besides teaching a different level (the more advanced learners) they put me on the morning shift, where classes start at 8am. I was actually looking forward to it, since it means I get done before noon and then have the whole day ahead of me. In reality, I have to get up extra early to beat traffic (I'm getting up at 5:30am now). On top of that, the weather is getting warmer. Although it's still pleasant, the sun takes a lot out of me. So by the time I get home I'm so exhausted that I end up napping until basically when I would have come home last semester. The only difference is that now I'm tired all the time, hence why I haven't updated the blog for a while.

New Office

On the bright side though, I finally got a new office in a brand new building. It's nice to be in a room with natural light, as opposed to the cave they had banished me to. More importantly, it's on the women's side of campus, so my students can visit me for office hours.

So far I like my classes. On the one hand, the students are much better at English, so I can do a lot more. But on the other hand it's a lot more work to prepare lessons. One thing they've been really pushing this semester is teaching global issues and I've been doing my part to integrate it into the curriculum. As of late I've been incredibly interested in Africa and have been reading a little bit about each country every day. So I've been sharing what I've found with my class. For example, when we had a unit on beauty I showed a video about gavage (which is the force-feeding of young girls) in Mauritania, since there a fat woman is considered more attractive than a slender one. Of course, instead of just showing them an unpleasant video, we discussed the causes and potential solutions. Several students told me they enjoyed it, since it was different from the normal class routine.

The other day when I was coming home from work traffic was backed up for miles. Lyssa was also out, coming home from lunch with a friend. She called to let me know she had just gone through one of the intersections about half a mile from our house where there had been a major accident. I guess a gas tanker had collapsed and exploded, setting one of the nearby billboards ablaze. That we've heard no one was killed, which is good. They still haven't gotten around to fixing the billboard though, so here's what's left.

6 months ago

2009-02-20T01:35:00.007+03:00

I can't believe it, we've been in Doha for 6 months! It seems like just yesterday I was stepping off the plane, with a barely there pregnant belly, foggy glasses, and the fear and excitement of being in a new place. In the days leading up to getting on the plane, I tried my hardest to not think about coming here. When I did, there was a giant pit in my stomach and I'd have to try to keep from bursting into tears. I was so worried about living abroad again. What would it be like? Would we make friends? What was the ward like? Was Dave's job as good as it all sounded? What was our apartment going to be like? The drive from the airport to our place was a blur. I had no idea where we were going and it seemed to take forever. When we got to our apartment though, Dave and I ran around like little kids into each of the rooms. We were so happy with it.

Fast forward 6 months, Dave finished his first semester teaching and I had a baby. This time abroad the farthest we've traveled is just outside of Doha to the camel races. When we were in Hungary 6 months, we had traveled to Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, and were about to take our biggest trip to Denmark. I guess we have an excuse, we did just have a baby, but I do miss the almost monthly trips we took in Europe.

So how does Qatar stack up? Well it is different, but we are definitely getting used to everything. I don't even really notice the people in abayas and thobes. The driving is still terrifying at times, but I can now anticipate the driver next to me that is going to cut me off. We have definitely made friends which is quite the contrast from our experience in Hungary. We have a little group of friends here that we do things together quite a bit. We've tried to do FHE night together since we all feel a little weird doing them with just our little families, although the most spiritual thing we've done is watch a Joseph Smith movie.

Have I mentioned how wonderful our ward is? The people are so friendly. I have made so many dear friends here. There are only a few couples around our age, but that doesn't seem to matter. We have made friends of all ages. It's been nice to have some substitute moms here, especially when I was in labor and my mom wasn't here yet. All the grandmothers love the Littlest. They all miss their grandkids so much that its nice to hold a new little baby. (Although he's not little anymore!)

Dave at work

Dave's job has been good to us. He likes the university. He has been teaching the 18-20 year old girls (men and women are seperated) and its been interesting to hear about his experiences with them.

Over all this is a great place to live. I'm so thankful that we are in a place that hasn't been hit with the economy troubles everywhere else seems to be having. I wouldn't say that I'm in love with Qatar and I don't want to live here forever, but it will do for the next 2 1/2 years.

The Air That We Breathe

2009-02-12T12:56:00.005+03:00

View from our roof before and during the dust storm

As I was pulling up to work yesterday I saw the dust storm coming. To the right were clear blue skies, but to the left was this massive brown cloud. It looked far away and I even thought it would completely miss the city. Once inside I checked my mailbox and then headed downstairs to grab some lunch. I had only been indoors for maybe five minutes when I looked out the window and saw that the building was completely surrounded by dust. I had to go to another building for a meeting, but it wasn't too bad out in the storm. It was windy, but I didn't get a lot of dust in my eyes or anything like that. My glasses didn't get too dirty. In fact, I had a good laugh at the whole situation.

Coming home a couple of hours later, the air was still dusty. Even indoors Lyssa complained about the smell of dust lingering in the air. I didn't notice it that much, but I did feel kind of dirty, even though I'd only been out in it a total of maybe ten minutes. My hair felt like it had hairspray in it, even though I haven't used any product for a while.

I ended up waking up at about three in the morning unable to breathe. A day of breathing dust led to a night of allergies. I boiled some water and breathed it in and took an antihistamine and within an hour or so I was okay again. But I had to get up early and was tired, and my stomach hurt from swallowing so much dust.

Today at work we had a meeting where all the different student service and social clubs did a presentation about what they're all about. The environmental club gave a very moving presentation, largely because of some jaw-dropping statistics. As it turns out, Qatar is the world's number one producer of carbon dioxide per capita--each person produces twice as much CO2 than the average American. In thinking about this, it's not terribly surprising. People here are pretty wasteful in general, not just with energy. But with that said, we've seen more Hummers and Range Rovers here than anywhere else in the United States and not a single electric car. Even if you wanted to import a Prius here, I'm sure there is no place you can service it. The city is a sprawl and you have to drive everywhere. Public transportation isn't really an option, since it's scarce and really only used by workers.

Also, since gas is so cheap, people idle their cars a lot to keep the air conditioner running. Since there isn't a lot of parking, lots of people (who can afford it) have their driver drop them off, and then their driver just waits in the parking lot with the engine running. This is done whether the person is running in and out, or if the person is going to be a couple of hours. On top of that, the country has been industralizing rapidly, as they try to process more oil and natural gas.

The statistic I find more surprising though, is that Qatar is also number one in another category: per capita income. That's right, per person, this is the wealthiest country on Earth. The other highest polluting countries are also all very wealthy (The United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, and of course, the United States). This seems so strange to me, since you would expect poorer countries that can't afford green technology or meet emissions standards would top the list. You would think that rich countries, which can afford to invest in alternative energy technologies and public transportation, would be the cleanest. But I suppose it's just the exact opposite. The countries with the lowest CO2 emissions per capita are all very poor countries--the DRC, Chad, and Afghanistan. Having money apparently means you can afford to pollute.

Civil War and Reconstruction

2009-02-10T12:37:00.003+03:00

James Garfield, after being shot by Charles Guiteau

The presidents we looked at this week served during a hard period of the country's history and two of them were assassinated. It was a time dominated by the Republican party, which at the time represented the North and favored civil rights. Only two of the presidents here (Buchanan and Johnson) were Democrats, who at the time were the whites-only party of the South. This was the period of the Civil war, followed by the reconstruction period, which in many ways is the lesser-known sequel to the Civil War. Like many sequels, it takes issues you thought were wrapped up in the original, and takes them in a different, often darker, direction. It's a fascinating period that most people know little about, probably because it's one of the ugliest periods of American history. A few years back PBS ran a documentary on the topic which you can watch online. I highly recommend it.

This Week's Contenders

James Buchanan - thought the Supreme Court should decide the issue of slavery in the territories (and possibly influenced various judges to decide that the government can't restrict it). Lincoln argued Buchanan was actually involved in a conspiracy by slave owners to take control of the government and nationalize slavery. Upon hearing rumors of a possible insurrection in Utah, he sent the army to the territory without ever looking into whether it was true or not. When South Carolina left the Union he did nothing to stop them.

Abraham Lincoln - looked for peaceable reconciliation between the North and South, but when South Carolina attacked Fort Sumpter, he had no choice but to declare war on the Confederates. Using war powers, he was able to exercise more authority over the states than any other previous president (that is to say, it isn't surprising that John Wilkes Booth yelled "Death to Tyrannts" after shooting the president). But even then, he took a moderate stance. The Emancipation Proclamation, for instance, was only a partial repeal of slavery (there were several Union states that still had slavery). Though the war was unpopular at first, he was able to eventually gain support of the country and was able to win the war.

Andrew Johnson - Made it his goal to reconcile the Union as quickly as possible and was more forgiving to rebel leaders than many Northerners wanted. Opposed giving freed slaves equal rights to white men and started the Black Codes which made blacks second class citizens. Vetoed legislation to give blacks more rights (including the 14th ammendment to the Constitution), but Congress overruled him.

Ulysses S Grant - oversaw reconstruction in the South which attempted to give blacks and whites equal rights. In practice, this was easier said than done as white-supremicist groups used violence to keep blacks out of power. Grant started martial law in the South in order to maintain order. Had the potential to be a great president, but his cabinet members were involved in several scandals, which Grant did nothing about.

Rutherford B Hayes - won the presidency from the decision of a congressional commission, where the Republicans comprised with the Democrats. Hayes would become president, but the North would have to end martial law and reconstruction in the South. During his presidency labor unions were striking against their employers, and the conflict turned violent. Hayes sent federal troops in to stop the conflict, marking the first time federal troops fired upon labor unions.

James A Garfield - Accomplished little during the four months before being shot and mortally wounded and even less during the two months he spent trying to recover before his death. It appears his assassination was politically motivated, as Garfield was part of a faction of Republicans that favored reforming civil service, whereas Arthur belonged to a different faction which was interested in using the spoils system (giving government jobs to people not based on merit or qualifications, but as a reward for supporting the party or particular candidate).

Chester A Arthur - In a surprising move, reformed civil service making it a completely merit based system and completely abolishing the spoils system at a Federal level. Also presided over the international conference which determined the prime meridian and created modern time zones, still used today. On the other hand, signed into law the US's first immigration law, which forbade additional immigration from the Chinese. All other nationalities were allowed to come in unrestricted.

And here are the updated rankings:

Dave
1 George Washington
2 James K Polk
3 Abraham Lincoln
4 James Monroe
5 Thomas Jefferson
6 John Adams
7 Martin Van Buren
8 Chester A Arthur
9 John Quincy Adams
10 Millard Fillmore
11 James Madison
12 Ulysses S Grant
13 John Tyler
14 Rutherford B Hayes
15 Zachary Taylor
16 Andrew Jackson
17 Andrew Johnson
18 Franklin Pierce
19 James Buchanan

Lyssa
1 George Washington
2 Abraham Lincoln
3 Thomas Jefferson
4 James K Polk
5 James Monroe
6 John Quincy Adams
7 John Tyler
8 Martin Van Buren
9 Chester A Arthur
10 Millard Fillmore
11 John Adams
12 Ulysses S Grant
13 Rutherford B Hayes
14 Zachary Taylor
15 James Madison
16 Andrew Jackson
17 Andrew Johnson
18 Franklin Pierce
19 James Buchanan

Next Week: Two non-consecutive terms by Grover Cleveland, Teddy Roosevelt, my true feelings about Woodrow Wilson, Imperialism and World War I.

Not-rated: William Henry Harrison, James A Garfield

1st trip to the doctor

2009-02-09T14:14:00.004+03:00

Since the Littlest is two months old now it was time to take him in for his first round of immunizations. I tried to make an appointment, but they said that I could just come in. So on the 28th we went to the clinic. Dave came with me since he was on vacation, but when we got there the place was separated men and women. I went inside and tried to get in line at reception. Of course people cut in front of me because they have more important things to do than wait in a line. When I finally got to the front they told me to come back on Monday. I guess that's the only day they do immunizations.

So, on Monday I got up at 7am to get the Littlest there by 8:30. I went to reception and signed in. She gave me two little laminated pieces of paper with numbers on them. She told me that one was for the hearing test and one was to see the doctor. So I assumed that meant that if I waited in the waiting area someone would call my number. I tried to ask her where to go, but she just pointed towards the waiting area. I waited there for a while and the Littlest started to get really fussy. I knew he was probably hungry, so I asked a nurse where I could feed him. She said that I could just feed him right there in the waiting area. I wasn't sure if that's what she meant and when she saw me walking away, she let me go into one of the rooms to feed him. When I was done I went back out and waited. I noticed that no one was calling out names or numbers so finally I asked one of the nurses where I was supposed to go. She told me that I needed to go down a hall and have him weighed and then brought back to one of the rooms off of the waiting room for the hearing test (and to not sit and wait, but to go stand by the door) and then back down the hall to be seen by the doctor. There is no way I would have known what to do if I hadn't asked her.

I went and had him weighed first. They took my number, but I think that was just to match it with his chart. He weighed 6.08 KG (13 lbs) with clothes on. He's getting so big! I can't believe it. He is 23 inches long. Next I went and stood by the door for the hearing test. Luckily I didn't have to wait too long. When I got in there the Littlest started to be a little fussy. I didn't know what to expect, but I was a little worried because they couldn't do the hearing test at the hospital when he was born and they didn't tell me why. Of course when they stuck the little thing in his ear he started screaming. They told me to try to feed him to calm him down. Apparently the kid thought he was starving even though I fed him about an hour before. After about 15 minutes of trying to feed him and screaming they told me that he was too upset to do it and to feed him more and get him to go to sleep and come back in 30 minutes. They also said not to get his immunizations until afterwards because that would make him even more upset. So I had a half hour and nothing to do. I waiting in the waiting area for a while, but it was so loud and the Littlest kept waking up. I did notice that in there its perfectly acceptable to breastfeed out in the open. I was really surprised at how openly they did it. I didn't see any of the women cover up with a blanket or anything. I went outside to get some air and to where it was quieter. After about a half hour I went back in and they took me back into the room. Of course as soon as they stuck that thing in his ear he started screaming. They tried again for about 10 minutes and said that it wasn't going to work and that I'd have to come back next week. Of course I couldn't get away with only going to the doctor once right?

So finally we got to go see the doctor. The doctor spent a few minutes looking over him. He tried to lift him up with his arms to see how well he could hold up his head, which he can usually do at least somewhat, but the Littlest wasn't even trying at this point. He'd had enough. The doctor asked if he was lazy. haha. Next were the shots. I'm glad that I've given shots to little babies, so it wasn't very traumatizing for me like it is for some parents. I only wished I could have helped give them, so we could of done them at the same time. He got oral polio, Pneumococcal, and a combination shot of DPT, Hep B, and H. Infuenzae. He cried a little, but calmed down once I picked him up. The doctor wrote a prescription for a fever reducer for the Littlest and he said that he looked good. I took the prescription to the pharmacy in the building and he told me that I had to go to reception to have it stamped. Sometimes I really wonder how anyone figures out how to do this stuff here. On the plus side, since I got it there it was free. The whole ordeal took about 3 hours. Next time I think I can get it done in about an hour!

So today I went back to have his hearing tested. I wasn't all that worried, but sometimes I've wondered if the boy can hear because he so calm even when its really loud around him. This time though I had him asleep and it only took about a minute to do the test. He has normal hearing, which I'm glad to hear. He is such great little baby. I love him so much!

The Littlest smiling at Mommy!

Magnets and other things the Littlest loves

2009-02-05T18:59:00.006+03:00

Bonus points for anyone who can name all the places on our fridge

Those of you have visited us know that we have a lot of fridge magnets for all the places we've been. The other day I had the Littlest in his bouncer with me as I cleaned up the kitchen. I noticed him staring at all the fridge magnets so I started taking them down and telling him about each place. Obviously he couldn't follow the explanation, but he loved looking at the magnets up closer.

Showing the Littlest where all his grandparents live

This morning when we gave him a bath I sat down and read to him a kids book and his eyes got real big and he smiled real wide. He loves looking at all the pictures, but we can tell he also loves to hear the sounds of our voices.

Storytime

Lyssa had a baby shower this week and the Littlest got a new place to play with a big mirror on it. He enjoys looking at himself in the mirror as much as pictures.

Certainly practicing his adorable looks

But it isn't all about the eyes, he loves hearing too. We have little baby-sized percussion toys which I use to keep a beat while I sing to him.

Making music

Finally, above all else, the Littlest loves the Steelers n'at.

From Van Buren to Pierce

2009-02-02T09:28:00.004+03:00

Another week has gone by and so we've read about seven new presidents and added them to our list of the best and worst. Suffice it to say, this group has quite a few duds. Consider the following:

All the presidents from this group were single-term presidents, meaning when all was said and done the public, and sometimes their parties, wanted nothing to do with them.
Two of the presidents (William Henry Harrison and Zachary Taylor) got little done before dying while still in office, causing problems with the question of succession.
The actions of many of them where directly responsible for the civil war.

Besides slavery, the main issues of the time were national expansion, the country's involvement in foreign conflict (particularly in foreign revolutions), and whether or not to have a national bank. Though this group was ultimately unable to solve the slavery issue (the best they could do was compromise) they were able to make ground in some of the other issues. Here's a quick run-down.

Martin Van Buren - refused to annex Texas in order to avoid going to war with Mexico. Got the blame for the recession Jackson had started and never really got support from his party. Was such a good secretary of state that he left himself no foreign problems to deal with.

William Henry Harrison - Died after one month in office and didn't get to accomplish anything. We're not going to rank him.

John Tyler - successfully dealt with the succession issue (which was vague at the time), though he lost support from his party when he went against their policies. Opened trade with China and improved foreign relations with other countries.

James K. Polk - Created the National Treasury which solved the National Bank issue. Was responsible for the second largest increase in land (after the Louisiana Purchase) by peacefully fixed the border of Oregon Territory with Britain and by going to war with Mexico for California and New Mexico territory. He's our hands down favorite of the group and arguably the best little-known president out there.

Zachary Taylor - Died after a year in office (those poor Whigs! Everyone they elected died on them). Supported statehood of California, New Mexico, and Utah and was against slavery in the new territories (despite being a slave-owner himself). Tolerated corruption within his own cabinet.

Millard Fillmore - Signed the Compromise of 1850 into law, which made all new territory slave-free, but increased the strictness of fugitive slave laws. The compromise was seen as a truce between the two sides and prosperity was the result. Kept out of foreign affairs, in particular the many revolutions going on in Europe, on the grounds that the United States ought to treat other countries the same way we'd like to be treated.

Franklin Pierce - Basically ruined any chance for a peaceful resolution to the slavery issue and set the country on the path to civil war by secretly trying to acquire slave-filled Cuba for the US and by signing the Kansas-Nebraska act into law, which reopened the question of slavery in the territories. Violence erupted between abolitionists and pro-slavery groups in Kansas. His only success as president was acquired the southern part of Arizona and New Mexico, including Tucson. Thanks!

Another thing that's become apparent at this point is how back and forth US politics are. No party can really hold on to the presidency for very long. In looking, the longest any party held power was the Democratic-Republicans who held seven straight terms. Otherwise, since the 22nd amendment and the introduction of term limits no party has held more than three consecutive terms (two for Reagan, one for Bush). I think this is because each political party has certain things they do well, but other things they neglect. For example, the Republican party is very good at creating an environment that supports and helps businesses (which our country definitely needs) whereas the Democratic party is far more interested in helping the little guy. Republicans are interested in supporting religious groups, whereas Democrats fight for minorities and the marginalized. The problem is, there is no party out that's interested in helping everyone. And so we're just going to go back and forth, which I suppose means if you're an Obama supporter, you should enjoy the ride while you can, if you're Republican, patiently wait your turn, and if you're neither, you'll never run out of things to complain about.

That said, here's this week's rankings. It's gotten much harder to do, largely because each president has served in a different time and context with different challenges. It's also hard since there's no consensus on what makes a president good or bad. For example, I think the ones you usually think of as "great" are war presidents, but shouldn't we give credit to those who kept us out of war? So we're kind of making this up as we go and doing the best we can. Just remember it's all very subjective.

David
1. George Washington
2. Thomas Jefferson
3. James K. Polk
4. James Monroe
5. John Adams
6. Martin Van Buren
7. John Quincy Adams
8. Millard Fillmore
9. James Madison
10. John Tyler
11. Zachary Taylor
12. Andrew Jackson
13. Franklin Pierce

Lyssa
1. George Washington
2. Thomas Jefferson
3. James K Polk
4. James Monroe
5. John Quincy Adams
6. John Tyler
7. Martin Van Buren
8. Millard Fillmore
9. Zachary Taylor
10. James Madison
11. John Adams
12. Andrew Jackson
13. Franklin Pierce

Not Ranked: William Henry Harrison (only served a month before he died and got nothing done. Wouldn't be fair...)

For next week, we'll cover Buchanan to Arthur which as I recall will cover the civil war, reconstruction of the South, and two presidential assassinations!

I'm going to give the final word to Millard Fillmore regarding the United States getting messed in other country's affairs from his first state of the union address.

The people of the United States claim this right [to manage internal affairs] for themselves, and they readily concede it to others. Hence it becomes an imperative duty not to interfere in the government or internal policy of other nations; and although we may sympathize with the unfortunate or the oppressed everywhere in their struggles for freedom, our principles forbid us from taking any part in such foreign contests. We make no wars to promote or to prevent successions to thrones, to maintain any theory of a balance of power, or to suppress the actual government which any country chooses to establish for itself. We instigate no revolutions, nor suffer any hostile military expeditions to be fitted out in the United States to invade the territory or provinces of a friendly nation. . . We should act toward other nations as we wish them to act toward us, and justice and conscience should form the rule of conduct between governments, instead of mere power, self interest, or the desire of aggrandizement.

I largely agree with the statement. I don't see it in any president's policy since World War II.

Milestones

2009-01-27T10:13:00.007+03:00

After church with mommy, about six weeks old

The Littlest has gotten so big since his birth and we hardly recognize him. Of course, we'll let you judge for yourself with all these pictures.

Very observant and in awe of everything - 6 1/2 weeks old

Eating his arm at 6 1/2 weeks

We've discovered that the Littlest loves holding hands, being sung to in Hungarian, pacifiers, the sound "ma", bouncing up and down, and cuddling onto people's shoulders.

Fun with Daddy before church at 8 weeks

But it's not all good times. He's also gotten increasingly cranky over the past month and when he gets really angry he stands up, though I think he's just stretching. He is a growing boy, after all, and it seems like we can barely keep up with feeding him. There were a couple of nights when he kept us up with his screaming cause he wanted to be fed every hour. But we're proud of him now cause the past couple of nights he's slept for at least seven hours straight.

Smiling at eight weeks

In recent weeks he's started being more aware of his surroundings. He used to just smile now and then, randomly in his sleep. Now we get him to smile on cue.

A very happy boy - 8 weeks

The Littlest's classic smirk - 8 weeks

But sometimes even he knows how corny some of mommy and daddy's tricks are. I guess we'll have to come up with some new ones.

A President Inaugurated, A Birthday Celebrated

2009-01-26T20:20:00.005+03:00

Great President, or the Greatest President?

With the recent departure of a president, whom many have labeled the worst president ever, and the inauguration of a new president, whom many hail as America's salvation and destined to become the greatest president of all time, Lyssa and I have taken up a new civics project to decide for ourselves whether such labels are justified. Starting with inauguration day we've read online about one president, their contributions and policies. This week we've gone through the first seven: Washington through Jackson. We've also each been keeping a ranking as we go, which is admittedly somewhat tricky since all of them had different issues they had to tackle and served under different circumstances. Nevertheless, here's our rankings for the first seven. Feel free to debate if you will:

David
1. George Washington
2. Thomas Jefferson
3. James Monroe
4. John Adams
5. John Quincy Adams
6. James Madison
7. Andrew Jackson

Lyssa
1. George Washington
2. Thomas Jefferson
3. James Monroe
4. John Quincy Adams
5. James Madison
6. John Adams
7. Andrew Jackson

We've noticed several interesting points in the terms of these presidents. Many of them are better known for things they did before becoming president, whereas their presidencies were somewhat mediocre. A good example of this is James Madison, who basically wrote the Constitution, but as president got the country involved in the unnecessary War of 1812 against Canada and the British. The expectations going into the war were fairly naive (i.e., that it would be quick and easy. That sounds familiar...) Three years later, after the British torched the White House (to be fair, we did burn Toronto to the ground) and both sides realized that continuing the war was completely pointless, peace was finally declared.

We also see several presidents who were truly idealists, and we can't help but feel that many of their ideas sounded great. Jefferson was always pushing for small government. He completely eliminated domestic taxes, believing that the government could get all the money they needed from customs taxes on foreign goods. He also greatly diminished the size of the military, feeling that if America needed to defend herself they could always count on regular citizens to take up arms, just like they had done in the revolution. And for a while, all of this worked. But then Napoleon was at war with England and suddenly the country had no one to trade with and subsequently no one to collect customs taxes from. When the country ultimately had to go to war against the Barbary states our military was greatly unprepared. So Jefferson ultimately had to reverse several of this positions--simply because, although they sounded nice, they were too impractical.

But let me say a quick word about our favorite so far and our least favorite. Washington ranked first for both of us. Though he's far better known for his role as Commander of the Continental Army in the American Revolution, he was also a very good and influential president. When Washington took office the Articles of Confederation had failed and there was no guarantee that the Constitution was going to work either. Washington took charge of the executive branch and helped develop a strong central government, taking special care to only exercise powers given to him in the Constitution. A really good example of this was when he used the state militias of Pennsylvania to put down the Whiskey Rebellion (which started because locals were unhappy with federal taxes of the drink). Had Washington done nothing, it would have shown that the infant federal government didn't have the power to enforce itself and certainly the whole system would have fallen apart. Regarding foreign policy, Washington declared the nation neutral from all European wars despite the general population supporting it (which was good, since the British were at war with France over the French Revolution). In addition to this, he set many of the standards and practices presidents still follow today. But what we like him for the most was his farewell address, where he declared that all political parties were evil and going to tear the country apart and that instead we should all be working for the common good, that we need to consider our national unity and how all of us depend on each other.

On the other end, we have Jackson, whom you may know from the $20 bill. I'm always shocked at how popular this guy is, considering he's the only president to have the words "ethnic cleansing" attached to his name (when he forced all the Indian tribes to settle westward, resulting in the deaths of thousands). On top of that was when he dissolved the National Bank and invested all of the country's money into local banks, which didn't have gold or silver to back up the currency, which resulting in inflation, which resulted in the government saying banks had to have gold or silver to back up every dollar, which lead to all the banks collapsing and a recession. I know a lot of people like to blame Bush for the current recession, and though he may have had a very indirect hand in it, it doesn't compare to Jackson who was directly responsible to the degree that Congress censured him for his actions. The symbol of the Democratic party (which he founded) is a donkey because his critics always pointed out what incredible jackass he was. Is it any wonder the first attempted presidential assassination was against this guy?

Stay tuned in the comming week as we go add Van Buren through Pierce to the list.

They Say it's her Birthday

Lyssa recently celebrated her birthday. We wanted to party in style, but there isn't a whole lot to do in this country, so we went bowling instead. We played one game and both scored under 100, but it was still pretty fun and what Lyssa wanted to do anyway. That night we got a whole bunch of people together and had dinner at Turkey Central, which serves delicious Arab food (Hummus, Tabouleh, Labnah and Kebabs). Then we came home and had Angel food cake with strawberries and whipped cream and ice cream. Here are some photos:

Lauren cutting the cake

Getting ready to eat

And for your enjoyment, the Littlest smiling.

Camel Races

2009-01-22T18:25:00.010+03:00

So I haven't been very good about blogging lately. I guess it may have to do with this baby I had, which takes up most of my time, but he's sleeping, so I'll try and hurry and get you all caught up on our lives. My parents were here for Christmas. We had a lot of fun site seeing around Doha. On December 27th we went to the camel races, which was fantastic.

Me and the Littlest with the camels

As I was walking up to the camels an Indian guy came up to me and kept saying, "Hello!" and holding up his camera phone and taking a pictures of me. Awkward! So some stranger has a picture of me, probably with some dumb, confused look on my face.

It took us a while to figure out where the races started. We had parked the car and walked over to the camels. We didn't realize that you drive over to the start which is quite far away from from the parking lot. The reason behind this is that people like to drive along side the camels as they race. Its quite strange and I'm amazed we didn't see any accidents.

The camels lining up.

They have a fence in front of them so they don't run off. Who knew it was so hard control camels?

They have to hold the camel's ropes until they start or they will run away. When it starts its crazy. The camels start running, sometimes in the right directions and the guys have to try and get out of way. If they can't they curl up into a ball and hope they don't get trampled.

Oh and did I mention that they don't use jockeys? They use robots! The robot whips them and they run. We did see a guy on a camel during one of the races, but that isn't usually the case.

The camel races were really quite fun and I recommend it to anyone that comes here. It really is a sight to see.

Go Steelers!

2009-01-19T16:45:00.003+03:00

GO STEELERS!

Christmas at the Zoo

2008-12-30T17:47:00.001+03:00

On Christmas my mom asked me how this holiday season compared to previous ones. Whereas our Christmas season hasn't been as eventful as our Thanksgiving (no new children have been born) it still holds up well to our past Christmases.

The Ghost of Christmases Past

Our first Christmas together was in 2005. I had proposed to Lyssa a couple of weeks earlier and then she took me out on the town for birthday. We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas proper driving back and forth between Orem and South Jordan to be with both our families.

We spent the following Christmas in Hungary (2006). We have very fond memories of going to Christmas markets in Budapest and eating kürtőskalács on the street. Christmas day itself was very low-key. We had several little presents we had bought for each other (for instance, I got Lyssa two cans of refried beans, which were kind of a luxury there) and we also got several other gifts from Lyssa's mom and sister-in-law. The week after Christmas was quite memorable, as we took a trip to Croatia and Slovenia, visiting Zagreb, Ljubljana, and Bled.

The next year (2007) we found ourselves back in the states and we were hoping to be home for Christmas. Lyssa's work schedule and my brother's wedding, however, made it too complicated. We did get to spend the entire week before Christmas at home and exchange lots of gifts. My brother John's wedding in Portland was also quite memorable, in that we got to visit Oregon and have fun there. On our way back to Pittsburgh, however, our flight was cancelled and we had to stay the night in Kentucky, outside of Cincinnati. We were able to get a flight on Christmas Eve, and then we drove out to Eastern PA to spend Christmas day with Lyssa's brother Chris and their family.

Christmas Present(s)

Comparatively, we didn't travel very far this Christmas. There wasn't snow and public Christmas decorations were virtually non-existent. Nevertheless, we've had a very good holiday season. Starting with the Littlest's birthday and Thanksgiving, we celebrated Mikulás by filling Lyssa's shoes with her favorite candy. Then came by birthday, followed by Christmas itself.

Some friends invited us to their house for Christmas Eve for a party. All the while we watched old Christmas cartoons and holiday specials, many o which I hadn't seen since I was a child (although admittedly, "Yogi Bear's First Christmas" doesn't really do it for me anymore). We brought the Littlest dressed up in a little Santa suit. Everyone agreed it was adorable.

Since Lyssa's dad was planning on arriving the day after Christmas with several gifts, the plan was to hold off opening presents until Saturday. So again, it really didn't feel like Christmas morning. We had a big breakfast, and then got ready for the afternoon.

Still not quite old enough to appreciate the zoo

We ultimately decided to go to the local zoo, which despite being small was actually pretty decent. It did seem like several of the animals were free to mingle with each other and I did see a peacock making a run for it, but otherwise everything seemed in order.

Feeding the Elephants

Many of the exhibits are built on multiple levels so you can experience the animals from up above as well as from ground level. The zoo also featured a large park with rolling hills, set aside for families and picnics. Of course, as we were getting ready to go, the Flaming Lips song "Christmas at the Zoo" popped into my mind, and I found myself humming it on our way out:

"There wasn't any snow on Christmas Eve, and I knew what I should do. I thought I'd free the animals all locked up at the zoo..."

We went to have dinner at a fancy restaurant called "Dunia" inside the Villaggio mall. By fancy, of course, I mean overpriced. All of our appetizers were very good, like a very subtle pumpkin soup. The main courses, however, were fairly weak. They tasted fine, I suppose, but there was nothing about them to justify their high price.

Figuring out that knocking it out for six is harder than it looks

Coming home, we decided (thought mostly I decided) that it didn't seem right to leave presents unopened under the tree. Even though Lyssa's dad was coming with more presents, there was no reason why we couldn't open the ones we already had. So we sat down around the tree and handed presents around. Most of the stuff we gave each was from around here. Lyssa got me a cricket bat and some tennis balls to hit around, as well as a nice backgammon set. I got her a bathroom scale (because she's been dying to weigh the baby) as well "The Dark Knight" on DVD. Now, unlike everyone else I didn't think that movie was all that great, but Lyssa hadn't seen it yet and that I'm aware there's no place to rent videos here. Lyssa's mom also got me "2001: A Space Odyssey" on DVD, but told me I couldn't watch it until Lyssa's dad arrived, since it's one of his favorite movies.

Backgammon anyone?

A Day at the Races

The morning after Lyssa's dad arrived was basically second Christmas. Most of the gifts were for Lyssa and her mom, although I did get a good tour book on Egypt (which we're hoping to visit while we're out here). Lyssa got a DVD of the 80s movie "Krull" (I think solely because she was named after a character in it, not because the film has any cinematic value). More importantly, and surprisingly, her mom got her a very nice pair of sandals.

After having breakfast we packed up the car and drove out to the middle of the country to watch camel racing. When we arrived the stadium looked deserted except for a few camel wranglers. We looked at the camels a bit, but were disappointed that we couldn't find where they were racing. It was windy and very dusty, and the Littlest was very unhappy about the whole thing. So we got back in the car and drove up a bit further and found the beginning of the race. It was nowhere near the grandstand, so people were just standing at the side of the track or watching it from their cars.

Camels

The start of the race is exciting, though a bit humorous. The absurdity of the situation is only amplified by the fact that they use robot jockeys to whip the camels along. They still dress the robots up like jockeys, though, in bright colors. Then they line the camels up in front of what is basically a large volleyball net. On the other side, the wranglers held onto ropes, keeping the animals in control. When it came time for the race to begin, the net would raise up and the camels would take off, though not all in the right direction. So they'd have men on the sides of the track with whips to help the camels get in the right direction.

We also drove over to the finish line to watch, though it wasn't nearly as exciting as the starting line. I suppose the most exciting way to watch the race though would have been to do as the Qataris, hop in your SUV and drive alongside the race, honking your horn the whole time. But we were too big of cowards to drive with the pack. We ending up going home and cleaning up, since we all felt dirty from all the dirt and sand blowing in the wind. After that we sat down and enjoyed our Christmas roast. God bless us, everyone!

Catch-up

2008-12-24T12:12:00.006+03:00

One of the many faces of the Littlest

It occurs to me that quite some time has gone by without us churning out a blog. It appears we have a bit of catching up to do.

Eid Al-Adha

Christian came at a pretty good time, since the next week I had off for Eid Al-Adha. In the Muslim world there are two major Eids (which just means celebration): The first is Eid Al-Fatr which comes after Ramadan and the second is Eid Al-Adha, which commemorates when Abraham didn't have to sacrifice Ishmael (you heard me right). Leading up to the Eid is the Hajj, or the pilgrimage to Mecca which is mandatory for all able-bodied Muslims to do at least once in their lives (by the way, for it to count the Hajj has to be performed before Eid Al-Adha. You can go other times, of course, but you have to do the big one at least once). So I got a couple of days off of work for that as well, despite the fact that the Saudi government would never let me anywhere near Mecca.

Dave and the Littlest taking a nap

So with a whole week off what did we do? Absolutely nothing. Since the Littlest was still only a few weeks old we didn't want to deal with the hassle of going anywhere. So we enjoyed sleeping in and napping just as much as the Littlest did. When I was awake, I studied a bit of Romanian and actually got pretty good at it (if only I studied something I could actually use here though). We even gave the Littlest his first bath!

A photo the Littlest will surely resent someday

The other item of note is that we have several Arab stations that broadcast the Hajj live. It was pretty amazing to watch. They figure 3 million people were in attendance. All in the same place. That's the population of several smaller countries in Europe. It was a very impressive display of faith. I've never seen anything like it.

Lyssa's Mom Arrives

The Littlest and Mommy

Lyssa was excited because her mom was supposed to arrive on that Tuesday in Eid, but it didn't work out that way. Her flight was delayed and she ended up missing her connecting flight in Frankfurt. Lyssa was devastated at first. The airline got her a hotel for the night and so our devastation turned to jealousy (the thought of spending a free night in Germany was appealing). She arrived late that Wednesday night instead.

The first few days she was here we didn't get out much. We went out to the mall a few times, though mostly just for groceries. That Saturday we went to Souq Waqif, the old market, and her mom really liked it.

Birthday

That next week I had to go back to work, but only for four days since that Thursday was a national holiday. It worked out great since that Wednesday was my birthday. So although I had to work it was still better than when I was in college and inevitably always had a final exam scheduled. We went out with a few friends to The Garden for some tasty Indian food. After that we came home for desert. Lyssa's mom attempted to make Viennese Sacher Torte (since the shipping would have been too much). It actually turned out pretty good.

Arabic Scrabble

I was pretty exhausted at this point, but held off going to bed in order to open presents. My sister-in-law had gotten a $25 gift card to Chili's (which we think will work at the Chili's here in Doha, if not there's always next summer when we're back in the states). Lyssa's mom got me a copy of the cult classic "Harold and Maude" (which I made everyone watch the next day) and Lyssa bought me a copy of Scrabble in Arabic. It looks pretty cool, but the fact remains that my Arabic is pretty lacking. I guess I'll have to work harder on it.

The next day, National Day, was pretty laid back. There was a lot of stuff going on in town, but we figured it would be crowded and a hassle. So we stayed at home and watched some of the festivities on TV.

Umm Salal Mohammed

First of what will surely be many trips for the Littlest

The next day was Saturday and we did a lot. First we were off to Souq Waqif to do some Christmas shopping. We grabbed lunch at a little shop there and got some tasty Chicken Biryiani. After running home to drop off our purchases, we drove up to Umm Salal Mohammed, a little town about 20 minutes north of Doha. There's an old fortress built in 1910 there with two towers, an old mosque, and a traditional house.

It was pretty neat to see, but also involved a lot of stair climbing inside the towers, so I was the only one who felt like going all the way to the top. The towers were originally built to keep an eye on fisherman in the gulf (though you could only barely see the water from the top) as well as for astronomical observation (since the Islamic calender is lunar, they would use them to get the best view of the moon).

It struck me that a little boy would really like the place, since there were lots of little passages and doors to go through. However, the Littlest was still a bit too little too enjoy it all.

The Littlest

2008-12-04T19:29:00.005+03:00

I can't believe the Littlest is here. I couldn't believe it the whole time I was in labor (which I guess, to be fair, it all happened so fast.) He's such a sweetheart. He barely cries unless he needs to eat or have his diaper changed. He is pretty good at night too. The other night I fed him and then put him in his bassinet and his eyes were wide open. He didn't cry though so I just turned off the light and went to sleep. Today I took him to see the doctor and they had to take some blood to check him for jaundice. He cried more than he has in his life all together. I tried to comfort him, but he wouldn't have any of it. Poor guy! He's fine though, no jaundice so that's good. He's gained about 150 grams (about 4 oz), so he's getting enough to eat. He's a week old today, I can't believe it!

I know what you all really want are pictures so here are a few more:

Dave and the Littlest at the hospital

Peaceful

So tired!

Those of you who would like to hear all the gory details of the labor and delivery give me your email and I'll email it to you because I'm not putting up the details on the blog.

Five Nights of Actually Going Out and Doing Stuff

2008-11-24T17:21:00.009+03:00

If you read this blog regularly, you might be under the impression that there isn't much to do in Doha. That's not entirely true. There are a lot of things to do, it's just hard to find out when and where there are. We got some hot tips this past week, and realizing that we only have a few baby-free weeks ahead of us, we went out and did a lot of stuff.

Wednesday Night Football: Qatar vs Japan

Right before the first whistle

On Wednesday night we went to see Qatar play Japan in a World Cup qualifying match. Lyssa was at first hesitant to go, but since it was being played at the stadium near our house, I was able to convince her. It wasn't quite close enough to walk to though, and so it took us a while to find some place to park, but we eventually found a spot that wasn't too far away from the stadium.

Our next goal was to find tickets, which I'd been told were always cheap and readily available. I started to get worried when all the ticket counters were closed, however, I noticed several people walking in without showing a ticket. As Lyssa and I stood there trying to figure out if you really did not a ticket or not (since some people did have tickets) one of the guys running the gate asked if we were looking for the family section (in reference to Lyssa's large belly). We said sure and asked if we needed a ticket. He said no, just go. As such, it was even cheaper than I thought.

Here I am, looking up at the scoreboard

Now this next part will probably mean nothing to most of you, but the stadium is an exact replica of Old Trafford. We'd never get such good seats there (for this price especially), as we ended up maybe ten rows away from the field, nearly right behind one of the goals. Since we didn't have to pay to get in, I ended up buying a Qatari team scarf for about $7. The stadium was already packed and everyone was making a lot of noise. The game got started and we had high expectations. Within the first ten minutes, Qatar had a good looking shot on goal, but within the next few minutes Japan scored the first goal. Since it was on the other side of the stadium though, we didn't get a very good view. As the half continued it was very obvious that Japan was superior team, as they were simply faster and smarter than Qatar. Nevertheless the score was still 1-0 at the half.

Lyssa looking unimpressed during the final moments of the match

The second half didn't prove much better for Qatar. After Japan scored their second goal a lot of people started to leave. Everyone knew Qatar didn't stand a chance of winning at this point, but we still wanted to see a goal. No luck. Japan scored a third goal by the end and the final score was 3-0. Still, we had a lot of fun and were happy to get out of the house. On top of that, I got a cool scarf.

Qatar Scarf, with Lyssa's pregnant belly on the left

Thursday Night: Horse Racing

Horses promenading before the race

We had heard that every Thursday night there are free horse races in town. We were of course skeptical. Since gambling is forbidden under Islam, why would they hold events where gambling is usually encouraged? We nevertheless decided to investigate.

As a matter of fact there was a horse race going on and admission was free. We ran into another teacher there from work who happened to know a lot about horses, which was good since Lyssa and I are equestrian-challenged. As we suspected there was absolutely no gambling, but they did have ways you could "bet" on the races. Everyone who came in was entitled to one free race program. Inside the program were little slips you could fill out to say who you thought would win the race. Before the race began, you had to put the slip into a box. Once the race was over they would draw slips from the box and whoever had a winning slip would win something or other. It was never explained to us. It didn't really matter either way, since we didn't pick any winners (though several who came in second). Since you didn't have to pay anything to join the raffle, it technically wasn't gambling, but participating did make you a little bit more invested in each race.

It's still good to be in the winner's circle

Friday Night: Return to Al Bidda Park

We had to go in late for tithing settlement on Friday night, so we decided to visit nearby Al Bidda park again afterward. Friday night is apparently the time to go because it was super crowded. We eventually found a place to park while I complained about how Doha needs better public transportation. My students told me that the cultural village which was closed the last time we went was open on Thursday and Friday nights. Well, it still wasn't open, so we were a little disappointed. We did see kids playing in garbage again. Fun.

As we walked around it really hit us how much you have to like children to enjoy going places in this town, because they are numerous and basically run around in packs. Maybe that's why you don't see many Germans around here.

Saturday Night: Sleeping, I think

What do you expect? We were bound to get worn out. Actually, I had to get up early and invigilate a three-hour midterm exam for my students. Then I came home and slept. We were going to go out and do something, but then I got a phone call to go home teaching so that's were my evening went.

Sunday Night: More Football with Al-Sadd

We went back to the same stadium as Wednesday night to watch Al-Sadd, one of the local teams take on Umm Salal in the Qatari League. The atmosphere was completely different from Wednesday night. There was basically no one there except each team's fan club (where the average age couldn't have been any higher than 15) which sang songs and chants throughout the entire game (which was actually kind of cool. They had a good rhythm section). This time we sat four rows back from the midfield line. I commented how if this was a Steelers game we'd have to pay over a thousand dollars for seats as good as those. We only payed about three dollars each for them.

The game, again, did not go our way. Umm Salal struck first and it looked like Al-Sadd equalized, but I guess the player was ruled offside cause they didn't count it. Al-Sadd had a couple of other brilliant shots, but couldn't find the net.

During halftime we went out hoping to find a women's restroom, but with no luck. Now, Lyssa wasn't the only woman there (we saw maybe two others), so you'd think they'd build the place to accomadate a few women. As we were looking around this guy asked me if I liked Al-Sadd and I said sure. I guess he worked at the souvenir shop because he handed me an Al-Sadd bumper sticker which says أحب السد (I'm proud that I knew it means "I love Al-Sadd" in Arabic) and an Al-Sadd flag, which he lett us know was for Lyssa. He didn't ask for payment, so we thanked him and went back to the match.

The second half wasn't any better for Al-Sadd. With ten minutes left one of their main players was ejected with a red card and then Umm Salal scored a second goal, at which point we knew it was all over. Still, we again had fun and were happy just to get out of the house.

We're hoping to get a few more adventures in before the baby comes. We'll keep you posted.