First Weekend

The first weekend was great! Thursday night after school, there was a big cook-out dinner with all the new faculty and the administration. I spent the evening sitting outside by the pool and talking with a great bunch of people. It was warm but it was really nice out.

Friday is the holy day here so I went to church with some teachers in the school and loved it! It's just like the church I attended in Moscow so I'm very comfortable already. When I got home I took the traditional 'Sunday afternoon nap' except I took it on Friday. :-) In the evening, the director, Ed Ladd, and his wife, Carol, hosted a big shin-dig at their house. Get a load of the table. It was incredibly beautiful and the food was very tasty.


Today (it's Saturday night here) I gave a lesson in creating a blog to some of the new teachers in my building and then spent the afternoon at the mall. Three of us went and discovered Macaroni Grill!!! YUM! The grilled salmon was wonderful. This mall also has TGIFridays, Pizza Hut, McDonalds, Haagen Dazs, and Coldstone Creamery. I really hoped moving here would remove so many food temptations, but it's not to be. Oh well. I'm working off everything I eat by climbing five flights of stairs several times a day to get to my apartment! Anyway, the rest of the afternoon was spent having coffee at Starbucks in the mall with a couple from the school and then doing some shopping. I bought a microwave and an ironing board that I had to tote up 5 flights, along with various small items. I need to buy a tv but I'll wait until the elevator is actually working to purchase it. I'm afraid I'd drop it and watch it roll down the stairs! :-S

As for the elevator, the company 'working' on it really was doing nothing toward getting it finished so the school and the building's owner both agreed to get another company (the only other company in Doha) to get the elevator working. This company says they can have it done this week, by the 20th to be exact. I'll believe it when I see it. And then I'll finish the big shopping I need to get done. Keep an eye on the blog and I'll post more about it this week.