Goodbye Doha.

When I flew into Qatar, I didn't get to see the city lights. Flying out of Doha, they flew over the city. I was looking at the city all week from the ground. I saw all the lights and architecture from the street and it was interesting to see it from a different perspective, especially the Pearl. 

Last Sunset.

My last sunset in Qatar was a beautiful one. 

I was sad to leave, not only to leave my dad and not see him again for 6 more months but also because I had so much fun. I couldn't ask for a better first international trip. For our last night (because my flight didn't leave until midnight) we went back to the old Souq. We had dinner at Tajine one more time and sad to say the service wasn't as good as the first time we went there. But it was okay, I just wanted to spend more time with my dad and I didn't care where we ate. 

It was an amazing trip, I ate great food and met some amazing people. I got to see the desert and walk on beautiful beaches. I'm happy I went, and glad that I got to get out of Savannah for a week. I feel like I was there forever but at the same time it was too short. And today, I feel as though I was there forever ago, not 4 days ago. Sitting in Heathrow Airport I heard the call for Bahrain/Doha and I was tempted to hop on that fly and go back. Hopefully another visit is in my future because Doha is definitely a place I cannot forget.

Wildlife at the Races.

Dad took this picture of a bird in one of the trees:

All around Doha and Qatar there are stray cats. All there to keep the rat population down, all the cats look pretty healthy... especially this one. And nooo, I did not take in any cats while I was in Qatar. I restrained myself.

Camel Races!

Okay, we accomplished something huge! We found the camel races! However, they were not racing. The groups of camels were just being walked around the track. But it was still amazing, I've never seen so many camels in my entire life. There had to be hundreds of camels here.

It was kind of easy to find the track though. We knew the road that lead to the track but really all we needed to do was to follow the Land Cruisers. Apparently when they do these races, the locals drive along side the camels. We drove around what we thought was the track. The place was huge, it maybe took us 15 minutes to drive around the entire track and make a full circle.

Even though I didn't see any camel races with robot jockeys, it was cool to see all the camels...

especially the baby camels!!!!

On our way to the races...

My last day was also an adventure to find the camel races. On our way there we encountered a lot of dust:

We also drove past date palm groves. Dates are big in the Middle East.

Burzan Tower

Since we didn't get to go see any museums, we decided to take a trip on my last day to go see one of the old forts. Burzan was an interesting place. It was recently renovated but still had some of the traditional aspects of Middle Eastern architecture. 

Once again it was a strange way to get there. We had a map but it failed to show us the way to the fort. There were no street signs and roads were not quite complete of course. We came to the end of a road and I thought we would continue on another paved road but dad could see the fort, so we off-roaded, again. When in Rome...