Balls, or Day 40 in Doha

It was one of those spectacular Thursday where I didn't have any classes, and was very, very glad about it.

After my huge Networks project was due last night, I was happy to take a break from coding and focus on myself for a bit... sleep in, work out, and be my social self.

The ECPB was holding an ECPB event (Education City Programming Board; Education City Pre-Break), because apparently Spring Break is coming up... in two weeks!

These events around here are so much different than the same would be in Pittsburgh. For one, they attract the same amount of people, which, comparing the campus sizes, is a bit amusing. For two, the planning parties are much more trusting, putting out frisbees and sports balls. For three... well, I suppose people mingle a lot, but at events at CMU, half the fun is showing up with people you know and leaving with an entirely different group of friends, so I suppose that is similar.

I was a gorgeous day (like most days), so I spent half an hour hitting around a volleyball with the likes of Shazia, Amal, Nijat, and other CMU folk. While mingling, I got to see a few of my Cornellian, Northwestern, A&M, and VCU friends (I know, I'm missing Georgetown...)

There were some football (soccer) matches going on, as well as a Guitar Hero event, but I decided to meet some new people and went out with Daedri and her church friends.

One friend picked Daedri, Elizabeth and myself up at EC, then we started the night by heading to Villagio with some intent of going Go-Karting. We started by going to dinner at Thai Chi (a Thai and Chinese restaurant... get it?) as a final guy friend joined us.

After a delicious dinner, we were back to trying to figure out what to do. The idea to go to a movie was prevalent in everyone's head, but none of us really wanted to spend the money for something we weren't interested in. After much, much brainstorming, we decided to first visit "Gondolia", the fun center in the mall, to see if we could find something to do.

We walked in a fairly nondescript entrance, and my senses were attacked. There was bright lights, large and loud crowds, rides and games, and a little bit of chaos everywhere. Due to all of this madness, it took a long time for us to find a ride that we all agreed upon, find out where to buy tickets, find out where it actually was, and then convince the only guy in the group that, no, bumper cars is NOT just for little kids. (He was scared that his friends would see him on the ride, but when other guys started talking to us in line, we convinced him that we needed "protection," and he came along.)

So after the bumper cars, we wandered back to where we had found the Go-Karts, to see what prices were like. They were a bit too expensive for our tastes, so we settled on bowling (which was actually the Plan B that we had come up with back at the restaurant). Now, Daedri, Elizabeth, and I were all wearing sandals, but we assumed we could get socks at the bowling alley. Which was true. The socks were just really cheap and sketchy, but they were selling them for the outrageous price of 10 riyals ($2.70)!

So we decided to take a short side trip to another store in the mall to get better/cheaper socks. We found 3 pair for 20 riyals (so not saving much) but I won't feel bad actually keeping these.

Anyway, I bowled a just-fine game, possibly beating everyone else (though the scores didn't stay up on the screen long enough at the end to verify it. We were also wearing super styling shoes, which probably helped my score too.

Abdalla met me at Villagio (the mall), and we ended up eating shwarma and going to bandar. Bet you never would've guessed that would be the end of my day! I'm already getting into these ruts.

Though I must say, today it sunk in that I've been in Qatar for 40 days... and looking at it through one lens, I feel like I've been here forever: I know the city, met a lot of people, and have done quite a bit. Looking at it another way, however, I feel like I haven't been here much time at all, in the grand scheme of things. For better or for worse (almost definitely for the better), I'm here for another three months!