Music to My Ears, or Day 34 in Doha

Props to Rishav for the title. He has been suggesting titles to me every time we hang out, so I decided to throw him a bone. (I wonder what the equivalent phrase would be in Arabic?)

Tonight, after a hard day of programming and snacking, I went to hear the Qatar Philharmonic. The Qatar Foundation sponsored student tickets to the event, so, once there, we ran into CMU, Cornell, QF, and Texas A&M folk. They are a fairly new orchestra, but they have apparently improved a lot since their inception.

The set-up was a bit odd. It was a large hall with (uncomfortable) plastic chairs and a stage with the orchestra. The stage wasn't lit, so the house lights were up the entire performance. Also, it was the "whitest" gathering I've been to in a while; it was the typical symphony audience of retirement-aged Caucasians, even here in Qatar.

With the music, I was impressed. They played quite a few playful works that made the audience happy. Happy enough for a standing ovation at the end!

The program was:

J. Ibert's "Divertissement"
F. Poulenc's "Concerto in D Major for 2 pianos + Orchestra"
A. Dvorak's "Symphony No.9, op.95, E minor (From the New World)" (which is much better than the demeaning key of F# minor)

Afterward, Abdalla and I were on a mission. I, as a "CIA agent", was out to ruin his life by discovering such things as his PIN number and e-mail password. He was on a mission to review the restaurant we went to.

When typing Arabic with a Latin keyboard, they use numbers in replace of the extra letters that we don't have. For example, a "7" is a breathy "h" sound. So a lot of people have their passwords in Arabic, since it includes both letters and numbers.

As for PIN numbers, they write them down for waiters when paying for a meal, so the waiter can put it in the debit machine. I got asked for my PIN the other day, because apparently signature-only credit cards are rare.

It was getting towards the end of the meal, and we hadn't seen our waitress, Lucky, for a while. In order for Abdalla to fully rate the restaurant, we needed not only cocktails (the virgin kind, still no alcohol) and a starter in addition to our main courses, but dessert and tea as well.

Well, it was 11:15 (past their closing time) before someone approached us. She informed us that the kitchen was closed, so we'd have to take the bill and leave. Well, the survey company needed us to eat dessert too, so we ended up being those customers that the staff glare at because we stayed way past closing. We had to talk to the manager so he could get us a dessert and some tea. (Abdalla just wanted me to mention that since we were the customers, and we weren't alerted of closing time, that we were right. I just want to say that I hate inconveniencing people, especially harried waiters, so I felt bad for them.)

Despite it all, I still have a huge project and a presentation due on Tuesday, so, I'm just warning you now, these adventures need to get much shorter in length so I can do what I'm theoretically here to do: "study" abroad!