Kivi Juice, or Day 77 in Doha

Spent the lovely day doing lovely work, hanging out with lovely people in the lovely weather. It was lovely.

The major event of the night was dinner plans! The whole "plan ahead" thing never works out (people always manage to find excuses, right, Utsav and Carla?), but I managed to wrangle Salman and Tina out of their respective caves to come have dinner with Abdalla and me. The rest of those kids just chickened out.. they were ready for the fun we were going to have.

I've heard raves about Turkey Central, but Tina and I had never been, so restaurant choice was easy. They have a "mixed grill" plate with all different meats on it (very different from India and the lack of meats) that we all tried, in addition to some of the best hummus I've ever had and fries with Omani ketchup.

I also got a glass of kivi (kiwi) juice... The accent is funny to think about since the servers were speaking Arabic with Salman and Abdalla, who were both pointing out how Turkish they were. Tina and I couldn't tell Turkish Arabic from Egyptian or Khadeejeh (Gulf) if you had us at gun point.

Well, the raves were accurate; it was delicious. We saw a lot of tourist/ex-pat groups there, so I'm thinking it is one of those "clean but with a bit of culture" restaurant that are safe for "us white people." I wouldn't say it's the best or craziest restaurant I've been to around here, but now I know why people are obsessed with it.

Besides that, I pretty much stuck around EC, doing work and chatting with people.

One of my fears coming here this semester was that I was going to get disconnected from Pittsburgh, disconnected from my college friends, disconnected from my "old world." I definitely go through phases where I'm in a box, and I don't know what is going on with anyone back in Pittsburgh.

But then I emerge from those holes, and Skype with Alex for three hours and IM with Rosie for another hour and some, and I'm right back to being so glad about having friends and family that care about me wherever I am, whatever timezone it is. These support pillars mean that I can dare to grow and have adventures around here without worrying about the fall.

Speaking of adventures, just booked tickets to Abu Dhabi this weekend. A bit spur-of-the-moment, but such is life!