Graduation, or Day 121 in Doha

I feel surrounded by love around here. I've met all sorts of people, from CMU faculty to CDAs, from Cornell freshmen to VCU exchange students. And, in these droves of people, I've gotten to know a couple dozen, and in those dozens, I've made connections that, insha'allah, will last far beyond my time here in Qatar.

Enough of the philosophizing. The day started with many, many errands, to get rid of as much of my stuff as possible and to be able to leave the country. I ran into Kaleem as I was heading home, and we shared some tuna sandwiches (in my last ditch effort to clean out my kitchen of food as well).

After lunch, I ran into Tina, who I then spent the next few hours with, making an unforgettable heart cookie. Just when it was perfectly positioned for a picture, it slid off the plate, cracking, like our hearts, into a bunch of chocolate-y, chunky pieces. With a bit of elbow grease, we turned it back into a heart-like shape. (Appearances are a bit deceiving, because it was still very delicious.)

A group of CS majors from CMU was headed out to Nando's at City Center, so I hopped into Rishav's car with Samreen and we enjoyed a bite with Tessa and Swapnil as well. Since, of course, Nando's is Tessa's favorite restaurant.

I went home to sleep off a bit of the food (and the fact that I had to wake up early to talk to my parents this morning), then headed over to the grand production of CMU-Q graduation.

The ceremony was less than 80 minutes, the speaker had a clear agenda for her talk to keep it fairly brief, the Dean and President were eloquent as always, and the bagpiper reminded me of Pittsburgh.

For over three hours, we ate and talked and celebrated the graduates. There were hugs, but no tears, and promises of future meet-ups for those coming to Pittsburgh this year. There were also the few people that I congratulated that I might never see again... but one never knows who those people are.

It was the last day of finals for most of the Texas A&M students, so after the seniors (graduates) had gone home so they could be up for the Qatar Foundation convocation in the morning, Abdalla and I went to see those students.

We caught them right as the restaurant was closing, and we weren't allowed to pull up chairs next to Ziad or Kelsey, but we stood and talked for nearly two hours. The boys were doing riddles, a few different groups ventured off to return with ice cream, and sheesha smoke was in the air. I left before the mass exit, but it looked like they weren't heading anywhere anytime soon.

Unlike me. Very soon, I'll be in Bahrain/Jordan/Egypt/Turkey/USA. Very, very soon.

Guys in Dresses, or Day 103 in Doha

Happy International Day, everyone!

I got in the spirit by wearing "traditional" Pittsburgh clothing - a fleece, a hat, a scarf, and gloves... not many people noticed, in the sea of beautiful, multicolored traditional dress. The great part is, people weren't necessarily even wearing their own country's!

KayKay in Singaporean and Urmila in Indian garb (I think).

Varun, his Desi self.

The Student Affairs staff (in random travel wear)

Tessa in something I'm assuming is from Brunei.

My beautiful Sudanese girls!

Boys from the subcontinent (and Shaza still looking gorgeous). (Note Allen's wrap! Knees!)

Arash in eastern Iranian wear (because apparently they differ... and I'm not sure if I got the east versus west thing right; it actually might be western Iran).

Samreen in her pantsuit (and I'm wearing pant I got in India)!

Mathew just wore a dress shirt (boring) but Shahriar (front left) got in the spirit with his Bangladeshi clothes.

Jimmy wore something from a Middle Eastern country... can't remember which one, but he didn't have anything from Kenya to wear.

Some of my favorite traditional costumes, though, were the ones where the guys were allowed to wear shorter skirts than I am!

Besides just wandering around and taking pictures with people (and eating food), there was the International Day show that Fatima and Maria put together. Being on "Arabic Standard time", it was scheduled to start at 5:30. At 8:00pm, the first act (Mridula doing an awesome traditional Indian dance) was just finishing up.

There were other Indian dances, a Dominican song (sung by Melissa, our study abroad coordinator), an African dance, a Bangladeshi anthem, an English poem, a presentation about Azerbaijan, an impromptu salsa/latin dance session, more dabkeh, an Iranian dance (that was also performed at Coffeehouse), and I'm sure there are other performance I'm forgetting.

What I won't forget, though, it how people reacted to those performances. For a few of the dances, instead of just sitting and watching, people from the crowd stood up and joined in! The final dance, an encore performance of the "Desi Dancers", turned into a giant jumping mob. It was a bunch of fun.

As if that wasn't enough for a day, Abdalla gave me a ride to Ezadin Towers (yet another fancy hotel!) where Kelsey was throwing Ziad a surprise party! We weren't there for the actual surprising, but we were there for the cake.

When the cake was getting lit, the manager was having a hard time lighting them... so another guy with a lighter came up and started helping him. Then another guy. There were eventually half a dozen people gathered around these 20 candles trying to get them lit!

We sang "Happy Birthday" in English and Arabic, then he blew out the candles.

Then, the photo shoot started. Ziad was wearing a striped shirt, as were another two or three guys at the party. So after the group picture, all of them jumped in together... someone yelled "Arab picture", and all of a sudden the photo shoot got "racist."

They didn't leave anyone out... there was the Africans, the East Asians, those from the subcontinent, the Khaleejes, the "white people"... Just goes to show how diverse this place is!

After the final photos, a few of us ended up at the souq, enjoying some karak and sheesha. They kept flipping channels on the TV we could see, but on every channel, Fred knew exactly what was going on. And I think Ziad (the birthday boy) had a good time.

If it looks like I'm blowing away... I am! It was super windy and actually sprinkled a bit. (The waiters broke one of the large umbrellas trying to take it down, and some of the sheesha stands - that weren't being used thankfully - got knocked over.)

Yesterday..., or Day 97 in Doha

Since most of today was spent recovering from last night (no, I didn't drink... the line was too long and the beer was too expensive), I suppose I might as well tell you about David Guetta.

It was sweet. You can stop reading now if you are going to get too jealous...

We headed out around 9pm, checked out the place, dropped one of Abdalla's friends off at the souq, then circled back around. I must say, there was plenty of parking, no problem, which is something I'm always a bit worried about at huge events like these.

And, as I heard many times, "it was like all of EC is going."

Not quite true, but many of the Texas A&M exchange students were partying and dancing along, in addition to the group of 8 or so I went with. Then there was a few more odd pairs here and there that I recognized.

After an ID check, a security check, a ticket check, and a wristband check, we were inside and headed to the stage.

It was literally right on the beach, with the stage built so there was a wonderful cross-breeze from the sea (especially nice when dancing in the middle of the pack).

The first two hours had some good house music from the DJs, getting people moving (and drinking). It was midnight, and I was getting a bit disappointed with the energy and a bit confused about where David Guetta was, when he was finally introduced.

Bam! The lights on the stage started flashing, everyone who had been hanging back pressed forward, and he took to the turntables.

There were glowsticks and people on other people's shoulders, and cigarettes and sweat, and shouting and clapping. I'm not sure if people do this in the states, but some of the crowd started their own soprano line on top of what David Guetta was doing. (A "whoop-whoop" kinda thing was one, and the other was the "wooh, oh oh, woooh, oh oh" that you often hear crowds doing at games.)

And I think he was having a blast with it. He would cut the sound so the crowd could sing during some of the more famous lines, and we never disappointed.

He started with a little less than an hour of good mixes with his less famous stuff, starting with "Castles in the Sky", then "When Love Takes Over" mixed with "Gettin' Over."

He then went into a set of pure house, which allowed for a bit of a break and a wade to cool off the feet. They weren't hurting at all, since we had ditched shoes off to the side much earlier in the evening, and we were walking around barefoot, but after a few hours of dancing, it was very nice to spent 10 minutes looking at West Bay from the north.

It was about 1:30am, so we decided that we would sit on the beach until either a) the party was over or b) another awesome song came on. No sooner had we decided that when he pulled out "Sexy Chick." We looked at each other, stood up, and pushed back into the fray.

It was a great final half hour, and of course he closed with "Memories" and, his most famous, "I've Gotta Feeling."

A run to McDonald's to try my first McArabia and have a chocolate sundae, and that ended a night that was indeed a "good, good night."

Today, like I said, I slept until noon. Then did some final-project-ing and some programming. I had some chicken in my freezer that I needed to use, and no free food event scheduled for tonight, so I made something resembling chicken enchiladas (which I don't have a picture for... the pretty ones on that plate didn't last very long, and the rest are very unattractively shoved into a container in the fridge).

I was supposed to be asleep two hours ago, so I would be awake for tomorrow's adventure... you'll see soon!

Chello!, or Day 27 in Doha

I just finished Skyping with my family, and, would you believe it, they accused me of being too happy? "Get depressed or something."

Well, I must say if my days continue being as productive and fun as today was, there is very little chance of that.

I'll skip the boring part where I graded homeworks, did my homework, got free food, and went to a group meeting.

I'll jump instead to the part where I stuffed myself at a delicious Indian buffet called Caravan. And I suppose we can also talk about the fact that I was with an awesome group of new and old friends. Remember that day with two dinners? Sabrina, Utsav, Salman, and Abdalla were all there tonight, in addition to a few of the CDAs (RAs) around here. I hang out with the resident life crew wherever I go, it seems.

My exciting food choice of the day was... balls. That is a bit easier to say than gulab jamun. They were spheres of what I thought then was dough and honey, but I know now as cream and flour in a rose-water syrup. No wonder the name means something like "rose fruit."

A trip to Doha is never complete without a stop for tea and talk at bandar. It intrigues me the kind of people that hang out there at all hours... since I'm definitely one of them. Most of the group headed over there after dinner to chat.

While the group of us was shooting the breeze, someone (I think it was Salman) suggested a ride on a dhow. Now, these boats get lit up at night with strings of lights - much different than the tourist sightseeing cruise I took earlier.

Also different was the bargaining. We were very insistent that we wanted the boat for half an hour, and we wanted it for 10 riyals a person ($2.70). So all the guys in the group gather around the dock attendant and assail him in Hindi, Arabic, English, and Urdu. He takes it all, dishes it back, and then some. (Someone told me the language that he added, but I'm not sure what it was... something about him being Bangladeshi?) And we end up with a stunning cruise for 120 riyals (which was 13QR per person... but totally worth it).

The guy who was driving the boat was also our DJ; played Akon and Kanye, Daft Punk and Rihanna. And some interesting mix of dance and Arabic music that was entertaining. We started a Doha dance party in the middle of the bay.

That's right. A dance party. On a dhow. In Doha. I was... delighted!

Coming home, we stood around outside the dorms talking about cadavers and "that's what she said" jokes until the final call of homework and classes in the morning pulled us apart. But, until another day, as Salman would say, "good story"! (EDIT: Salman says "Cool story." I'm embarrassed that I got his catchphrase wrong.)