Suq Waqif

Having been here for three weeks and not yet having visited the suq, I suggested we head out for the evening on Thursday and see what the suq had to offer for dinner (Andrew was also in the middle of having an argument with Phoebe about whether or not dinner at McDonald's was a good idea—I'll let you guess whose argument was which). 

Our hotel apartment has a kitchen, but the stove is highly inefficient and the oven is (as a friend put it) EasyBake oven-sized. Our washing machine (which we are very grateful to have, but which is running nearly constantly) also seems to have been made for elves. 

Hotel life is great but...perhaps not suited for a family of seven. 

It's hard to make a full meal with the limited space and dishes that we have and we have laundry hanging to dry everywhere all the time. 

It's fairly glamorous. 

I mean, we love the view. We love that we have beds for everyone. We even enjoy having housekeeping come by three times a week (though I also like they days they don't come by). But we still feel a little bit like we're just camping out...still.

It's been a long time of feeling displaced, first living in our own house for six weeks with little to no furniture, and then living here in our temporary—wonderful but less-than-ideal—apartment. 

Anyway, all that is to say that we've gone to McDonald's three times since moving here and Phoebe thinks it's the absolute best (we used to only get McDonald's on our way home from the beach and whenever the power went out and we couldn't cook any food). She's always trying to convince Daddy it's a good day for a trip to McDonald's.

But I was like, "Why don't we go to the suq, see what kind of places they have down there..."

Andrew thought that was a great idea, so that's what we did. Even though it was hot.

The architecture of the suq is traditional, though most of it is rebuilt (having burned down in a fire in the early 2000s). And, of course, there are some...art installations to be found...like this golden thumb:

That's a little less traditional, probably, but still fun to encounter. 

It's title "Pouce," which is French for thumb.

We wandered around for a bit, stumbling (with elated relief) into the air conditioned section of the market:

Each of the vents in the walkway are spouting out air conditioned...air. Apparently it's only turned on for a few hours in the evening (and apparently is quite new—apparently they were just installed last year). It's only on one stretch of the suq, but it certainly is a good way to take a little break from the heat.

Here are the kids giving a kitty some attention:

And here's a view of the Sheikh Abdulla Bin Zaid Al Mahmoud Islamic Cultural Center (and mosque). The children had wondered whether we might be able to visit and we certainly can (since it is a cultural center aimed at helping foreigners, such as ourselves, learn more about the culture here). So that was nice to learn!

I feel like we've been doing so much other research about life in Qatar (and figuring out things like how, precisely, one goes about selling a house) that we haven't done much research about what touristy things we might want to do (nor have we had time for much tourism with the semester starting and trying to get all our residency stuff done). But...I'm hopeful things will feel more stable soon...

Andrew wanted to hear the call to prayer in the suq, so we waited until 7:30 to find a restaurant so we could be nearby the mosques during the adhan. I won't say that the call to prayer is ever disappointing to hear, but we've mostly heard it played quietly over the speakers in the mall or the library, almost like soft background music. We had high hopes that the muezzin at the suq would really belt it out...the way they did in Cairo when we lived there...but it ended up being much quieter than we expected (which was a little disappointing). 

It's rather a long and heated debate in Cairo, with attempts to standardize an adhan broadcast rather than allow individual muezzins to make the all to prayer by their own clock (and speed and volume). As of yet, it seems they haven't quite managed to roll out a complete system, so Cairo is still loud (and lovely, I imagine) at call to prayer times. 

While it's nice to not have the call to prayer be so...interruptive...to my day, I was rather hoping to hear it more than I have here so far. Perhaps if we live near a neighbourhood mosque we'll hear the call to prayer throughout the day...perhaps...

Oh! We ended up eating at Zaatar w Zeit, which was great! 

There was a large cockroach staring at us from the wall the whole time we ate and while there was a time that might have grossed me out...it honestly didn't. After living in Georgia for seven years, having a large cockroach or two (depending on the season) scamper across the dining room falls under perfectly acceptable parameters for health and safety as far as I'm concerned. 

We always had palmetto bugs sneaking into the house. 

We call them palmetto bugs in the south so they don't sound like cockroaches...but they're definitely roaches. 

You just trap 'em and toss 'em back outside—no big deal. 

So the cockroach didn't bother us a bit (though I know that it would have bothered me-from-twenty-years-ago), the food was delicious, and we had fun exploring a bit of the city (and, of course, getting the window seats on the metro).