This was one of the best parts. I showed up at Regan's school and caught her in between Arabic and music classes. I pulled her aside and she thought I was just there to give her some medicine she is supposed to take in the middle of the day. Once the hallway was quiet from all the passing students (many of whom wondered over wondering why Regan's mom was here). Then I pulled out a set of cards and had Regan read them out loud one at a time. They said:
"Regan"
"+ Mom"
"+ a birthday"
"+ a taxi
"+ a packed suitcase"
"+ an airplane"
"= an amazing, wonderful mom and daughter weekend away - just the two of us"
"NOW! Let's go!"
Regan couldn't quite believe that I really meant we were leaving RIGHT NOW. She was so incredible cute. She grabbed her backpack, we stopped at the front office to check her out and headed out the gate. We drove to our house, grabbed the suitcase and hailed a taxi outside. Regan had a huge grin on her face the whole drive to the airport saying she just couldn't believe this was happening and she was very curious as to what her friends must be thinking when she didn't show up at music class.
I did spend lots of time trying to figure out what a good weekend trip would be. I originally thought we would do the Taj Mahal in India (as Jake's only request was that we go someplace that wouldn't likely go as a family later and he doesn't have India on his list of places he'd like to go). I even booked a hotel, bought some train tickets and almost bought plane tickets. But the logistics involved in getting to the Taj Mahal are pretty daunting with a kid for just a weekend. You can't fly directly into Agra and Agra is a 4-5 drive (or a 2 hour express train ride - with not great timing). We would have needed to spend our 3 nights in three different hotels with some very late night and very early morning travel required). Given that our goal was to spend some good quality time together, Jake and I decided that might not meet our needs best. Further studying the map on what is an easy weekend trip away from Abu Dhabi had a relatively short list. Doha is the easiest at only an hour away and this city is known for some really great museums which sounded like a great mother/ daughter weekend destination. So Doha it was.
We flew to Doha Wednesday afternoon and spent the evening at our hotel - checking out the lovely Sharq Village, its beach and pool. We had a delicious dinner at their nice seafood restaurant and loved all the attention and good service we received. Thursday morning we were off to the golf course for a round of golf. In a city of ~800K people, there is only one golf course (well, only one grass course - there are two other sand courses, I think). The Doha Golf Club has a short 9-hole par 3 course that was perfect for two beginning/ moderate players like Regan and me. We both had an excellent round of golf (1 par and 3 bogeys for me!!!) and the weather was just right.
After a lunch to-go that we ate in our room, later than afternoon we took a long walk from our hotel along the Corniche (along the water) to the Museum of Islamic Art. The building is gorgeous (designed by I.M. Pei) and the interior exhibition space was even more gorgeous. The building jets out into the water and it has beautiful views across the bay to the growing skyline of Doha. It was dark at that point so difficult to get a good photo of the nice views.
We had planned to hit the old souk (marketplace) after the museum but we were tired and hungry at that point so we took a taxi to a restaurant near our hotel and had a so-so meal there. We walked back to our hotel (and had a couple of taxis ask us if we needed a ride as pedestrians clearly aren't something they see in that part of town everyday). It was only a ten minute walk or so but with the late hour (and a one hour time difference from Abu Dhabi), we were *really* tired (and cold). Regan was so funny - she said that we might be cold and tired but at least we weren't wet. Well, we rounded the corner and had to walk through some sprinklers as the road was busy and there was no other place to walk other than through the sprinklers or in the busy road. So we ended up being cold, tired AND wet - but we laughed the whole way back about it. We were glad to hop into our big fluffy bed for a good night's sleep!
The next morning, we were able to visit a church that some friends in Abu Dhabi had helped to start when they lived in Doha. That was a fun experience. Doha doesn't seem to quite as open/ welcoming of different religions as Abu Dhabi is. In Doha, they can meet to have religious services but can't have dedicated buildings (although I think there is one Catholic church able to have a building). So the churches there in meet in private villas (homes). Luckily there are some strange layouts in some of the Middle Eastern villas that make that possible. This villa had room in the combination living room/ dining room, majalis (room with lots of windows and where families put low cushions) that they were able to fit 180 chairs in there (Regan and I practiced her math to do a calculations while we waited for the service to start). We met some lovely families and two offered to drop us off at our next stop.
We then headed to The Pearl. It's a manmade circle of two islands with retail, marinas, residential properties. It kind of reminds me of The Palm island in Dubai (but with better retail). We had a nice lunch (we were unable to eat outside on the water though as all the tables were already booked) and walked much of the way around the island enjoying the view, some of the retail (not much is open yet) and seeing all the amazing construction going on.
Since most things close in the 1:00-4:00 window, we decided we would also take a rest and headed back to the hotel for a restful movie afternoon and watched The Parent Trap. As soon as it was over, we dashed to meet our newly recruited driver (unlike Abu Dhabi and Dubai, it is *really* hard to get a taxi in Doha - except for during our walk when we didn't need one). We went to the old souk in old town Doha and it was wonderful. Abu Dhabi no longer has an old souk but on our trip to Muscat, Oman, we thoroughly enjoyed the one they had there. The Doha one is wonderful - very vibrant and although there are some touristy parts of it, it is still obviously used by local families for a lot of shopping (big vats of nuts, spices, beautiful insulated coffee pots, lots of fabric, etc.). We loved wandering throughout the tight alleys - although Regan was very worried we were going to get lost as they winded this way and that. Our mission was to find a Qatar sticker to put on Regan's camp trunk that she will use to catalogue all the many places she has been. We also wanted to find a new pair of sunglasses as her old ones broke. Success on both measures (plus a scoop of ice cream as a reward for our weary legs!).
We dashed back to the hotel, changed clothes and were picked up by an old San Francisco friend who has ended up in Doha. He is an architect - so the Middle East is a great place to be these days if you are designing buildings. He is working on the new Doha airport which will be quite amazing. I can't wait to see if someday. I hadn't seen Jeffrey since Regan was a tiny baby - so almost 9 years ago. We had a good time catching up over Thai food. Regan was so tired by this point, she almost fell asleep at dinner but she did a great job hanging in there with a lot of grown-up chit-chat between Jeffrey, me and his friend Fred who also joined us.
Our last fun adventure was when the whole staff surprised Regan with a birthday cake on our way out as we were checking out. They were really attached to Regan after our few days there. They had a copy of her passport from when we checked in and made her a homemade card with her name on it - about 15+ members of the staff signed it. They made her a lovely personalized birthday cake and all came out singing Happy Birthday to Her. She felt very pampered by them! We couldn't have been happier with our service at the Sharq Village!
Looking back, Doha seems very similar to Abu Dhabi (but quite a bit smaller). The locals have the same dress traditions, there is a lot of construction going on, and both cities are built on the water. Two of the major differences were that taxis are really hard to get in Doha (whereas they are everywhere in Abu Dhabi). It put a little damper on our ability to get where we wanted to go in a timely manner but we had a driver we really liked on day 2 and just recruited him to be our personal driver for the duration of our trip. The blue taxis which we loved when we exited the airport (there were tons *there*!) were very difficult to find after our ride from the airport to the hotel. The second thing we noticed was that you had to make reservations at all the restaurants. Even though we eat very early and most other people eat very late, we still had a hard time eating where we wanted to. Jeffery informed us on our last night why that is the case. If someone makes a reservation at a restaurant, they block out their table for the duration of the evening. Not exactly what happens in U.S. restaurants where they are very focused on "turning" tables. So if you just mention to them how long you'll be there (not all night), they will normally let you have a table. Good lesson learned (a little too late for us!).
Overall a very fun weekend with my oldest growing up girl. Happy Birthday, dear Regan! I loved our Doha adventure together.
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| On the beach at our hotel - skyline of the West Bay (new part of Doha in the back) |
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| Cards Regan read one by one to learn of our adventure |
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| Happy, happy face on way to airport |
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| Giant game of chess |
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| Kicking back in the hotel room |
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| Grown up dinner of salmon with lemon butter sauce - yum! |
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| Getting ready for a round of golf at the Doha Golf Club (the only golf course in the whole city of approximately 800K people!) |
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| Finished with our round - we both played really well! |
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| View from clubhouse |
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| Regan all ready to go swimming... until she put her toes in the water and it was *cold.* We got into the hot tub instead. |
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| The golf cart taxi taking us to the edge of the property to start one of our long walks to the museum (note Sharq spelled in the bushes behind) |
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| On the Cornice on our walk |
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| At the museum |
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| You can just barely see the gorgeous Museum of Islamic Art in the background. It was designed by I.M. Pei |
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| The skyline was really pretty - just hard to capture at night |
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| One of the elusive blue taxis in Doha |
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| Walking around the Pearl after lunch. Lots of empty boat berths for the yachts they expect at some point. |
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| More ice cream at the souk. The guy in brown on the right was one of many security guys around monitoring the souk (I'm guessing there must have been some pickpocketers at some point) - felt very safe to us. |
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| One of the tight, narrow, winding alleys of the souk |
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| Exterior of part of the souk - in the older part of Doha |
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| Mission accomplished - Qatar sticker and sunglasses |
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| Our hotel was literally at the end of the runway so we had planes flying over a lot (they were often much closer than this one). I think the owner of our hotel will be glad when the new airport opens. |
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| A birthday surprise when we were checking out |
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| A nice set of presents from the hotel staff |
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| Regan was clearly a favorite of the staff - they all came out to sing Happy Birthday and wish her a safe journey. |
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| The cake they surprised her with - they were off by a year on the birthday but spelled her name right! |
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| The homemade card from the hotel staff... |
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| ...with lots of well wishes. |
2 comments:
this looks like the coolest birthday trip ever. Love the pics and sights-- and the new sunglasses! Happy birthday to Regan!
How great! My mom did some trips like this with me when I was about that age and a bit older (Boston, Belgium/France/Holland, Door County) and they're some of my most vivid memories from childhood... Looks like Regan had a great weekend (and lots of ice cream :)
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