More Austria Pictures

These are pictures taken at the Hotel Kartase where my son Kevin is at for fall semester. It was an old monastery that was remodeled in the 80's and where the Franciscan students can attend one semester during university

Austria 2009

Hi, These are a couple of pictures from our trip in Austria.

I am still trying to learn this; so I will posting more pictures.

Karen

Hi from Doha in Novmeber!!

Hi from Doha,

I have not been able to post until now. I have been taking driving lessons to hopefully pass my second attempt at the driving test. My second test is November 18th. Dave did not pass his either and the next test is supposed to be December 9th.

We have been traveling. We went to Austria to visit our youngest son, Kevin who is going to university there for the semester. We had a good time seeing Kevin; the only bad thing was I badly sprained my ankle while I was there. The first few days after injuring it were tough, but I was able to walk after a couple of days. The weather was 50 degrees colder than here in Doha.

I will post pictures as soon as we download them off the camera.

We are going to a Winter Ball sponsored by the Pegasus Club which is sponsored by the company Dave works for on Friday. Then we got tickets to go see the England -Brazil soccer match. People over here are as soccer mad as we are football or basketball; so this is like getting tickets for the Texans game back home;

More pictures

These are pictures taken near to where we live. Needless to say, there is a lot of sand and not a lot of green. The roads here are based on the British system as this was one of their colonies and the drivers can be a little crazy. It has taken me a while to get used to it, but I am getting a little more confident.

These are more pictures from the villa and landscape. Still playing on how to do the blog.

PIctures from Doha!

Hopefully, I am doing this right. These are pictures of me and some rooms and landscape from Doha!! Enjoy.

Friday in Doha!!

Friday and Saturday are the weekend here in Doha. Most of the native Qataris are not up early on this day, so it is a good day to go shopping for groceries early and the traffic is a lot less. I drove the car in Doha today. Overall I did alright. We went and did major grocery shopping for the first time and Dave and I made spaghetti for dinner tonight. We also took some pictures and will post them to the blog.

My day today in Doha

I went to a Pegasus Club meeting which is part of the Exxon-Mobil club internationally. One of the women on the Welcome Committee came to pick me up to go to the meeting at the Four Seasons-Doha. It is a gorgeous hotel. I met a lot of women including a couple of women one whose son graduated from the same high school as my youngest son Kevin and had some of the same friends. It is a very small world.

I am going to drive for the first time tomorrow in Doha. We are still waiting for our residency papers so we can buy a car and also take a driving test which apparently only US citizens have to take. Not looking forward to that, but hopefully will pass it.

Friday and Saturday are not workdays here. At 11:30, most people who are Islam start their prayers and their day. Dave and I are going to do grocery shopping tomorrow and look around for some things we still need.

I am hoping that we can go the the souqs which is the traditional markets in Doha. They sell anything from produce to persian rugs to gold. You mainly need to pay in cash because they usually do not take credit cards. Some of the souqs are smaller than a walk=in closet. Qatar takes credit cards, but a lot of shops mainly deal in cash.

I want to get a little decoration because the villa is very sterile. I have some of my pictures that I hung or painted coming from the states in my sea shipment, but it will be mid-November before they come.

Hello from Doha!!!

Hello from Doha!! We are slowly getting settled into our new life. There are a lot of things that are different from the USA but a lot of things are the same. There are restaurants that are familiar. For example, there is an Applebee's, Chili's, Macaroni Grill,Krispy Creme, Dunkin Donuts, Baskin Robbins, Cold Stone Creamery, McDonald's and Burger King. I have not ventured into a car yet; they drive somewhat nutty over here. There is a lot of construction here both road and a lot of building construction. We haven't had time to take pictures, but I will post them when we do.