Qatar National Day - 18 December 2011

Qatar has a national holiday on the 18th December, which was the date when unification was achieved in Qatar.

To say that the Qatari's are patriotic would be an understatement. They take National Day extremely seriously and go all our to celebrate. Absolutely everyone goes out in their cars and they decorate theirs cars to the nines!

People sit on the roof of the car, and lean out of the windows. We even saw two people, each stood on a car, holding a Qatar flag between them, with both cars driving down the road. I was so terrified that they were going to fall off that I couldn't get a picture.

Here are some pictures of the day:

Yes, that is a £60,000 Land Rover that someone has spray painted "Qatar" down the side of it. And yes, they are stickers that cover the ENTIRE windscreen and all the windows. (In actual fact, you can see through them, but I wasn't going to tell you that at the start!)

It was a crazy and amazing day! We've never seen anything like it, you have to see it to believe it. The Qatari's certainly know how to celebrate!

Arab Games 2011 - Doha

London may have the Olympics in 2012 but Doha hosted the Arab Games in 2011.

We were looking to go to the Dressage and the Show Jumping and we were just about to purchase tickets when the Arab Games Organising Committee bought up all of the remaining tickets so that the events would be free to anyone who wanted to spectate.

So, we headed out for the Dressage Final. The Equestrian events, took place at Al Shaqab. Al Shaqab was opened by the Emir in 1992 as an Arabian Breeding Farm. Al Shaqab was located at the battle site where the bedouins fought a battle that would eventually lead to Qatar's independence.

Al Shaqab developed into an world class equestrian centre in 2006 and on the site is a new arena:

This is just the outdoor arena. There is also an indoor arena which is at least as big, if not bigger.

The Dressage Final began, and it was quickly clear who the likely winners were. The Qatar team were so impressive, the horses perfectly in sync with the well chosen music.

In the end Qatar took first and second place, with Lebanon taking third.

It was amazing to be able to get front row seats to an Arab Games final, for free. Fingers crossed that when the Arab Games comes back to Qatar, that we get the opportunity to get to more events!

La Dolce Vita

It is pretty easy to see that we both love Italian food. In Manchester, Don Marco was our local haunt and when we left for Doha it was one of the things we knew we would miss.

What we hadn't realised was how many italian restaurants there were going to be in Doha. Apparently Italian food is in serious demand, both from the expats and the locals alike! 

From a little bit of internet research we found a hidden gem. In the Souk of all places, tucked away down an alleyway was a seriously authentic italian, La Dolce Vita. 

La Dolce Vita has a stunning courtyard, which really feels like a slice of Italy. Inside the traditional Italian feel was replicated perfectly:

The food was just as authentic. We decided to share a traditional Italian meal, so a starter, pasta and then a main course. The starter was an antipasti of seafood, served with perfectly seasoned and dressed salad. The pasta dish was king prawn linguine, which was so delicious we could have licked the plate. Then we had filet steak finely sliced with a balsamic dressing.

The real surprise was the ice cream. La Dolce Vita offers 22 flavours of ice cream, all home made. We have, so far, tried the Melon, Sour Cherry, Vanilla and Nutella flavours. All of them were sensational. It felt like we were in Milan, having bought fresh gelato.

So thankfully we seem to have found a substitute for our Manchester haunt, to tide us over until we can visit Manchester again.

A horse! A horse! My Kingdom for a horse!

Richard III in Richard III by William Shakespeare.

One of the most incredible things about living in Doha, is that the city and country is developing at an amazing rate. Everything changes on a daily basis, and building sites become offices and homes almost overnight, particularly at the moment, when the building seems to continue 24 hours a day 6 days a week.

Not only is the skyline changing, but Doha is also becoming one of the most exciting places to be in terms of the activities and events that are beginning to happen here.

One of the most exciting, for me at least, was that the Qatar National Convention Centre was hosting a production of Richard the III, by William Shakespeare. Not only was it hosting a play by William Shakespeare which I had not seen before, it was the most spectacular version in the world.

The production was produced by The Old Vic Theatre Company. THE Old Vic theatre Company. The production was touring and had a stop in Doha. If that wasn't good enough, the production was directed by Sam Mendes, of American Beauty fame, for which he won Oscar awards for Best Director and Best Picture.

Then, to top it all, Richard III was played by Kevin Spacey. Yup, THE Kevin Spacey. The Oscar winning actor who was in Seven, American Beauty, LA Confidential and Horrible Bosses.

The rest of the cast were no less magnificent. The majority had done some serious theatre time, and there were a few that were instantly recognisable. For instance, Gemma Jones played Queen Margaret. She has previously played the part of Madame Pomfrey in Harry Potter, Bridget's Mother in Bridget Jones's Diary and Connie James in Spooks (She was the double traitor Russian spy who infiltrated MI5).

If this production had taken place in the UK, the tickets would have been sold out months and months before the show. As it happens, we heard about it the week before and still managed to get seats for the only evening performance. They were up in the rafters, but it was so worth it!

First of all - here is the Qatar National Convention Centre. It is designed to look like a Sidra Tree, and the tree come literally through the glass, so that it is on either side:

Yes that is a sculpture of a monster spider. Aragog anyone?

The front of QNCC is split into three sections, the third section, on the far right, is the auditorium. The auditorium is a 3000 seat auditorium. The pictures of the inside, that's where we were sitting, on the third tier, and it was completely and utterly full by the time the production began:

We weren't allowed to take photographs during the performance, so the images below are photographs I sourced from Google Images, my photography skills are nowhere near this good!

Needless to say the performance was amazing! Richard III is a really long play, but the time seemed to fly by. All of the cast were absolutely incredible, and Kevin Spacey simply blew the stage away. We were lucky to see it, and we probably won't get to see anything like that again.