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Monday, April 9, 2012

Deuces are wild #12: Qatar.

Let me tell you a little bit about where I am. I'm in a lovely little country named Qatar. Northwest of the United Arab Emirates, Southeast of Bahrain, on the East coast of Saudi Arabia and perfectly placed right on the southern end of the Arabian Gulf.  If you are wondering the Arabian Gulf is the picturesque little pond separating us from our friends to the North, Iran.

Qatar has a population of 1.8 million.  Of which only 300,000 are native Qatari's.  And 40,000 of those Qatari's are millionaire's. 18% of the population is Pakistani, 18% is Indian, 13% is Nepalese, 7% are from Sri Lanka, 10% is Phillipino, 5% is Iranian and the other 25% of the population is a cultural melting pot of Arab and South East Asian nationalities.

Qatar is the worlds sixth largest exporter of Natural Gas.

Qatar's landscape is very reminiscent of the planets of Tattooine or Naboo from Star Wars.

There are three levels of housing.  The lowest is tents, tents are for units that are transiting through the base and are expected to be here for less than 30 days.
The second are trailers, these trailers have 30 rooms in them, they have a/c and mini fridges in each room and conveniently each trailer has wifi.  The wifi however is as slow as dial up.  The trailers are reserved for units staying at the base for as long as 179 days.  Lastly there are hardened buildings for units that are here longer than 180 days.  Those rooms share a shower and toilet with the room next door, have a full size fridge and microwave and do not have any windows.

I live in the trailers.

The bathrooms in the trailer compound are know as Cadillacs.  These Cadillacs are conveniently located about 3-5 minutes away from the trailers. This makes for a delightful midnight stroll when you have to take a leak in the middle of the night.

We have a Subway, Pizza Hut, Burger King, Arbys, Taco Bell and a few Starbucks'.

There are two movie theaters.  Two gyms.  Two DFAC's (Dinning FACility).  Two bars, one of which is called the Sky Box: Fox Sports Bar.

We are allowed only three alcoholic beverages in a 24 hour period which is doing miracles for my tolerance. 

I have made some good friends here, there names are Archer, Luther, Seinfeld, Frasier, Becker, Chuck and Dexter.  They're good guys, we stay up late together watching the TV.

I recently tried my luck with the Pizza Hut.  The goat cheese was a surprise.  The Cadillac got a bigger surprise though.  No more Pizza Hut for me.

We have about 30 cable channels here, 20 of which are AFN (Armed Forces Network) channels.  I try and spend most of my free time watching Arab Idol and Arabs Got Talent.  I have also seen Middle Eastern drag racing, which is usually some sort of Toyota, Isuzu or Suzuki suped up to 400 horse power and then launched up a 30 degree sand dune for 1/8th of a mile.  It's pretty awesome. 

I plan on watching some camel races here next weekend. Should be epic. 

The only thing that could possibly top camel racing is camel hunting, I'll be sure to take pictures.

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Deuces are Wild #11 short and sweet

March 25- March 28, 2012

Lessons Learned:

When dealing with long distance travel, always pack extra snacks.  Drink a ton of water.  Bring noise cancelling headphones.  Because if there is nothing worse than being hungry and dehydrated dealing with a seat-mate that can't shut the fuck up 5 hours into a flight.  And it doesn't miraculously get better at hour 14 either.  So come prepared.

I truly have no idea how the fertile crescent "origin of mankind" is located in the middle east.  Now I can't say I've been there, but it can't possibly be that fertile from where I am standing.  Everything is in some form or another a rock.  And they all have different classifications.
   Dust: is just dust.
   Sand:
      Extra fine sand, fine sand, coarse sand, extra coarse sand, just regular sand
   Pebbles:
      Tiny pebbles, little bit bigger pebbles, pebble sized pebbles
   Rocks:
      Pebble sized rocks (there a little bit more rough around the edges than a true pebble), tiny rocks, golf ball rocks, baseball rocks, grapefruit rocks, soccer ball sized rocks, BIG-ASS rocks.   And none of these rocks look like, taste or should be used in the same way they are named  these a purely technical terms used for classing the type and size of rock.
   Boulders: are just really big fucking rocks that think they are too good to be rocks so they get their own classification.

There are so many beautiful color here to stimulate the senses, like white, sand and brown just to name a few.

Its only March so the weather is fairly nice, about 65^F at night and up to about 85^F during the day.  The sun isn't too intense yet.  There is always a nice steady breeze though.  I can tell though that if the breeze picks up anymore sand storms could easily cripple a productive day and your sinuses.

Stay Classy, Deuces OUT.