Hockey in Dubai

We both went to Dubai a couple of weekends ago.
I was playing hockey for our club.
It was a very interesting turf... The surface was sand and there was a land cruiser that drove on the surface to flatten out the sand. Over all we had a great time and my club took home all the trophies that were on offer. I also had the privilege to get a few 'suspected' broken ribs for a poor tackle. Oh well I will be feeling them for a couple of weeks... It was nice. Had some Bacon. A nice break from Doha.

CHRISTMAS SET UP

Today we started to set up our Christmas decorations.
We are going to have a Christmas lunch for our friends over here so we needed to do a little work. This is what it looks like at the moment.

Camping in Doha

Well we went camping on Saturday night in the desert. It was quite an experience.

We all meet at school and started our journey. We drove for about 4O minutes down the coast, then we took about an hour off road. The Kia was fine... Had it in 4 wheel drive and away she went. We saw a nice film set on the way to the camping site. It was used for a TV show a few years ago but nothing anymore. It looked really nice. I put my window down and it broke and didn't want to go back up... A great start.

A bit more driving and then we made it to our camp site. The others set up their tents. Jen and I set up the bed in the back of the car. A very wise idea... We then had a lovely afternoon hanging around playing Frisbee golf and throwing an American football round. Then it got dark at like 5pm, we had a nice dinner and then the wind came suddenly, then the rain came. So we went to bed (in the back of the car). Slept well (with a nice breeze coming in the window) and woke later to find that there was one tent less. Their tent blew down 3 times in the night,it was sooo windy that they slept in their car instead. In the morning, we had a lovely breakfast and headed back home... I was even allowed to get a cache on the way home.
All in all a good trip camping.

Qatar Can do Why cant NZ???

Follow the link to see what is happening with the Qatar Metro...
Come on NZ time to join on in....
We just need some oil money...

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2009/11/qatar-.html

Sago for pudding...

This is for you grandma.
Jenny did a bit of cooking. Was mint as... I even had enough for breakfast...
It was wonderful.

Oh yeah it is also Movember so I am representing a good old tash, shows well with the light.

Mark playing hockey again.

Yeah Marks in the paper again... This time in Qatar with ‘Vodafone Doha Hockey Club’.

http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/Display_news.asp?section=Local_News&subsection=Qatar+News&month=October2009&file=Local_News2009101403714.xml

A trip to the Souqs

The souqs are like a market where you can do some of your shopping. They are mostly where you can buy the touristie stuff.

A Visit to Souq Waqif - Doha Tribeca Film Festival - Video detail

A trip to the tailors...

This sort of how the shops work over here. There is always a Philippiano or Indian working in the shops. This is a very friendly Qatari local. They are not always this nice especially when driving. This is their nation dress.

http://www.dohatribecafilm.com/doha-365/video-detail/item_200118.htm

Virtual School Week

Well this week at school we have no students...
Well we do but they are not allowed to come to school and have to do it virtually/ online. The ministry of Education (Qatar) has decided that it is too unsafe to come to school??? I don't know how that works when we have already been at school for 4 weeks??? Oh well this is totally a new experience. We have to put all the students work online.
We will see what happens next week...

Greece- Athens and Santorini

Greece
Athens and Santorini

What a break…
We had a couple of friends join us on this trip, James, Rich, Stacy and Jessica + Jen and I. We first spent a couple of days hanging out in Athens. We did the hop on hop off bus tour to see all/ well the main sights (well that we wanted to). Where we got a whole lot of photos, which you will see below. Another highlight was the wonderful breakfast that we had the the hotel... Even Bacon.. We all walked around and checked out the area where we were staying. I even did a couple of geocaches... (rude not too).

Then we flew over to Santorini (Oia). We had a lovely little house, which was carved into the side of the hill. He did a lot of relaxing there. A lot of sleeping, laying in the sun (shopping for Jen) reading books, the typical holiday things…
Then my highlight of the trip was when we went out on a Catamaran for the sunset cruise. You would have loved this dad. (A 50ft Lagoon Cat). You can see the photos… A really nice time where we got to swim at the hot springs and then snorkel around the little bays (the used to be volcano). Totally wonderful!!! One high point was that we had only our friends on the boat….
Then we flew back to Athens and then back on to Doha.

We are starting to count the weeks until we get to go home for a holiday and a wedding.
Athens

Santorini

The boys trip to Doha

The boys trip
Well currently it is Ramadan (the most religious and closed up time of the year) in Doha and we have all the boys here with us. So what better to do than go swimming in 40degree temperatures at the beach.... The water wasn't much different... Probably 30ish degrees... Was still very refreshing.
So out came the budge smugglers...

Photos of our trip to Europe

Hey Guys, long time between posts

We are all still alive. We are doing a lot of traveling at the moment and haven't had anytime to put some pictures up.We have had 3 weeks in London with a lot of friends and also catching up with Jarrod. We will do the photo's a bit latter... We are in Ireland (Dublin)at the moment,its really quite a nice place. Off a bit further inland today, finally getting to drive a car on the normal side of the road. Then flying off to Scotland.
Hope that all is well everywhere else.

Can you fry an egg in 47degrees?

This afternoon I was walking home and Stacy saw me, so picked me up. When we got to her house(just about next door) she had a little frying pan out in the sun.
She had a plan to see if the pan would be hot enough to cook the egg. She went and got an egg and broke it in the pan and....


Well it didn't quite work.. Oh well...

Anna Booths 18 speech...

Happy 18th Anna.

M & J.
Feel free to leave a comment...
There is a button under the movie saying comments:

The Emir's cup 2009

Last night we went and watched the Emir's cup. Soccer. We arrived and had to wait a little bit of time while the marching band was cranking. After that Vanessa May the violinist came out and played... The government were trying to sell the 2022 football world cup to themselves....Fire dancers... fireworks, lazer lights... they were trying hard. The actual game was close... Final score 2 1 to al gharfa... Just a cup team... They even missed a penalty from our our end. Over all a very nice evening. Oh yeah go the chiefs if the super 14...

Spring Break.

We had a nice break. A couple more weeks traveling the world. We need to be careful with this so i wont write to much. We had a nice break on which Bex Petrie came and joined us. Petra was wonderful, Jesus' baptism sites,swimming in the dead sea, Jerash, the pyramids were cool. 3 unexpected hours of camel riding. All up we loved the trip and the break away from Doha.

Qatar Super Grand Prix

Well yesterday we went to another world class sports event.
This was quite an amazing evening. We saw an athlete just about break the world record. Some every fast 100m running. The mens 3000m flat was run at an amazing pace. They were running 7 laps right on 1 minute a lap. So 2:37m a km.... I thought i was doing well... just under 4 minutes... Oh well... We stayed till the end but didn't win a car a camera or a laptop. We tried hard though... A very nice night in the heat...

Marks Back into Hockey again

Well after my visit to the hockey turf over here, I got roped into a training... Wasn't too bad, they were a little unfit, my treadmill work came to great use... Then I also played a game... I played really well and was the only dude that played the whole game with a team of 18 players... I played centre half... It was kinda weird to jump in am be a play maker not having any idea of anybody's names... It worked well and I got to play against an Indian international player and with a South African international player. Either way I had fun and will be back to play next week... Mind you it is starting to get hot again... 34oC today....

When Jens goes away Mark plays.

We Jenny went to Bahrain for a netball tournament representing Qatar.
So i went out geocaching. It was really nice, I went to the very top of Qatar and there was a lot of old abandoned houses. I even got to see some carvings.
I was having a boomer of a time and managed to get 10 caches, until I managed to get a puncture in one of my tyres. I put the spare on but that was the end of the day for geocaching. While on the way home via the hockey turf that I had never been too, I met some guys that want me to play with their team so we shell see how it goes.

Pictures of Dubai