Sports in Qatar

Andy Murray

Well we have just had the Qatar Exxon Men's Tennis here in Doha. It was amazing this year as we had Nadal (World No 1), Federer (World No 2), Andy Murry and Andy Roddick so even I had to go and watch. It has been a but chilly so you need to rug up warm.

Nadal

Gaye and Anna Voisey and I trotted off to the stadium for the amazing cost of $10 each. We even got seats one down from the "gods" and enjoyed watching Murray, then Nadal and then Federer as win their matches. This was the night before the quarter finals and I must admit I watched the rest of the tournament on TV in the warmth of the lounge!

Federer

Andy Murray ended up winning the title for the second year in a row so he will be one of the favourites in Melbourne. The next sport event is the Qatar Open Golf and Mark Brown is playing so we will get along to that just before we head off to Australia for our semester break.

Khalifa Christmas

We had a great Christmas in Doha this year. First we had our work function at the Intercontinental Hotel, it was an international affair. It started with a small Maori welcome and waiata by a couple of our consultants.This was great as we all felt close to home, progressed to singing and dancing with the karaoke and many of us finished learning Palestinian dancing from some of our translators husbands. It was great. Mind you it was a bit hard to get to work the next day but we all managed. The photo is me with one of our translating team, Bashar and his wife.

On Christmas Day itself we were allowed the day off. So we had 26 people to the Khalifa apartments for a shared Christmas dinner that started about 4pm. We all did different things and in true kiwi fashion there was a mountain of food. The tables were set out on the third floor, where we life, as we have all four apartments on that level. We used the passageway out side for the tables and the apartments for serving and mingling in. It was a great meal and there was much hilarity as we shared jokes, food and wine. I ended my night having a quiet sheisha at Lara's place with Gaye, it was mint flavoured lovely.
Even though we were far away and miss family and friends being with our Qatar whanau was great.