Sports and culture - in the same week!

Last week was a busy one. Doha hosted some of the biggest names in men's tennis for the ExxonMobil Qatar Open, which took place from January 4 through 9. Morgan's school took a group of kids for an entire afternoon to see some of the early rounds, and since I managed to get two free tickets from Qtel, Ella and I joined Morgan to see Nadal play the much lower ranked Bolelli. There wasn't a lot of suspense in the game--Nadal easily won--but the evening temperature was pleasantly cool for Doha (low 60s) and we enjoyed the chance to see some world-class tennis. Unfortunately, a day in the sun had taken its toll on Morgan so we didn't get to stay for the Roger Federer match that followed, but at least we were able to catch most of it on TV when we got home. Here are a couple of photos.












The other big event last week was Doha's annual book fair. We showed up not knowing quite what to expect, but it was enormous--the dozens of book stalls completely filled Doha's sizable convention center. Over half of the books were in Arabic, but there were many in English, especially kids' books, and there was even a French section (see photo). The only minor glitch was that there were no credit card machines available for the merchants even though they apparently were expecting them, but QNB did its part to keep the registers ringing with an ATM truck parked right in front of the main entrance. We managed to walk away with our bag full of books and our wallets empty, so I suppose the evening was a success.












P.S. For those of you with whom I'm not already in touch on Facebook, here's one of those "only in Doha" things that I wouldn't have believed if I hadn't also seen it--a large cheetah riding shotgun in a Nissan SUV with its head out the window like a dog. I just hope it was fed well before its car ride.

http://nickandjoce.blogspot.com/2009/12/cheetah-as-my-co-pilot.html