Our trip to Doha, Qatar Part 1 – Food and friends!

I have been waiting to make a trip post for weeks but I was unsure how to do it, so I’ve decided to break it up into sections.  The first part – food and animal friends!

In March, Matthew and I were traveled on a  journey across the world to Doha, Qatar.  While there we would be teaching a GIF, VIDEO, ANIMATION, EVERYTHING COOL workshop to students at Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar.  The trip was amazing and so much more. We were in Doha for almost 2 weeks so got to see alot which means I have a ton of pictures to share.  Instead of making one looooooong post, I’m going to break it up into sections which will be more concentrated.  

The flight to Doha was about 13 hours and thankfully nonstop.  We flew with Qatar Airways which had a night flight which worked nice to sleep on.  On the flight there and back our row of 3 only had 2 (us!) so I was able to take up to  2 seats, eat some decent airplane food and catch up on nearly the entire season of Downton Abbey.   

Almost there…

Our flight landed at around 7PM their time so we got to the hotel around 9PM.  I’ll share more about the hotel (Al Bidda in Souq Waqif) in another post, but it was just straight out pimp. On checking in they served us watermelon juice and had us sit down.   Already I was in love.

Because we were starving we headed to the hotel’s restaurant La Piazza which specialized in Italian cuisine and had for our first meal…. pizza.   I wasn’t expecting my first meal in the Middle East to be pizza but I can’t complain because it was good.  

What was amazingly good was this olive dip and variety of breads they served with it.  I could eat that dip with a spoon which I might have done.

Breakfast was served everyday at the hotel. It was just a circle arrangement of spices and happiness.

Let’s zoom in so you can see the bowl of Nutella. 

Some of the lunches served at the event:
Chili out of tin cans!

Shawarma is where the magic is at.  Just taking one of every kind…

Sandwiches for lunch.

Pizza, Pizza, Pizza..

Qatar Airways arranged lunch one day to look like we were eating in airplanes, along with stewardesses serving.

Pretty fancy airplane lunch.

One morning we walked into the school and this is what I saw.  That’s right umbrellas full of donuts, with screens showing rain in the background.

Even though I already ate 3 croissants at the hotel for breakfast, what’s another chocolate donut before 9AM?

Dinner served on the beach of the Persian Gulf one night.

Dinner at some place I forget.

A large tray of pieces of cake afterwards..

We had to find a noodle shop.. can’t go 2 weeks without noodles!

Coke for breakfast? Why not.

I tried Ketchup Pringles.  They were pretty good.

On our off day we ventured to one of the large malls (there’s a ice rink inside!) and found good ol fashioned food from home. Hello Arby’s, it tasted amazing, like always (don’t hate on Arby’s!).

Now friends…
There were tortoises walking around.

And bunnies..

And cats that I would just snuggle with.

Here, kitty, kitty… let me love you. (Cat was totally not devoted to me as I was to it).

But this snuggle bunny loved me.

Thankfully it lived across the street from our hotel so I could get my share of cat hugs in.

Birds…

And parrots…

Oh yeah, I rode a camel y’all!

Here’s some other camels I fell in love with and visited everyday.

 

Hope you enjoyed Part 1 of our Qatar adventure!