Just Doha Things

Doha is a funny place. Many of the city’s oddities result from the rapid urbanization that has transformed Doha from a desert to a metropolis over the last few decades. During my time here, I’ve been keeping track of some of these little Doha things that have surprised me, so I thought I’d share them now.

Doha hardly has any crime. For example, there are free mobile charging stands along the Corniche (waterside promenade). People will leave their smartphones at these stands and walk away for a little while, and no phones are ever stolen.

The “birdhouse” at Katara Cultural Village, a still-developing non-residential area of the city with restaurants, a beach, cafés, an amphitheater, and a small exhibition hall.

No one drinks the tap water. According to my Lonely Planet, the tap water is safe, but according to the Lancet health study, the water quality is not up-to-snuff. This whole month, I’ve been drinking from plastic bottles or the water cooler at the house.

The more elaborate malls have ice rinks in them year-round. I had always associated ice rinks with being outside at Christmastime (unless you’re at Chelsea Piers for a fifth grade birthday party).

The beach at Katara Village, closed for the night. Note the dress code restrictions posted on the board – I couldn’t wear my swimsuit here!

I’ve seen lots of American brands and stores here: Coldstone, Starbucks, Shake Shack, Bath & Body Works, Old Navy, and more. Shake Shack was the real odd one out to me!

Thanks to globalization, Qatar celebrates “fall” even though it’s 95 degrees outside. Coffee shops have been selling pumpkin spice lattes and advertising pumpkin muffins with signs that say “fall in love with fall!” Of course, these flavors don’t really make sense without the cozy fall weather to match. Even worse, stores are advertising fall clothing complete with burgundy pullovers! It’s hilarious.

The strip of Al-Wakrah Souq, the smaller and quieter cousin of the famous Souq Waqif in town.

There are basically no sidewalks. The streets here are wide avenues, built for big fancy desert cars and lots of traffic.

I had to wait a long time to cross a major highway to get to this weird little oasis between office buildings.

There is so much diversity here! I’ve met people from Lebanon, Pakistan, Palestine, Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, Poland, Canada, the U.S., Canada, India, Kenya, and the Philippines. I’ve even met people born here in Qatar who do not identify as Qatari. I’ve met very few “real” Qataris, identified often by the traditional robes, who comprise ~13% of the population (the rest being expats and migrant workers from a diverse array of countries). Some of the people I’ve met have lived here for years without meeting any locals.

With the girls at Al-Wakrah Souq! This souq is mainly restaurants, so we had dinner there.

There is no recycling whatsoever in Doha. After receiving mail my first week, I asked my host mom where to recycling the packaging. “Hah! Give it to me, I’ll toss it in the garbage,” she said. “Welcome to the Middle East!”

The movie theaters show all the latest releases, but they censor some movies. When The Wolf of Wall Street was shown here, it was 45 minutes shorter!

I loved that Al-Wakrah Souq was by the water. I felt close to real nature for the first time in a while. Also with the boats and the sunset over the horizon, it was beautiful! (You’re not supposed to climb on them, though; this was taken right before a guard yelled at me to get off).

Mail is a bit odd in Qatar. No one has postal codes (zip codes). Individual houses don’t have mailboxes, so people are required to rent a P.O. box from the main post office branch.

There doesn’t seem to be a distinctive Qatari cuisine; rather, the cuisine is Arab/Middle Eastern and a fusion of Turkish, Lebanese, Israeli and even Indian cuisine.

Post-nightfall in Al-Wakrah Souq.

Last but certainly not least, Aspire Park. This might be the most “only in Doha” place I’ve seen so far. Aspire Park is Doha’s largest park – a completely man-made area with cultivated grass, a man-made lake with imported ducks, man-made hills, and imported trees. It’s a beautiful and fanciful effort to bring a green oasis to Doha, imitating the natural parks of many American and European cities have natural park. But the imported trees look odd, scattered randomly throughout the park and bottom-lit like art pieces, never clustering together.

One of the mist towers in Aspire Park, refreshing the park-goers with The Torch in the background.

There’s an odd coolness in the park which can only be explained by hidden air conditioning in addition to carefully stationed misting towers (see photo). The pathways in the park were built as a running track and spring up with rubber to meet your step; while unusual, it does feel much better than pavement. There are a couple rows of shiny, new exercise bikes, but they have no resistance and wide seats (I tried them!), so they’re difficult to use. Despite the effort to encourage exercise, the park has a set of free golf carts, driven by employees, to carry park-goers. There are two small buildings that lead to underground prayer spaces, one for men and one for women. The trees have hidden speakers that emit sounds of birds and crickets; the track is so perfectly ambient and realistic that I wouldn’t have noticed the lack of real birds or real crickets had my friend not pointed it out. Overall, Aspire Park is beautiful and well-done, but it grates against my ingrained definition of a “park.” It’s not an area of nature that was conserved, but rather a manmade attempt at nature; it’s not environmentally conservative (using lights and AC! Outdoors!); and it’s not as exercise-focused as it should be. People drive to Aspire Park, ride around in golf carts, eat at the restaurants there, and drive home. Amazing.

Frolfing around

The other day I played frisbee golf, or “frolf,” with Lisa in Slottskogsparken, a huge park here in Göteborg. This must be the city’s version of Central Park; at one point, I got a glimpse of seals basking on a rock in the park’s zoo. There’s also a natural history museum nearby. I’ll have to check out both at some point.

When I played frolf at Swarthmore, it was very casual. We would walk around campus at midnight tossing discs at lampposts, bushes, and other random campus landmarks. At Slottskogsparken, there is a real frisbee golf course set up with 18 “holes,” baskets designed to catch small discs (smaller than the regulation discs we used on the Ultimate team), and marked teeing grounds. We walked through a decent amount of the park doing this course, running down boulders to catch wayward discs and hitting the occasional tree. It was a blast!

I’ve also done a bit more exploring of Göteborg along the main boulevard Avenyn, which ends with Götaplatsen, the “cultural square” of the city.

There is a “Green World” project happening this summer along the Avenyn, in which various companies and student groups have designed pop-up parks to exhibit green living in the city.

One of the pop-up parks focused on the benefits of honeybees.

From inside a pop-up park, I saw a walking protest group clamoring in favor of an open border policy. They had a shouting match with a bunch of guys at a pub on the street who were clearly against such a policy. The two groups kept flipping each other off. I don’t know where I would stand on the issue as a Swede, but it was tough to see such aggression from both sides of the debate.

In the Götaplatsen you will find Konstmuseet, the main art museum of the city. I was wrong about Stadsmuseum earlier; this is the city’s Met.

The Konstmuseet (literally “Art Museum”) is straight ahead.

Naked Poseidon statue outside the Konstmuseet. At the time of his unveiling in the 1930s, scandalized Swedes demanded penile-reduction statue surgery – unfortunately, it’s quite obvious up close!

I was happily surprised to see a Calder mobile in the Konstmuseet sculpture hall. It reminded me of the one we have on Swarthmore’s campus.

Not the type of Picasso work I’m used to seeing, but beautiful nonetheless.

The annexed Hasselblad Center also had an interesting exhibit on surveillance photography.

I also visited Röhsska, Göteborg’s design museum. It was a quick, fun museum, with the main exhibit chronicling design trends from 1850 to the present. I learned that I apparently like postmodernist design (or, funky stuff from the ’90s).

Cute ceramics in honor of Swedish designer Stig Lindberg’s would-be 100th birthday.

This is the exact same kettle we have at home! I love it. You can see me taking the picture in the reflection.

I was saddened to see that the original iPhone (2007) is now considered old enough to be in a museum.

Exterior of the Röhsska museum. To the left, you can see the trunk of a pink Mini Cooper parked out front. I suppose when you work at a design museum, you have to drive a distinctive car!

Finally, I had been seeing “kanelbulles” all over Sweden and finally had to try one as a mid-adventuring snack. As it turns out, they are cinnamon rolls – though according to Wikipedia, Swedish kanelbulles have a distinct flavor due to cardamom in the dough. Also, the complete lack of icing distinguishes it from an American cinnamon roll!

I had this kanelbulle at a 7-Eleven. Next I think I should go to a real bakery to have one, served warm!