Leisure
Apart from shopping, dining, and drinking, I haven't seen a movie, gone to a park, sailed on a dhow cruise, or tried the desert safari since I got here. And because it's winter I find it pointless to go to the beach. But these are all available here, and hopefully I get to try them all for two reasons: my job requires me to be a walking database, and I would have something to write about.
On the sports scene, there was a tennis tournament on the first week of January between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal which I never saw; the other week I met a German guest who was here for the FC Bayern Munich - Al Ahly S.C. friendly football match; today a Spanish guest from Sweden is visiting Doha for the first time for the Al-Arabi - Al Sadd game. If I were a football fan I might have recognized the player he introduced me to at the lobby, but as far as I'm concerned, he wasn't Cristiano Ronaldo.
So I haven't been out that much, but I did enjoy the 60-minute walk along the corniche on National Day, starting close to the Museum of Islamic Art, all the way to the City Center Mall. My feet were killing me, but it was nice to see more of the city.
