Hobbies

I don't know why children are "bored" and why some people can find nothing to do. When I first got here, I wondered what I could do after visiting the souqs, the mall, the Corniche, and maybe the Inland Sea. You can do all those things in a week. What then?

Actually, there is a lot to do. Among the things I am doing are 1) working too much, 2) trying to stay fit with a little bit of running and swimming, and 3) still taking pictures / doing the blog.

Among the things I am thinking about doing more of are golf, sailing, or learning spanish.

There are two golf course in Qatar. There is the club in Doha where they hold a European Tour event and there is the Ras Laffan Golf Club over by the camp where a bunch of guys organized a club. The dues are about $250 per year at Ras Laffan and you can play all you want plus free range balls. As you can see from the photo there is a fine club house and the course has grass (!) greens and tees. After you hit the ball, you carry a piece of astro turf to where it lays, place your ball on it, and hit again until you land on the greens. It has nine holes.

I was out there yesterday and there were only about 10 people on the course even though it was a weekend and early in the morning. This is not because it is so exclusive, but because it was already about 105 degrees. When I want to play, I can rent clubs for about $1 so it is not necessary to buy them. This course was built before the one in Doha.

The course in Doha costs $5000 per year and really is very nice. For sailing, there is a club down on the Corniche with nice boats to rent. Maybe I'll try that. I miss learning a new language and it has become difficult to study Japanese. I considered Arabic but could not get in the proper frame of mind. So, I am going back to Spanish. That way I don't have to learn a new alphabet and I have at least some vocabulary already. Hasta la vista...