The day started as it often does, with William and I discussing the game plan for the day. We knew we wanted to go to Zaks uniform store to get Conor and Raini their uniforms and we knew we wanted to get there early. We had heard about the infamous Salwa Road, so William studied the maps and says (as he often does), "It doesn't look too bad!" We left the house at 9:30 am.
It's a pretty straight shot, at least according to the map. But one must understand Doha maps. Doha is under construction. And I don't mean Spokane, or even Seattle construction. I mean "redesigning a city" kind of construction, "just when you learn the route and the landmarks to your destination, it changes" kind of construction, "the day a map is printed, it becomes outdated" kind of construction. And no, we don't use Google maps because we don't have a data plan and why would we need a data plan when we have a map of Doha in our car?! Well, today we found out...
At some point, we take a wrong turn. I suggest to William that we u-turn somewhere and get back on the straight path to Salwa Road....or...we'll just turn on a side road. That works too. Except it didn't. Eventually we turn so many times, we lose sense of any direction, and just start following the flow of traffic. And just when we're sure that we know where we are on the map, we spot one of the VERY few street signs that indicates that we are on the completely opposite side of town than we think. But it's ok, because at least we were still in Doha and not on our way to Saudi Arabia! Haha, not funny.
Believe it or not, we do find our way to Salwa Road, which is under massive construction, so we were stop and go. But this was a good thing, it allowed us time to find landmarks and make sure we didn't miss any more turns! Now, by this time, it was about 11:15 am, Zophia hadn't eaten for 3 hours, kids were restless, and the whole "Are we there yet? Are we there yet?" was in full swing. We were ecstatic to start passing some of the landmarks on our map, and we eventually arrived at our intended destination, about an hour and a half late. Surprisingly, it wasn't busy in the store and we finished up in about half an hour, $250 less in our pockets.
As William checked out, I headed out to the Galloper to feed Zophia before we attempted the trip back home. Except when I put the key in and turn, it's dead. Nice. Back inside. Luckily, we have a mechanic's number who just so happens to be the same mechanic who rebuilt the engine in this very Galloper:) Unfortunately, he had never heard of Zaks uniform store and despite 5 or 6 calls to explain where exactly we were stranded, it took an hour before help arrived.
At that point, we were almost hoping that he wouldn't fix the car and just take us all home. We were done. And that's exactly what happened. So into his little car we packed, William in front and Conor, Kii, Raini and me (holding Zophia) in the back. Nope, no car seat, no seatbelts even. Before we even get out of the parking lot, we almost side swipe 2 cars. Our mechanic chuckles and says, "I must drive like Qatari or we get no where!" Then William says, "Yep, close your eyes hun!" And off we go...
Let me tell you, when you combine fast cars and roundabouts with no seatbelts, you get a pretty scary (more like awesome, if you were to ask the kids) roller coaster ride! Especially when Raini bumped the door handle and just about opened the door. So being on the opposite side, holding Zophia, I still managed to reach across and pull the door tight...phew, almost there!
Now for the cool part...
While driving in one of the roundabouts, we're blocked by a black suv cop car. Our mechanic explained that they were blocking the way to allow the Emir through to his palace. So sure enough, a parade of all black vehicles drove through. And I already knew the Emir's palace was pretty close to our development thanks to Google maps. Conor thought that was pretty cool.
Finally...we were home. It was 1:30 pm and we were physically and mentally exhausted. Take out anyone?
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