Isabelle in Doha
A French expatriate in Qatar from March 2008 to February 2009Archive for husband
Happy Blog Day 2008!
Today is the fourth year of a special celebration: blogs and bloggers of all over the world. I just read that this day, you were to write about five blogs you read in order to make your readers know about them and read them also. So it is a very nice occasion to advertise about the blogs you like.
I will begin with Notes de Voyages, my husband’s blog. Each trip he takes notes and pictures as often as he can and he posts when he returns. I like the fresh gaze he has on a new country he goes to, and the way he writes about it. It is like i have been here with him.
Deco Design Art is a blog i have been following for 2 years. Lilia has such good ideas and discoveries about decoration and design that her blog really inspired me some of our own apartment decoration. I also read her personal blog and was happy to hear that she was to have a baby girl in February when i was due in January 2008.
A young woman named Bergamote like to cook according to plenty of new and sometimes very old recipes. Her blog Sucrissime is a treasure island ! I found several recipes there and made some delicious gingerbreads.
I recently discovered Gisele Jaquenod‘s blog. I like her cute design and will certainly buy her something soon. She also designs free blog templates. So enjoy!
The last blog i would like to share is an hilarious one. If you did not pay enough attention on pictures in real estate listings, this blog will make you do and really laugh! Sara’s It’s Lovely! I’ll Take It! daily collects poorly chosen pictures in those listings and i daily check it for a good fun!
Have a nice blog day!
Summer in Doha or How to survive in this heat and steam ?
That is the main question by mid July. The temperature is now stuck at 42-44°Celsius (107-111°Fahrenheit) by day and go down to 33-34°C (92-93°F) only (!) at night.The humidity rate has grown suddenly and you feel like you are in your bathroom or in a steam bath… Everyone with children has went back home during the school holidays and will not return until early September…
So either i fly back home to spend a sweet but lonely (=without my husband) summer with my 6 months old daughter, stuck every evening on the computer screen skyping with my husband… 
– that i did for only two weeks in July – or i find ways to survive summer in Doha to be with him… 
– that i have been doing since…
I still can go to the malls where i can shop, eat and attend the Doha Summer Festival events, i can meet the rare other women i know are still here, try to go to an open museum, or stay at the apartment where i can take care of and play with Iris, watch movies and shows on tv, blog all day…, start – at last – my first watercolor in years!, find another apartment, write to friends and family and chat and skype with them, prepare our first anniversary party, organize my photographs, print some of them to put them in frames, cook for Iris and both of us with our new steamer, blender and food processor, make scrapbooks of all the stuff we brought back from our trips before the birth, there is plenty of things to do at home!
I regret that i cannot take Iris for nice outside walks, that the only air she is breathing is the conditioning one or the wet and hot one.
In fact, summer in Doha is like spending time waiting for the snow to melt or the thunderstorm to pass.
How to begin…?
To begin, I would like to introduce myself.
My name is Isabelle, i am a French citizen from a small town near Paris, 36 years old, married to François, mother to Iris, 3 months in 8 days.
I usually work in a city hall as an archivist, a municipal archives service manager. After the birth of my daughter, i chose to stop working, took a parental leave and followed my husband to Doha where he took charge of his new job.
When we decided to leave for Doha, I searched the internet for websites and blogs written by expatriates to learn about it. And now, i would like to share my experience and discoveries with other people, future expatriates or not.
I am writing in English to be understood by more than just the French speakers and eventually, to try to improve my English… so please be kind with my mistakes…
