Christmas Day

On Christmas Day we went for lunch at our friends home in Qatar.

One half of the table - there were 14 of us for lunch.

One of the trees in the house

The other tree

One of the christmas cooks

Dude!!!

Enough potatoes to feed an army

According to Norad Santa Tracker Santa did not come to Qatar - but they were still watching for him.....

The boys

Table setting

Turkey glazed in mint, chocolate and honey, gammon, roast potatoes, and apparently a brit christmas special "pigs in blankets"

Our lovely hosts

Smile....

Festive Airport

Coming from Saudi where christmas is not celebrated it was nice to enter Bahrain Airport and be greeted by lovely christmas decorations and christmas carols.

Santa was flying thru the airport

Everytime you come to the airport there is something different in this boat and they are always dancing.

Qatar Celebrates

Just a few more of the celebrations from Thursday night

You can bet this car was moving

Spray painted cars galore

Just waiting to be catapulted off the bonnet

No fear

Even the women were out celebrating

Gridlocked for hours I am sure

Women clearly visible (of course) selling flags to the cars passing by

One way of getting past all the traffic

You see this every day

Can't fit in the car so I'll hang on outside instead.

Flaming Gyroscope

This Gyroscope has just been built on one of the street corners.

At night it is lit with flames

Flaming Gyroscope

More Madness

More madness on the streets of Qatar after the announcement that they will be the host city for the World Cup Soccer in 2022.

Now this is frightening - for some reason in the East they do not strap their kids in the car. (inside or out)

Crazy!!!!

We had to take a drive to Nicks work and it was a bit nerve racking - well for me it was (nervous passenger)

The Qatari's were out in force celebrating the FIFA 2022 win. And the driving was mad crazy.

This is just one example of what we saw.

Climbing out the sunroof

And flying the Qatari flag.

There were lots of cars with small children hanging out the sunroof and the windows of cars flying flags and honking horns.

I am sure this will go on all night - its been three hours already since the announcement and they are still in full force.

Congratulations Qatar....

This day will surely go down in the history books - well done Qatar on securing the FIFA World Cup in 2022.

This is just fabulous news for Qatar - all we can hear from our house is honking horns. We drove onto the main road and just sat there and watched the cars go past. Cars covered in Qatar stickers and flags and boys hanging out every possible opening in the car - awesome. What a day for Qatar.

Big Day Today

Today is a big day here in Qatar. They are one of the five bidding nations for FIFA 2022.

Today is the announcement of who will host FIFA 2022.

For a long while now there have been HUGE billboards (they really know how to do billboards here) on street corners, most of the locals have 2022 stickers on their cars, buildings are covered with logos, there are large footballs in the middle of roundabouts and while the FIFA officials were here there were flags flying from cars and the streets were lined with flags.

This is an advertisement that was in todays paper.

Today the streets are lined with purple flags advertising "decision day", the shopping malls are selling big flags, small flags and flags that flash with different colours, sunglasses the colours of the Qatari flag, lanyards, scarfs and hats (yes we will need them soon) the screens in the mall are playing the Qatar 2022 TV advertisement. Its really quite a good feeling.

In todays paper the headines are "Qatars Day of Destiny" and "Hysteria at Breaking Point" one of the locals has said in the paper that if Qatar wins it they will take to the streets.

'Old tyres have been replaced, cars have been primed, music systems have been checked - the parade is ready to hit the Corniche'. "Because it is a Thursday night (equiv of the West's Friday) we will be watching the announcement together. If it is in Qatar's favour, we are heading straight to the Corniche in vehicles ranging from mega SUV's to drag cars"

Although it would be a fabulous atmosphere - the last place we will be tonight is at any of the live public screenings of the announcement or the Corniche - if Qatar wins this country will go MAD tonight!!!!!!!

The Corniche will be grid-locked for hours......

Good on them and I wish Qatar all the best - it really will be a fabulous thing if they win

(even though they are up against Australia)

(yay go Australia...lol....)