Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all

Tomorrow night I fly out from Doha and come home for the winter break I cannot believe it! These past two weeks have been absolutely insane. Getting everything together before the break, report cards, keeping the kids entertained (especially this week!), planning my trip over the end of January/beginning of February, and everything in between! At the end of January I will be going to Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka- a country where the number of cows outnumber cars! Seriously it's a thing. There will be traffic from hundreds of cows standing in the roads. Apparently they are not intimidated by horns and do not move when you honk at them. Other random facts about Sri Lanka: their literacy rate is 92% which means that they have the highest literacy rate in the world. It was the first country to democratically elect a woman as the head of state. Temple of the Tooth is the most sacred Buddhist site in the world. Just a few things I have learned so far- cannot wait to go!

The hotel. Right on the beach- are you jealous? 

Today was my last day with the kids before the break- now I won't see them until January! We celebrated Qatar National Day in school today. We had a couple of assemblies where we listened to the Qatar national anthem and got to see some of the kids do some Qatari dances and listen to some Qatari music. Then we went outside to see and touch the falcon. Well half of my kids did, the other half had no interest whatsoever in getting close to the bird. "I do not want to touch Miss Kellie. It scares me." I kept telling my kids that they had to be quiet or they would scare the falcon away. It was pretty effective and most of them listened. Falcons are the national bird here in Qatar and they are very special and sacred (and expensive). You can buy them at the souq. They even have a hospital specifically for the falcons. Then we had an end of the term party for the kids. There was an insane amount of food- donuts, cake, cookies, lots of bread, appetizers- it kind of reminded me of the feasts that they have in Harry Potter in the Great Hall because I had the kids sitting at one long table together.

The dream team

There were falcons! So of course I had to be brave and hold one. Even though I was
secretly (or maybe not so secretly) terrified it was going to bite my face. 

Happy Qatar National Day! 

For Social Studies we have been covering the unit Holidays and Traditions and talking about holidays from all around the world. From Sinterklaas in Holland, the story of poinsettas in Mexico, Hannukah, Kwanza, and Christmas. I also had the kids make snowflakes and snowmen this week. They liked making the snowflakes and were so excited to see them when they finished. It is funny because I modeled for them how to do it and we folded the paper together. Once they got back into their seats and I told them they would be cutting different shapes they were like "Miss Kellie I don't know how to do it!" They stared at the scissors and the folded paper like they were foreign objects they had never seen before. For a lot of them I ended up taking a pencil and drawing shapes along the edges of the folded paper and telling them to cut them out. Their faces were priceless when they opened them up they loved seeing the finished product. And then of course from the scrap papers they kept making tiny snowflakes- until I took their scissors away.

Making the snowmen and snowflakes gave me an excuse to play some Christmas music, which made me very happy!

Over the weekend we went out to dinner and celebrated Shannon's birthday my fellow Jersey girl. We got a group shot of the group and we look like we belong on the cover of a Christmas card! I also went to the souq to do some shopping... I finally found the section that has all the animals!

Some of the Doha family- we wish you a Merry Christmas! 

Who could resist that face?

Feel the love. 

So. Many. Bunnies.

Placing the cage of cats next to the cage of birds. Brilliant idea.

Today was a great day. Now I am ready for break where I can recharge and get back in gear for January. Jersey here I come! 

I love my teacup humans! Homemade gifts are the best <3

Promise me you'll always remember: you're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.

My apologies for the lack of weekly updates. Spoiler alert: being a first year teacher in a foreign country is HARD. There is a lot of adjustments. November was a tough month for me because I was really missing home. I have been facing a lot of big firsts in my life: first time being this far (and longest time!) away from home, first job in my job/field, and first time living on my own. It is a lot of cope with and I need to remind myself that this is an amazing opportunity and to stop being so hard on myself. I am getting incredible life experiences and seeing things that not many people get to see! I just have to keep opening up because I am not alone and do not need to handle everything on my own. I said it before and I will say it again it is like High School Musical- we're all in this together! 

The day before Thanksgiving was definitely eventful in Doha. We got massive amounts of flooding. They prayed for rain and we certainly got some! I did not even realize how bad it was until I started seeing photos online. We were very fortunate in Al Wakra. Thanksgiving Eve will be remembered as the day my TA went home sick, the day I had a birthday party where the parents brought a selfie stick and took tons of pictures, and the day of flooding all throughout Doha. Some schools even closed early, but GEMS did not. Desert + massive amounts of rain = chaos. November 25 Doha got the amount of rain in a matter of hours that they typically get in a year- let's just say they definitely were not prepared for it!

This was my first Thanksgiving away from home. It was strange not sitting around the table with my family eating turkey, but fun because I got to leave Qatar for the first time! Over Thanksgiving break I visited Bahrain with some of the other teachers. Some of my coworkers play Gaelic football and went to Bahrain for a tournament. I decided to go to support them and also an opportunity to see some more of the world!

Here's a map to give you an idea of where Bahrain is. It is a tiny little island off the peninsula of Qatar. 

Happy Thanksgiving to me! Surf and turf at Bennigans... and a salad to have some green with my meal. And guzzling it down with a nice pint of Stellaaaaaaa!

Dinars are the currency in Bahrain. Very interesting that they had paper money for 1/2 a dinar. And the fact that they had coins was strange too since they don't really use coins ever in Qatar. The only time I got coins was when I went to the post office or the Q-Post to mail some postcards. 

The first day we got there we checked into our hotel Al Safir. There were some problems with check-in because they were trying to charge us more for having 3 people in the room even though we specifically booked a room for 3 people to sleep in. Fortunately Katelyn was awesome and assertive and we got them to bring in an extra cot for no extra charge. Then we went to Bennigan's for a late lunch/early dinner where I had my yummy Thanksgiving dinner. Then we explored Bahrain a bit and walked around. Cats were all over the place which made my inner crazy cat lady very happy.

Cats outside Bennigans.

Cats of Bahrain. Watch out for the barbed wire!

Our hotel

Pool at Al Safir. If only I remembered my bathing suit!

Saw this hilarious shirt when we were exploring the art gallery/cafe area. Too good not to share. 

One of the shops we explored. Found some magic lamps- make a wish! 

A cool shop on one of the main streets we were walking through. All kinds of different trinkets to buy. 

Friday I spent the majority of the day at the Bahrain Rugby Club watching some of the different matches. I got to have bacon! It was a nice day for the tournament. Much better than when these girls first started playing in September when they were playing in 100 degree weather! I only got to see some of my coworkers play. There were about 4 or 5 different locations that the games were at. We picked the Bahrain Rugby Club because it had 3 different fields and there was also a big celebration afterwards. On Saturday we decided to see some of the sights. We were going to meet up at JJs and spend the day there, but we left after we saw that it looked like this:

Just a little too crowded for me! 

We decided to get our culture on. We visited the Bahrain Fort and explored that area. Afterwards we went to the King Fahad Causeway which is a bridge that is 25 km (16 miles) long that connects the island of Bahrain to Saudi Arabia. I read somewhere that there is a restaurant you can go to at the halfway point and that the view of the sea is incredible. Our taxi driver mentioned something about it being closed but we figured let's go the view will be incredible! Yes it was closed because it was still under construction aka not even open yet. We made a brief visit to JJs and then decided to visit the Al Fateh Grand Mosque.  It was built in 1987 and is the largest place of worship in Bahrain. It was absolutely beautiful and I loved our tour guide. He was an old man who was very informative about Islam. He was a great storyteller who made it easy to explain it and answered any questions that we had.

Outside of the museum and Bahrain fort. 

View of the Bahrain National Museum.

View of the skyline from the Bahrain Fort 

Bahrain Fort

Exploring through the fort. Check out these arches!

And now imma take a selfie

The halfway point on the King Fahad Causeway. This must be what they plan the final product to look like because it did not look like this!

The bridge 

An aerial shot of the halfway point and the bridge we took.  

Rocking the abaya. Women are required to wear them before entering the mosque.

Al Fateh Grand Mosque. It is the largest place of worship in Bahrain and can hold up to 7,000 worshippers. 

One of the sides of the mosque. No you cannot enter the mosque through this entrance- we tried lol. 

Bahrain was definitely an interesting place. Kind of like a much smaller Doha. Much smaller. Especially the airport! One of my coworkers pointed out that the airport is so small that they actually put a map of it on the back of our boarding passes. It was a little chaotic at the airport because our flight home on Qatar Airways was overbooked. There was another flight through British Airways that was arriving around the same time- 5 minutes earlier. We had to wait at least an hour at check in while they switched our flight. It is not as easy to switch flights in the Middle East as it is back home. But they managed to switch us on the British Airways flight and I enjoyed watching 2 episodes of Modern Family on the way back. The flight to and from Bahrain is so short! You are in the air for about a half hour and then suddenly you hear the pilot telling you that we are beginning to make the descent. It was good to get out of Doha for a little bit. A change of scenery was nice and after staying at a hotel for a few days it even made me miss my own bed.

I have started getting into the Christmas spirit. It doesn't even feel like Christmas is only a few weeks away because it is sunny, sandy and in the 70s here. Yesterday definitely helped though because we had a little holiday party. There was so much food and for the first time in months I had ham! I made mashed potatoes and completely stuffed myself with all the foods that people brought. It was nice hearing Christmas music and seeing everyone dressed up in Christmas colors. In Doha there are some hotels and places that will have tree lighting ceremonies. I am thinking about checking one of those out. I watched Elf last night and have watched The Holiday a few times this week. I cannot wait to go home and watch some of my favorites with my family like A Christmas Story and It's a Wonderful Life. It just doesn't feel like Christmas without George Bailey!

Buddy the Elf what's your favorite color? 

You'll shoot your eye out!

No man is a failure who has friends. 

Sooo much food with the GEMS family. It was awesome! 

I went out to lunch to an Egyptian restaurant. I decided to be adventurous and I tried stuffed pigeon. Honestly it tasted just like chicken it was just harder to get to the meat. And there was a lot of rice. More rice than meat. Afterwards we explored around the Katara cultural village. It was the first time I had been there during the daytime and it seemed so different compared to at night!

2 stuffed pigeons. We ate at an Egyptian place called Khan Farouk Tarab Cafe. I went with some teachers from different schools. One of them I met when I was doing my jogs in the basement and we have been going on weekly jogs ever since. She teaches at one of the British schools. 

The water is sooo blue. Quite the difference from the Jersey shore. 

Amphitheater in Katara

Oh you know just a typical day in Doha when someone slowly drives by in their Porsche. And in a nice lime green color. Not ostentatious or anything! 

I am working on staying positive and living in the moment. Sometimes it is hard for me to find that work life balance. I get so consumed and obsessed with work that I forget to enjoy life and treat myself every now and then. I took this job as an opportunity to travel and see more of the world. It is a giant step out of my comfort zone and I just need to embrace it and take it one day at a time. I have lived in New Jersey all my life but now I am living in a country with an entirely different culture and juggling everything that comes with my first teaching job. It is a lot to handle. I have to accept the fact that I am doing the best that I can and to stop being my own worst critic. I am working on finding my niche and continue to get to know Qatar. The best thing to do is just to keep putting myself out there and keep busy. And in less than 2 weeks I will be home!! It will be my chance to recharge and clear my head. I cannot wait to see all my family and friends =)