merry christmas & happy new year!

it was definitely different celebrating the holidays away from my family and friends AND in the desert. on christmas eve, i worked late and then rushed to midnight mass. there is a compound on the edge of the city, almost in the desert that houses the only 3 not islamic places of worship in qatar. one of them is a catholic church and so i went with friends to see the church in the desert and for mass. there was a large wall around the compound with security on site. the places of worship are not allowed to have any signs or crosses on display.

a nativity scene set up within the compound

i wish i could have filmed inside the church. they played christmas carols that sounded like the preprogramed tracks on keyboards from the 80s and had lots and lots of flashing lights.

skating!

my funny rubber skates

on christmas morning, i had brunch with a bunch of coworkers and then went to the mall with my girlfriends. we went ice skating and to the amusement park where we went a few rides, including a roller coaster that banged our heads so bad decided to leave.

a coin operated camel ride that i sat on for fun

mike arrived in time for new years celebrations! it turned out to be a random night... we started out with dinner on the patio at applebees

where we listened to various versions of happy birthday being played through the speakers. (maybe that was a sign of things to come?) and then moved on to the orion at the ramada for some drinks and more of my coworkers joined.

the bar had put out paper horns to blow at midnight, but the crowd seemed to have never seen them before and blowed them all.night.long. the singer was back from my previous visit, but this night she was singing all love songs, especially lionel richie. the crowd loved her and blew their horns in appreciation. getting closer to midnight she said she would sing a medley of traditional songs for this time of year. apparently children's songs like "you are my sunshine" and "she'll be coming around the mountain" are traditional new years songs??? i guess she finished her medley a bit ahead of schedule because she did her 10 second count down at 5 minutes to midnight.... happy new years! :) did i miss anything exciting in toronto?