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In Beverly Hills with Jed and Granny My living situation is fairly comfortable, all things considered. I lived at the Asas apartments with two roommates for about five months, paying rent to my company, Atkins. Atkins uses Asas as transitional housing for their new employees, providing a place for them to stay until they can find their own place. I sort of overstayed my welcome, though, and Atkins kicked me out in November to make way for inbound staff, so I had to find my own place to live.
That was a good thing, as it turned out, because I found a much better and more spacious place nearby, at a fairly new apartment building called, oddly enough, the Beverly Hills Tower. The building has 26 floors and I’m on the 19th floor, so I have a pretty nice view of Doha and the Arabian Gulf. Best of all, Jed Clampett and Granny live three doors down (folks younger than 40 won’t understand that joke). Now that I had my own place, I was finally able to move in the belongings that I had shipped over here, which had been sitting in a dusty storage bin in Doha all this time.
I rent a three-bedroom apartment at Beverly Hills Tower for the staggering sum of $5,000 per month. I was considering some nicer places but they cost well over $6,000 a month, so Beverly Hills Tower is considered low-to-midrange in the expat apartment world here. I had heard that Doha was one of the most expensive cities in the world in which to live, but it didn’t hit me until I started looking for my own apartment here. Doha is even more expensive than New York, London or San Francisco, largely due to the sudden, huge influx of imported workers in recent years, coupled with the limited supply of adequate housing. Due to the high cost of housing here, just about everyone who's single in Doha has a roommate – and I do, as well.
My roommate, Arul, is a nice fellow who also works at the Central Planning Office. We've been working together these last many months on the Qatar bus project, Arul designing the routes and me doing the mapping. He’s from India originally but many years ago he moved to the Bay Area of northern California, where he’s lived with his wife and son, who is now starting college. Arul left his family in California a few months ago to move to Qatar, where he works as a traffic engineer at CPO.
I grew up in the Bay Area and, like Arul, have a background in traffic engineering, so he and I have a lot of things in common. We also have similar personalities, so we get along pretty well. Arul is totally dedicated to his family and each night he Skypes with his son, who’s a freshman at UC Santa Cruz (go Banana Slugs!) helping him with his studies, which I think is admirable.
I never thought I'd want to have a roommate again after my college days, being the solitary person that I am, but actually it's working out quite well. I much prefer having a roommate, in fact, to living here alone, something I didn't think I'd say when I was preparing to move over here. But like everything in Qatar, you adjust. My dad always said that there are two kinds of fools in the world: those who have no plan, and those who have a plan but never change it. In other words, have a plan in life but also be flexible. That's really good advice over here because things are always changing, and often on a dime.
Arul has one spacious bedroom in my apartment and I have another, a nice end unit with a great view. I use the third bedroom as a storage room, where I’ve crammed most of my belongings from the U.S., much of it still unwrapped after the 12,000-mile sea voyage from Portland and through the Panama and Suez Canals. I moved over here thinking that I would rent an unfurnished apartment, so I brought most of my furniture with me. But as I learned when I got here, almost all of the expat apartments in Qatar are furnished. "Doh!" as Homer Simpson would say (or maybe it was "Doha!")
When I’m not working, I spend most of my time ensconced in my spacious bedroom at Beverly Hills Tower. I’ve decked it out nicely; framed photos of people and places back home in America line the walls of my bedroom and bathroom. I’ve also bought a large-screen TV and a smallish refrigerator (to supplement the large fridge that’s in the kitchen), and I have my desktop computer here, of course, where I spend much of my time. So basically, I’m pretty self-contained here in my room. But I do get out once in a while. Every weekend, for instance, I walk a few miles down Doha's lovely "corniche" (a waterfront park) and mingle with people from literally all over the world, which I greatly enjoy.
That’s a brief description of why and how I moved over here. I’ve posted some photos on this page to give you an idea of what it’s like to live in the Middle East, a topic that I’ll write more about in my next update. So long until next time, my friends – or as they say here in Qatar, "ma salama."
Above left: After renting my own place, at Beverly Hills Tower, I could finally move in all of my stuff shipped over from the U.S., which had been sitting in storage in Doha. Above right: My living room at Beverly Hills Tower, on the 19th floor.
Above left: Here's my bedroom, where I spend most of my time when I'm not working at CPO. I love this bedroom! Above right: More of my bedroom. Every weekend night, I push my reclining loveseat close to my TV and watch TV shows and movies from America. Then I usually start snoozing.
Above left: There are dhows (ancient-style Middle Eastern boats) along Doha's "corniche" (i.e., waterfront). For a few dollars, the dhow crews will take you across the bay. I walk on the corniche every weekend for several miles. In the summer months, though, it's a steam bath outside and your clothes are soaked in sweat within a few minutes. Above right: Job security.
Above left: This statue of an oryx, a desert animal like a small deer, was built a few years ago to kick off the Asian Games that were held in Doha. I thought it was a giant rabbit so I called it "Harvey" after the Jimmy Stewart movie. I still call it Harvey even though I now realize it's an oryx. Above center: One of the most iconic buildings in Doha is the Al Fanar Islamic Cultural Center. They offer free classes in Arabic, among other things here. I took an Arabic class at Portland Community College before moving to Qatar, so at least I know the basics. Above right: After walking on the corniche for a few miles last summer, I stopped at a park and had dinner as I watched the sunset over Doha.
Above left: Dhows and Doha. Above right: Grass and Doha. This is MIA Park (Museum of Islamic Art), one of the few patches of grass that you'll see in Doha.
Above left: And here's MIA: the Museum of Islamic Art. It's a free museum and has some spectacular collections. Above right: The Doha Golf Club is one of the few golf courses in Qatar with actual grass instead of sand. It costs over $100 to play a round here, though, so I'm glad I didn't bring my clubs over.
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