Äspö was a flurry of activity on Christmas Eve day. The snow must have been about 18 inches (45cm) deep in some places, not including the large drifts created by the wind.
The kids found an enormous icicle. Don't try this at home!
It seems like we ate all day long...ribs, meatballs, smoked eel, sillsallad (herring salad), Jansson's (potato gratin with anchovies), pickled herring, etc.
Of course, for the kids, the highlight of the evening was the arrival of Jultomten (the Swedish Santa Claus) who, among many other things from far and wide, brought an ice hockey game.
Findus wasn't so interested in the gifts. He preferred running up and down the stairs chomping at the hanging plants.
Unfortunately, it rained all night on Christmas Eve and when we woke up, all that was left of the snowman was his clothes.
We slept long and Erik went straight from bed to the kitchen. Christmas Day was turkey day. For Americans, it's absolutely normal to stuff a turkey, especially at Thanksgiving, but this was Äspö's first whole turkey adventure. It was fabulous. Erik and his mother stuffed it with liver, brandy, spices, walnuts and hazelnuts freshly arrived from Oregon.
Later we baked Norwegian Christmas cookies (with spelt flour, of course) - Pepperkake and Berliner kranse. Naturally, we drank glögg with the cookies! Yum, yum!
It has been snowing here in Äspö for most of the last three days. Astrid's attempt to get to work today was thwarted by roads that were simply not visible and when they were, there was enough ice under the snow to make it too slippery to drive.
We must have at least 20 inches of snow. We're really missing our cross country skis which are snugly packed in our leaky cellar in Cologne.
Yesterday it was still possible to get around. The garden looked like a fairy-tale forest.
Lena and I had a pretty good snow fight which ended with me in the snow. Thankfully, it's pretty dry, so it brushes off.
There's a pretty good stock of firewood in the various outbuildings.
As I write this, we are happily sitting in front of the fire at the old farmhouse of Erik's mother and older sister in Äspö, which is almost at the southernmost tip of Sweden. As our plane got closer and closer to the Copenhagen airport yesterday morning, it became clear that the whole area was covered in snow. What a nice surprise - a gorgeous sight and such a contrast from our desert existence of the past few months!
In fact, there's something about snow and southern Sweden. The farmhouse family was actually snowed in yesterday. There's enough wind that the snow drifts within a very short period of time and makes it pretty difficult to dig out even when it doesn't look like there's much snow on the fields. Luckily, Erik's younger sister and family live in Malmö (just across the bridge from Copenhagen), so we stayed there last night.
The below zero cold was quite a shock, and since I had sent our winter clothes ahead to Äspö directly from Germany last month, we were absolutely not dressed properly. Don't forget that the difference between midday temperatures in Doha and southern Sweden is about 40 degrees Celsius at the moment! Brrrrrrrrr!!
We had a cozy day which involved putting up the Christmas tree and cuddling up under a blanket while watching the snow fall outside.
The latest addition to the family, Findus, seemed to quite enjoy the snow...
while foster-mother Shannon preferred to keep nice and warm inside.
Erik and Lars decided to brave it and went off to the sauna where Erik found he could take the heat longer than usual. It was the dip in 2-degree-Celsius water that was a little hard to take.
We had a nice evening snack which involved lots of antipasti. Pork!!! We haven't seen that for a while. Later on there was even glögg and pepparkakor! Yummy!
It's such a relief to be out of Qatar for a few weeks. Of course, we're telling our crazy stories over and over. They sound so ridiculous and yet they are oh so true.
Above all, we are enjoying our family, great food, nice wine, oxygen, relaxed driving conditions and SNOW!!!
Some of you are probably wondering what I am doing with all my free time. Erik is the one who has the job here. I'm just tagging along.
Actually, I've been slightly busier than I expected. By pure coincidence, I substituted in the first violin section of the QPO several weeks ago when they desperately needed someone. Last week I played a rehearsal and a few concerts with the community orchestra, which is more or less a group of kids and amateurs. They needed someone, we have a car to pay for and I have nothing better to do. Why not? Yesterday I played with a string quartet for a business event in the presence of the Emir of Qatar. More on that experience when photos are available...
Other than that, I've had a lot of time on my hands. Part of what I do with that time has been influenced by my (our) general energy level. Although we don't know the scientific details, apparently the level of oxygen in the air here is well below what we're used to. We think this is mainly caused by the lack of trees and high levels of pollution.
Many of you know I'm a passionate knitter. Many of you also know that, come Christmas Eve, there's always at least one project that remains unfinished and I've even had to give away a gift, only to immediately rip it out of the receiver's hands with the promise of finishing it up as soon as possible. Not this year!!!! I finished my Christmas knitting at least 10 days ago.
So now what? Well, first of all, after spending months knitting for other people, I get to make something for myself. On top of that, after all our recent back-and-forth about whether or not to stick around in Qatar, we've decided that no matter how long (or short) we're here, it would be nice to nest a little. So, while my husband was slaving away with the QPO string section today, this is what I did:
After all, according to my Qatari visa, I am only a "Housewife".
The QPO (Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra) does not have a yearly schedule, which makes it very difficult to plan more than a few weeks in advance. We decided that since that is the case, I should organize my work independently of my husband and hope that everything fits together like a puzzle. Thus, I have not taken on any small gigs this year, thereby limiting my work to larger blocks that make it worth while to go back to Europe (in other words, work that is long enough to pay substantially more than my plane ticket).
One benefit to the lack of planning, is that once in a while we are pleasantly surprised. Work gets cancelled and Erik still gets paid. Yesterday we found out that a concert on December 19th, the last of the year, has been cancelled. Yes, for some inexplicable reason they are still rehearsing, but there is no concert. Erik spent quite a long time on the phone today talking to several people from Turkish Airlines and the result is that we managed to get our tickets to Sweden re-booked and we get to go 'home' two days earlier than originally planned.
Did you hear that, Cedercarlsson-Zeppenjochs? Vi ses den 17:de!!!
Today, with the special permission of my dear husband, I got my Qatari driver's license. Apparently this process can take 3-4 hours if you do it on your own, but there are ways...
On the way into the Traffic Department, there are a few grotty old offices where it's possible to employ an Arabic speaker to help you out, but for a price. We passed by the first office, outside of which stood a guy who was clearly trying to get our business. Who knows what expletives came out of his mouth when Erik refused politely and said he was going to his old friend in the second office. We haven't and don't necessarily intend to learn any Arabic swear words.
We found Erik's "old friend" in his white robe and skullcap (we think it might be North African) sitting outside smoking a cigarette. He took us into the office which housees a few desks and Arabic typewriters. He asked for our i.d. cards and my driver's license. Now, I have three driver's licenses - Oregon, Germany and international. I've heard that they recently changed the rules and that Americans have to take a test, so I gave him my German (E.U.) license. The first thing he did was hand Erik a letter to sign. We think it must have said something like this:
To whom it may concern:
I do solemnly swear that I am responsible for this woman, my wife number one. I promise to provide her with a Toyota Land Cruiser or similar and pay all traffic fines or blood money she may incur as said driver of said vehicle. In the event that she is ever out of my favor, I reserve the right to have this license revoked at anytime.
Sincerely,
_____________________
With that letter and a form filled out in Arabic by E's old friend, he led us to the eye-testing room. My eye test consisted of reading 4 letters, à la the optometrist's office. It took all of 2.1 seconds.
Then our old friend (by now he is OUR old friend) took us across the way to a hall not unlike any of your typical Departments of Motor Vehicles in the U.S. Mercifully, there was almost nobody there. My husband paid 250 QR and two minutes later I had my license. I said thank you to the woman behind the desk and I think, but I can't be sure, she actually smiled at me. I couldn't quite tell, because all I could see were two eyes. We handed our old friend a 100 QR bill and that was that.
-------
So, all that was pretty easy. Now comes the frustrating story of the day. First a little background...
I haven't really mentioned much about driving in Qatar. Those of you who are reading this and know anything about it are probably shocked it hasn't come up yet. Don't worry. It will. I'm just trying to come up with a way to describe it that won't scare our dear relatives too much.
In an effort to cut down on traffic accidents, Qatar is on a campaign to propagate better driving habits. One of their ways of doing it is by having a quite high fine system. Running a red light, for instance, will cost you 6000 QR ($1650/Euros1120). There are cameras at most intersections and people tend to really hit the breaks if the green light starts blinking. There is also zero tolerance for speeding, which, it turns out also includes zero tolerance for speedometers that are not quite accurate. If you want to leave the country and you haven't paid your traffic fines, think again. They will stop you at border control and not let you leave until you pay. A point system, along the lines of Flensburg (Germans will know about this), but surely much more convoluted, is also part of the system. After a certain number of points, you probably get publicly whipped or something. Just joking.
So, back to our story. Erik got flashed a few months ago in our rental car (for going maybe 5km/h above the limit), so considering we are leaving for Sweden in less than 10 days at 2am and we happened to be at the traffic office today, he thought it might be convenient to pay it. It turns out that they didn't allow him to do so. There is another fine on the car from a previous renter and with that fine comes 3 points. They told us to pay the rental company and get a receipt which we can show at the airport should there be a problem.
So, deciding that doing such a thing at the last minute was not a good idea - who knows what might go wrong? - we stopped at the rental company on the way home. It turns out that they were certainly willing to take our money, but with an extra charge of 10% for paperwork. Well, we wouldn't have had to pay them if they hadn't dealt with the previous fine on the car in the first place (from AUGUST!!), so there was no way we were going to pay the 10%. All the reasoning in the world didn't get them to understand that we already tried to pay the fine elsewhere and it isn't our fault that we had to come to them to pay it, so why should we pay extra???
Two questions here: 1) If the traffic office was clear about the fact that the outstanding fine on the car wasn't ours, why is it not possible to pay what IS ours? 2) Why hasn't the rental company taken care of the outstanding fine?
The answers: 1) Who knows? 2) Who knows?
In the end, Erik threatened that heads would roll if we don't hear from them by the end of the next working day when their manager is supposedly coming back. We honestly don't care if they are just "workers". They should also use their brains.
We're going bowling with friends now. Maybe we can pretend we are rolling heads.
Well, we've been Qatarized. As of two days ago, both of us are officially recognized as residents of this country. Erik spent a good eight weeks without his passport for two reasons: 1) he arrived during Ramadan, 2) the only really competent person in the orchestra office, who also happens to deal with personnel issues, was on vacation most of those eight weeks. We managed to avoid handing in my passport because I had to leave after my first two weeks here. After entering the country for the second time, I reluctantly handed over my passport. The process only took three weeks from beginning to end, even with several days of religious holidays. Here is our current collection of i.d. cards...
Clockwise from top left: Erik's Qatari i.d., Erik's driver's license, Karen's Qatari i.d., Erik's staff i.d. Still to come will be Karen's driver's license and i.d. cards for the recreation center. We still don't really get why we have to have those. The center is in the Qatar Foundation and Erik already has staff i.d. for the foundation.
What a hassle it has been, especially for Erik, to be without a passport or i.d. for so long. There are so many things you can't do without one or both forms of identification. For instance, Erik was technically not allowed to drive after his first week here. The orchestra office neglected to inform him that he should get an international license before coming. Thankfully, I managed to get one, so at least one of us was driving legally and I could officially rent a car. We didn't worry too much about it though. Erik drove when necessary. For goodness sake, 12-year-old Qatari kids drive themselves to school and policemen look the other way. THEY certainly don't have a license because they are officially too young.
That reminds me about the story of a car accident that I heard. A Western woman was driven off the road and into a pole by a native. Her car was totaled. It turned out that the Qatari was dead drunk, but he got off Scot free because, of course, drinking isn't allowed so he couldn't possibly be drunk. That gives you an idea of the mentality we sometimes face here.
And to follow that same thread, Erik wasn't even allowed to go into one of the few places you are allowed to have a glass of wine - a Western hotel - because he didn't have i.d.
Some more rules and oddities:
We can't leave the country without permission from Erik's employer.
We can't drive out of the country without a transit visa from the Saudi Arabian embassy. We're surrounded!!
Erik had to have a "no objection" from his employer to get a driver's license.
I, as his wife, have to have HIS permission to get a driver's license.
If we held a joint bank account, he would receive a text message to alert him to how much and where I spent any money from that account.
We officially can't hold hands or kiss in public. We do anyway, but with caution.
We can't sit in the same area in the waiting room at the bank.
We can't buy alcohol without a permit (which requires another "no objection" letter stating Erik's salary level).
We can't bring alcohol outside of our home. No more hostess gifts involving a nice bottle of wine.
A few days ago was the end of about 10 days of vacation. That period began with four days of religious holidays and continued with another week of freedom for many. A lot of people were surprised to see us hanging around. Well, that's because I had no passport and no i.d. No passport + no idea = no exit visa. OF COURSE, it was no problem to pick up my new i.d. immediately after the holiday. ARGH!!!!
I tell you, we surely do sympathize with the man in Munch's "The Scream".
There are many things about Qatar that we don't like, but there is one thing we really have to gloat about: GAS PRICES. Gas is cheaper than water. We are renting a crappy little Seat Cordoba for the time being until we decide what type of car to buy. We get a good deal on the rental price because of Erik's job. Anyway, the average cost of filling the tank has been 34QR. Divide that by its 47-liter capacity and you get .72QR per liter. I suppose you're thinking that sounds pretty good. Well, let me put it into terms Europeans and Americans can understand and it will sound even better. First the Europeans: that's €6,28 which means gas costs €0,13 per liter. For those of you in the U.S., it costs the equivalent of $9.34 to fill the tank which boils down to 75¢ per gallon. Americans haven't seen numbers like that at the gas pumps since the late 1970s.
Basically, people don't care about gas consumption. They buy cars not caring. They drive cars not caring. They leave them empty and running on hot days not caring.
It is perfectly normal to see an empty car idling in a parking lot with the air-conditioning on in order to keep the interior at a comfortable temperature when its owner comes back after a 3-hour shopping expedition. There's no theft here and gas is cheap, so who cares?
They zip in and out of traffic and screech through roundabouts, probably consuming several liters which each insane rev of the engine. You can drive 80-100km/h (50-60mph) on the larger city streets and gas is cheap, so who cares?
The standard car of a native Qatari is the Toyota Land Cruiser - invariably white with some kind of fancy pin-striping (or pin-swooshing) on the sides.
It's used for dune bashing, barrier bashing, small car bashing, speed-bump jumping, off-roading in the middle of the city, you name it. Other typical cars you might see in Doha? Range Rover, Hummer, Pajero, BMW, Mercedes, Bentley and enormous double-cab American pick-ups. The bigger the better. You win the round-about competition and gas is cheap, so who cares? No need for diesels or hybrids. Let's not even start thinking about emissions...
As for us, we've looked at several cars. Yesterday we were even considering a Hummer for about 6.2 minutes and the Cadillac Acadia for exactly 4 minutes. We also like the Subaru Forester. Tomorrow we have appointments to test drive three cars including both a slightly used 2009 and a showroom sample 2010 model of the VW Tiguan. It's cheap here. The fully loaded 2010 is just 130,000QR (€23,969/$35,696). We can get a loan without question from the Qatar Foundation branch of QNB here and, if it's for a new car, we get a rebate of 20,000QR (€3688/$5491).
But alas, today we talked it over for about the 16th time and decided that cars are money-pits. We will probably just get something used, safe, cheap and robust. If we like it a lot, we'll attempt to drive it and our stuff home when we leave Qatar. If not, it will have to find itself a new owner. Just this evening we found an ad for a 2001 Jeep Grand Cherokee and will try it tomorrow. We figure if we don't spend more than we would renting, it's a reasonable deal.
Around here, it's just too tempting to buy something fancy with all the bells and whistles since the difference in price between basic and luxury is so small. Heck, look at what musicians here are driving. Tell me. In what other orchestra parking lot in this world would you find these vehicles?
In the end, we'd rather sink our money into something that appreciates - like Erik's bass!!!
