Sorry for not posting in awhile...

...We've been very busy! Luckily it's the first day of a lazy weekend, so I thought I'd take some time and update everyone. Where to start?

First, I should talk about the wonderful Friday brunch we went to a couple weeks ago.
We went to the Marriott here in Doha and let me tell you, I've never seen so much good food! There was french, asian, indian, mexican, arab, and so much seafood you'd never believe me! It was so good. Luckily it's a 4 hour event so we had plenty of time for 3rds and 4ths! I wasn't hungry again till the next day about lunchtime! Click below to see some pictures from the event!

Friday Brunch

Next, I started my job at Cornell 2 weeks ago! Although my official title is Research Tech II, my job is to be the Lab Supervisor over all the labs in the Research Department. It will be a challenging but rewarding job and I'm starting right at a very exciting time in the labs, they were just awarded 20 grants and will be growing very quickly in the next few years. I'm really excited about the job and will keep everyone updated on how it's going.

Of course, during my first week of work we had our first visitor! Rachel's roommate from college Claire is on a round the world trip and when she found out we were moving here made sure she stopped through! It was really great to see her and lots of fun showing her around our new home here. We were also able to go and see a bunch of things we'd been waiting to see like The Pearl, the man made island here, and the Museum of Islamic Art. We also went walking on the Corniche which is the beautiful walking area around the West bay area downtown. All were lots of fun to go and see. I've posted the pictures below.

The Pearl and The Corniche

Museum of Islamic Art

One of the other fun things we did here with Claire was go dune bashing since she really wanted to go see the desert here. We also hadn't been out there so we decided to hire a driver to take us out and drive us through the dunes. I didn't know that an SUV could stay up right on some of the inclines we were on, but our driver was very experienced and knew just how far he could push the Landcruiser. We spent 4 hours driving around out in the sand and had a blast. It was really fun and I can't wait to take anyone else who comes to visit out there! Pictures are below again...

Dune Bashing!

Well I hope this post is good enough for a few days. I'm really trying to keep up once a week on here, but obviously it's tough now that I have a job! I hope everyone is doing well in the States! Oh yeah, and we'll be back for Christmas in NC in almost exactly 2 months!