This nice shop around the corner took quite a while for my brain to figure out what exactly they are doing. But eventually I found out by checking the windows.
Anyway, the owner must have thought that he'd rather put a little "french" touch to it to make his goods looking more exclusively. Or he just failed in spelling.

But only a bit

Oft sieht man es hier in Qatar, am nächsten Morgen, die Spuren, die hinterlassen wurden. Eigentlich sollte es das ja nicht geben in diesem Land, aber trotzdem wird man ihm immer wieder gewahr: dem Straßenstrich. Immer wieder passiert es, dass junge Burschen es wissen wollen, protzen mit ihren Stärken, Schwanzvergleiche anstellen. Und wo kann man das am Besten? Auf dem Straßenstrich. Da wird kräftig rumgekurvt, da kommen aber auch bei jedem grundsätzlich Gummis zum Einsatz. Und dann, wie gesagt, am Morgen danach, sieht man die Gummis überall:



Nein, Sie haben jetzt nicht wirklich an Damen vom Anatomieverleih gedacht, oder? Obwohl auch diese manchmal aussehen, wie die Straße: mittels Bauernmalerei verhunzt.

Doch es gibt auch noch den anderen Straßenstrich, außerhalb, im Industrieviertel. Da stehen sie dann aufgereiht am Straßenrand und zeigen, was sie haben. Protzen mit ihren Vorzügen, strecken die Ausleger weit raus und verstecken die Hänger hinter sich. Wer große Schaufeln hat, kommt weiter. Und alle tragen Sie ein Schild mit ihrer Mobilnummer. Weil sie wollen, dass du sie anrufst. Sie wollen dein Geld, bieten dir dafuer stundenweise eine Gegenleistung. Und du fährst an ihnen vorbei und suchst dir das aus, was dir gefällt. Für jeden Geschmack gibt es was: dicke Walzen und grazile Kranartige, dann wieder welche, die dich abschleppen wollen, andere, die dich an den Haken nehmen möchten. Oder einfach nur anbaggern.

I am really annoyed today.

Not even two months ago I went and bought a karaoke game in one named shop here in Qatar as a gift for my daughter. Either to give her for Christmas or for her birthday. Christmas turned out to be quite successful and rich for her (especially in presents) so we kept the present until last week.
Last week we then gave her. She was so excited when opening, but as we tried to get it running, it did not work. Luckily I still had the receipt and went back to the shop. But what to hear?

"Sorry, Sir, but you bought this item in December. And we cannot exchange or refund it. It says that we have a 7 days (!) refund garantee." Although they tested it and could reproduce the fault easily, there was neither an offer to repair the kit, nor any offer of price reduction or exchange.

At least I know that I will never again buy something at SAQR, Doha, as their way to keep customers happy exceeds after one week.

So if you buy something there and it turns out to be broken after 8 days - bin it. Regardless how much money you spent and what the normal warranty time (usually 6 months minimum) is.

Even most of the car manufacturers put the name of the vehicle on the back, some of the owners disagree with the spelling and put it right. Like this one not only on the front, but as well on all 4 doors.

Maybe also "E" was not available at the time.

Over here everyday there are new and interesting ways of spelling to detect. I will have to use my camera more often, as this is not only a matter of one-day-newspaper spelling, but something that should be done correctly.

This time it was a strange kind of service.

Sometimes it happens over here that you are waiting in your car in a queue in front of a traffic light for it to turn green. And you can see the oncoming traffic flowing, the cars from your left and your right as well are crossing the junction. Only your own queue does not move.

Well this is a typical problem (not only over here, but I noticed it here quite often) of missing technical knowledge. People over here stop at traffic lights not where the line is (well, some don't stop even when the red light is showing, but this is a different issue), but quite with some distance apart.



As you can see, there are inductive circles built into the street, trying to register a change of the electro-magnetical field when a car stops on it. Just to trigger the traffic light to turn green much earlier. But somehow, maybe by law, it seems inappropriate to stop on this area. Which leads to non-triggering and long waiting times.

Hopefully one day these drivers will learn. After stopping at the traffic light for maybe 3 hours.

Not only that I purchased undies sized XL (normally I wear size L) and they don't fit due to "Made in China", I also face some problems with shrinking clothes.

So when you come over here, one thing is that clothes are tailored to fit small people. Even if it looks odd for you, take 2 sizes bigger than you are used to back in Europe. Otherwise you will be facing a nice, tight fit. And this is not really comfortable when it comes to undies.

The next thing is that most clothes are made to be washed at 30 degrees centigrade. Now over here, as stated before, the water supply is stored in a tank on top of the house. Washing machines also take their supply from there. Now even that you put the selector to 30 degrees for washing cotton shirts, trousers or undies, the water delivered to the machine will arrive at some 40 plus degrees. And I haven't found one machine over here to cool down the water first. With the knowledge of this you can expect all your sensitive clothes to start shrinking. Maybe an additional fact is that you gain weight as well. But besides that, the only choice you have is to wash by hand then. With bucket water that you gave the opportunity to cool down throughout the day.

So don't be surprised if during summer time you seem to be growing out of your clothes. It is not always calories.

Now that summer hits the country I will be off for 3 weeks. Back to cold, rainy Germany, just after the nice summer days they had.

Ok, I admit, we already had some days with temperatures at 52 mid day. But still real summer hasn't come yet. The humidity is still bearable, at night one can still sleep with an open window. 30 almost feels like a cool breeze.

There is a change in weather conditions though. Unless previous years, this year there are more heavy winds carrying loads of dust and sand from the desert and dumping them here. Working outside, especially at remote sites, becomes quite difficult. Work had to be stopped already due to lack of visibility.

And now companies start as well to stop work in between 11am and 3pm due to the temperatures.

Even more than one month there was no update here. Sorry for that. But nothing happened over here which I could blog about. Everydays life as usual, work, week-end.

Only the weather conditions change. During daytime the temperatures now start reaching the high thirties, at night, even with open windows in the bedroom, temperature does not drop below 26 any more. Even tonight it kept staying above 28. Centigrades.

Tonight I will have to leave for a short period to sort out things in Germany, but I will be back in about two weeks time. Hopefully with more time for blogging about Qatar.