A Summer Week in Doha, Qatar

​After a swift 2 months in South Africa, we finally arrived in Qatar!

When we first stepped out of the Doha international airport, it felt like we were in a sauna. The average temperature in the summer for Doha is around 39 degrees celsius/102 degrees fahrenheit with high humidity. After the temperature shock, we hopped in an uber and drove to our hotel, the Grand Hyatt Doha. The hotel was beautiful and the manager realized that we were tired and hungry from our overnight flight. He offered a free breakfast and I was happy when my parents accepted it!  The breakfast was delicious and had everything including Asian dumplings, chia seed pudding, and even Indian foods.

The next day we began our site seeing. We knew we would need to keep our activities indoors due to the crazy high temperatures and humidity so  our first stop was to the Museum of Islamic Art. We observed ancient Islamic artifacts and read about them as well. As a result of going to the Museum of Islamic Art we bought a 3 in one ticket for the next 3 days, giving us access to all 3 of the museums we visited in Qatar.. After going to the museum, we returned to the hotel and ate a delicious dinner.

The second day,  we went to the National Museum of Qatar. In this museum, we learned about Qatar as it was millions of years ago and how life was back hundreds of years ago and before the discovery of oil in Qatar. In my opinion, this museum building had the coolest design. The design of the building was based on a  desert rose. A desert rose is a rocky, delicate rock which is formed when minerals crystallize into rose shaped rocks. It was a unique design and unforgettable.

The following day we visited one of my favorite things we did in Doha was the 3-2-1 Qatar Olympic and Sports Museum. The sports museum had many interactive and informative games that made going to a normal boring museum much more fun and hands-on. When we finished the museum displays, we walked down the stairs to find more games that tested your agility, reaction time, strength, etc. One of the best games was definitely the zip wire, where you had to grip onto the bar for as long as you could to test your endurance and grip strength.

The last location that we visited on our tour of Qatar was a 100 year old bazaar called Souq Waqif. In this bazaar we saw many different kinds of Arabic clothing, food, and animals. We stopped to buy Qatari candies which were great. The market even had a whole section dedicated to selling birds!

In the end, Qatar was a good place to visit, just not in the summer!