The joys of driving...

So I haven't talked much about driving. I've made brief mentions of it, but haven't really elaborated anything. The truth of the matter is that driving here sucks. If you are not aware of everything going on around you something bad will probably happen. That's pretty much common sense when you're driving here, but here you have to be on a different level. You also have to be able to keep your emotions in check at all times. People will cut you off. People will crawl right up your tailpipe in order to remove you from their way.

There are 3 types of drivers here:

The Indians and Pakistanis(one groups), the big shots, and everyone else.

If you've ever seen scenes of driving in India you can imagine how the Indians drive here. If you haven't here's the easiest way to explain it: they have little regard for lanes, signs, or other cars. They go where they want, when they want, and if you get in their way you will get an earful of horn(or as the custom here is an eyeful of high beam... because you can get ticketed for using your horn without discretion). Oh yeah, they also like to cut across empty fields and lots just because the road is inconvenient and will park in any spot that they can get into and still crawl out their window from.

The next category are the big shots. They are always in a hurry and they will always flash you from a half mile off expecting you to get out of their way or to not get in their way. They drive what you'd expect: big SUVs, luxury sedans, and sports cars. The worst offenders are of course the sports cars... Of course the one group of people you don't mess with are the ones with 2, 3, or 4 digit license plate numbers. The fewer the numbers the closer to the Emir(ruler here) by blood they are. If you see them behind you, it's best to get out of their way.

The last category is the rest of us. These folks include less aggressive westerners and native Qataris. Mostly they all just go with the flow and it works out alright.

One of the biggest problems you have around here is the store to parking ratio. They designed this place to be like Europe... it's the only explanation I can come up with for why the roads are so narrow with so many buildings packed together and so few parking spaces... Of course there's no mass transit system here so it's pretty ugly around here, especially with 1.4 million people packed into 1 city that's smaller(spacewise) than Aurora. So the parking makes the traffic worse around the major shopping areas... and then trying to get an actual parking spot can turn into a game of chicken or who has a smaller vehicle. That's ok though because even though you may spend 30-45 minutes looking for a spot the gas is only about 75 cents a gallon here so it's not as painful as it could be.

Oh yeah... the roundabouts... Have you ever seen a roundabout with traffic lights before? Well they exist. There are only a few but they are the most assinine setup I've ever seen. You basically have a light at the entrance to the roundabout and then a stoplight before each exit. They might as well just pave through it and put in regular old traffic lights. In general they aren't too bad though(especially if you're driving in something large). It's pretty easy to pick up the flow of traffic. Again though, you absolutely have to be in full surrounding awareness mode...

So, yeah. It's crazy. Russell and Richard make me drive everywhere because I don't mind driving and neither of them is big on it.

Oh well I should probably get back to work.

Miss you all lots.