A Weekend with a Friend
It has been a pretty busy 2 days with our friend Mandy. Everything worked out as planned except for the part where we would take him to Turkey Central. Well, we actually took him there on Thursday night at around past 9:00 pm after the tennis match but there were so many people. Tian thought it best to just buy food and take it home rather than stay there. It was just so noisy, we couldn’t hear each other. But when we found out that it’s going to take a good 20 minutes for our order to finish, we bailed out and just opted for Hardees. Our guest is not a night person and was begging that we go home as soon as we can so he can sleep. We chatted while munching away on our burgers.
The next day, after breakfast, Mandy spent the morning touring around Doha. In the afternoon, we picked him up at City Center. Then we dropped by Salam Plaza where he bought a Canon camera lens, being a photography enthusiast that he is. Tian on the other hand bought a monopod for his camera.
Off we went to Khalifa for the Semis of the Qatar Exxon Mobil Open. The game was to start at 4pm. We came 30 minutes early but we were surprised that there were a lot people who got there before us. Right after the entrance there were very long queues of people trying to avail of the free Doha 2016 shirts, caps and pens. Luckily for us, we already availed ours the day before. We proceeded to the stadium but we felt sad when we found out that our tickets indicated that our seats are limited to the upper area only even if the seats below, near the court weren’t occupied yet. Thank God there was this Kabayan, one of the security personnel who gave us tickets that allowed us to sit at the lower box. We were so happy, we were even happier when we realized how near we were to the players. Too bad, we didn’t have that giant tennis ball that they use for autographs. Maybe we can do that next month at the WTA.
We had a great time watching 2 tennis matches: Ivan Ljubecic vs. Stanislas Wawrinka and Nicholay Davydenko (2007 champ) vs. Andy Murray( 2007 runner up). It would have been better though if the players, Ljubecic and Davydenko, that we rooted for won their matches. There was still a doubles match but we had to leave to have dinner. We took Mandy to Applebee’s. It was his first time to dine at Applebee’s although they just recently branched out in Saudi. We wanted him to experience the wonderful service of the Applebee’s staff. I thought we were going to get indigestion last night because we had to eat really fast and leave as soon as were done. Mandy had a flight to catch and should be at the airport by 11pm. Fortunately he made it on time. It was a fast two days with our house guest. But I know though his visit was short, he did have a great time. He told us that next time he will stay longer so he’ll have more time to look around. We haven’t brought him to Souq Waqif, Villagio Mall and the Dhow ride at Corniche. We are just glad that he enjoyed his stay and he is welcome to come back any time.
