Just a few more pictures today of the buildings around where I live, some under construction still. This one is still under construction, but already you can see the local influence in the pattern on the outside of the building. It will be amazing when completed.

Again, this shows influence of the region, and yet it is still a very modern building. There is another building that is totally glass but has a similar old fashioned building superimposed on top. Hopefully we will go by it again in a day or two. It is hard to remember where I have seen some of these buildings - a lesson to take a photograph at the time.

This one is so tall and slim, almost like it is going to slice the sky -with interesting reflections in the glass.

I have no idea or the purpose of this ball - perhaps it is an elevator, but I haven't seen it change position. This is the shopping centre I go to quite a bit. There are a lot of English stores here, I have been to Debenhams many times in Exeter in England and several of the women's sections have the same clothing names. There is a Mothercare in this mall as well as Starbucks and the Body Shop, Nine West and Hush Puppy shoe stores. But then you get another section that sells the black robes that the women wear here, many of them with beautiful decoration on the edges in gold, and shops selling wonderful carpets. The first floor is made up mostly of Carrefour which is a huge grocery store, which sells household items, electrical goods and clothing as well as the usual food, fish, meat and a huge selection of vegetables. You have to have everything weighed in the vegetable section. I got to the cash the other day and had fogotten to have my bananas weighed - I ended up keeping the line up waiting while someone rushed back for me to weigh them. I won't forget again.

I have been watching Aljazeera tv station which broadcasts from Doha. The english language version is a mixture of BBC and CBC and I understand some of the people who run the english side were trained in those organizations. The news is very world oriented and the weather report is worldwide, which is just as well, since the weather in Doha doesn't change, every day you wake up, it is sunny and warm! The current news is all about the elections in India. Sounds like whoever is elected, it will be a coalition government. Tv is a mixture of western programs with arabic subtitles, arabic programs and some french programs with arabic subtitles. Makes for some interesting viewing.