Week of Memories Day 6

Thursday we took a little road trip to the northern end of Qatar to Zubarah.  Zubarah was an old port community.  Now it's just ruins that are being excavated.  There's also a fort that was built in 1938.  I was thinking that the fort was a bit older than 1938, since that seems like an older thing to do.  But that is where this country still was then.  They hadn't developed like the US or Europe.  So eight years after the Empire State building was built, Qatar was still building defensive forts. This one was for the coast guard. In the US in 1938, movies like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was released.  World Ward II was about to start.  That's just to give you an idea of how fast this country has developed. 

Here's the fort as we were driving up to it.




Here's the inside. You can go up some stairs and walk on the roof of the rooms to get to the towers.


The ceiling was made with bambo and palm fronds with some wood that was imported from Africa.


We looked in three of the four towers, though honestly, once you've seen one, you've seen them all.  I'm surprised (well, not really) that there were no guard rails installed along the stairs or the walk way on the second level.


Even though we were a little ways from the ocean (though we could see if from the towers) the ground was littered with tiny shells.


There were of course guards outside in the parking lot not doing anything.  I'm assuming that these were their cars.




After looking around the fort, we wanted to see the ruins. From what Steve read we should have been able to keep driving on the road and we'd be able to see the ruins, but all we saw was a sign that said we weren't allowed beyond that point, and we weren't allowed to take pictures.  Random request for the middle of no where with no one in sight.  So we turn around and go back to the fort to ask the guards how to get there.  I don't think they spoke English well, if at all.  They pointed us in another direction, which we followed, but it did not lead us to the old city.  We did see this though.

The sign says "Warning  Archaeological Site, No access or exploration is allowed on this Site, Only after obtaining Formal Approval from Qatar Museum Authority Anyone who violates these Instruction will be subject to the Penalties Contained in The Law No. (2) of 1980, As Amended by Law no. (23) For the year 2010." All of the grammar errors are actually on the sign.




We went down one road because it was in the right direction, but it was a dead end.  So we turned around and drove home.

At home we cleaned up the house a bit to get ready for a birthday get together for me.  Steve invited some people from church to come to our house for a pot luck dinner for my birthday.  I had a fabulous time.  I made a german chocolate cake (but with walnut instead of pecan because pecans, if you can find them, are around $60 a pound.  Not paying that).  One of the kids someone who came is allergic to eggs, milk, and nuts, which german chocolate cake frosting has. So I made a cake and frosting without any of those and it turned out pretty well.

So Steve's gift of a week of memories and time together was wonderful. We had a great week and I enjoyed even the mishaps, because those made good memories too.