Breaths and breezes (Doha, Qatar)

1:48 PM Sarah Elena 2 Comments

It’s Christmas time. To most people - including me - this is a very special time of the year. It smells so spicy, sweet and delicious everywhere. Friends and families come together to eat a lot more than usual and just enjoy spending time with their loved ones. Clocks seem to ease their ticking and priorities to broad and shift a bit. I don’t want to sound too sentimental - but to me it really seems to be a bit more possible to reflect on essentials these days. In my view we should implement these "holiday season vibes" more into our every day life. Who requires that we keep ourselves from enjoying moments and company that much more often than just during a few days of the year? My New Year’s resolutions for 2016 therefore include to focus on what’s really important and savour such moments. To make that possible, I will try to keep myself from living in the past or the future and from worrying about things I am not able to change anyway. It is so easy to just close my eyes, focus on breathing and what is happening around myself - and it always brings me back to what's essential, the present. Of course, the leading discipline is to implement those plans into our challenging every day life. For starters, I was at least able to practice it a bit during my latest holiday in Doha, Qatar. I think I did pretty well, because the things I found myself enjoying most during this week all had to do with breathing and breezes. I hope you enjoy my little review - and if you do, please feel free to share :-).

I have never really been to an Arabic country before. I just changed planes both in Abu Dhabi und Dubai, but never left the airport. You get an idea of the atmosphere when you spend a few hours in transit but of course it is not the same as really diving into such a city. On the plane from Germany already, there were passengers wearing dishdasha, the typical white arabic dress. I was in "holiday and getting to know new places and cultures"-mode right away. Arabic men seem to use eau the toilette a lot more generously than we are used to in Europe - but not in a bad way. It's a very fresh scent they were spreading. That was just the beginning of this heavenlike experience for my sense of smell. Around every corner there was another smell to catch.

Food, shisha and spices

I am lucky to have a friend who spends a lot of time in Doha during the year. Helmut knows me since I was a baby. He invited me to stay with him at Grand Hyatt, located in West Bay Lagoon. It's a lovely hotel with a wonderful spacious garden area, different buildings and pools, a wonderful beach and several restaurants. You are amazed the moment you enter the lobby. There is a shopping mall just across the street if you need anything or want to do some shopping. We both spend evenings in the hotel restaurants and outside in the city. The authentic Arabian restaurant "Majilis" in the hotel was my favorite. Qataris come here from the city to sit together, drink some tea, eat something and smoke shisha. So the smell was a combination of all these delights together. Just sitting there without consuming anything would have been lovely. Even before my trip to Doha I started to fall in love with hummus and ate it really often. Of course it was even better here, together with some salad (especially Tabbouleh) and Fallafel. Oh and the deserts they were so delicious too. I am staring to get hungry again, just writing this down.

Most parts of Doha are areas with a lot of new buildings. There are wonderful skyline views to catch from different places. A special one is "Katara", a new built cultural village with a coliseum from which you have a stunning view. Qataris love to meet and spend their weekends (it's Friday and Saturday) there and of course it is a touristic place, too. There is an old city area called "souq waqif". It's mostly a market where you can buy clothes, textiles, animals (I almost cried when I saw that) and so many different spices. Every step I made it felt like I smell another spice in the most raw consitence I could think of.

Sea breezes

My plan was to have a very relaxing week, so I spent a lot of time at the beach. I put some music on and enjoyed the sea breeze which was always there and changing its intensity from time to time. It was the perfect season for Qatar, as it was always round about 32 degrees during the day and warm enough in the evening to sit outside at the balcony until very late. I did not need any hair dryer after my evening shower as the breezes worked even better and created those beach curles I will never ever have when being at home in Germany.

Yoga breaths

Besides many swims in the sea and the pool I did some Pilates and Yoga classes. Whenever there is the chance to do Yoga classes, I am in. The classes took place after sunset outside in the garden near the sea. It was wonderful. The sea breeze was kissing us while we were doing our asanas. I was able to watch the sky and feel so much of the nature around me. I closed my eyes so often and tried to save this image and feeling. There are moments where you breathe in a much more consious way than usual. And I had a lot of these moments during the last week. I also try to memorize all those wonderful sights like the water surface glimmering in the sun and the different colors of the sun going down behind Doha’s skyline.

During my week in Doha was able to let go of sorrows and unnecessary thoughts and came back home pretty relaxed and impressed. I tend to feel the urge to be able to explain why certain things happen. But for now and for this holiday I won't. I had a wonderful time, in a very special and good mood and when I came back some things weren't the same anymore. I don't care why things turned out the way they did, I am just happy that the present is the way it is and wonder what will happen next. I will definitely visit Doha again and also do my best to keep on focusing on essentials... during this Christmas season and also afterwards.

I hope all of you will have a good start into the new year and be able to enjoy all the upcoming enriching moments properly. I got the feeling that 2016 is going to be a very good year!

Hotel: Grand Hyatt Doha
Getting there: Qatar Airways flight (Frankfurt non-stop) or Lufthansa flight

Soundtrack: Justin Bieber - What do you mean, Julien le Play - Mein Anker, Clean Bandit - Rather be

Special thanks to: Helmut, the Baron - Thank you so much - I had a perfect week! I enjoyed each and every espresso and all the hours we talked about the things in life that matter!

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