Spatastic

So this weekend I decided to give myself a bit of an early birthday present so I booked in for a Hot Stone massage at the Four Seasons Spa here in Doha. For about $100AUD, I got an hour long massage and access to their amazing facilities. They have hot tubs, saunas, steam rooms - the typical stuff you would expect, but its the extras that the Four Seasons are known for that make it fun and exciting. In one big room, they had 3 laconium chairs - apparently a roman thing - covered in tiles and heated to 42c/107f. They also had in this room 2 of those water treadmill like pools which spits out a current at the end of one pool and you can just swim against it for hours. I did this for a little while and then I realised I was meant to be relaxing so why on earth was I working out!?!? They also had one of the largest spas I have seen with jets just about everywhere. So much in fact that it kind of made it difficult to sit in. Here is a photo of it. I didn't take this. Its from their website. But it gives you an idea. They have only included about half of the spa in the photo though. It truly was big!

Also in this big room, they had another sauna at a different varying temperature. As well as 2 plunge pools, hot and cold. After braving the cold one, I did feel much better for it. It was only 17c/62f so you definitely got your circulation going. They also had this crazy colour treatment room which was something about changing the colours of the light in the room to help you feel better or something. I didn't do that because I didn't have enough time to read up on how it all worked - they had a big book in the room as well, so I will have to save that for next time. So after about 2 hours of lounging around with all of this stuff, then I went and had my massage. Hot Stones is great way to get enormous knots out of your back. Definitely worth it and highly recommended. Afterwards, I jumped into the spa in our female changing 'suite' and rinsed myself off in the Swiss shower with 16 shower heads. Pretty amazing.

Then we headed to the cafe for a bit of lunch. I tried to take a couple of photos on the balcony there but it is just so humid. You will see what I mean. This is probably the best shot I got out there. The bay here is quite U shaped and you should be able to see the other side quite well but unfortunately you can't. The humidity is definitely what will be the most difficult thing to deal with here. So I came back inside and took this photo which gives you a much better view from behind glass. We do wish we could have air con outside on balconies here because at least then you would opt to sit there sometimes, but you just can't this time of year. August is meant to be the worst. And yes it did very much surprise me because it is the desert for goodness sake! But it is also on the Arabian (or Persian as most of us westerners know it as) Gulf and it is a great big body of water which brings in heaps of moisture.

So after a nice long day at the Four Seasons, I decided to book in again for the following Friday for a facial. I booked in a bit later on because on Friday morning a whole bunch of us are heading to the Sheraton for their brunch for my birthday which includes free flowing Moet Champagne. Definitely will be in for that. The Four Seasons has an amazing one but it is a lot more expensive, so I will wait till I have a bit more cash and can try all of the hotels' brunches!

I know some of you have heard about the crazy find that I came across at the Supermarket, but for those of you who didn't, I don't have a lot to mention about it because the photos really speak for themselves. I don't know if they actually use the stuff or not. All I know is that yes it exists and I will buy some to show all of you in person whenever I get around to seeing everyone. It costs about $12AUD or $8USD which is pretty hard to believe - what a bargain. Good to know that even the lady arabs in their full black abayas get up to no good....hehehe.

So I guess that is about it for now. Work is getting a bit busier and hopefully in the next couple of weeks I will move to the Stadium and be working from there. The office is ok but I really want to start doing some work. It is a lot more fun when we start building stuff, so once we are at the stadium it can all begin. We did have one day this week that I know was 51c/124f. It was ridiculous. I spent a lot of it outside as well. Stupid Hot and I think it will only get worse. Oh well. Its all a learning experience I guess.

Keep well and keep the emails coming. It is nice to hear from everyone in this sometimes lonely humid desert.
Love,
Sarah