My boys, who you may have heard are gigantic Austin FC fans, were invited to be in the Austin FC Starting XI for the last match of the season against none other than defending champion LAFC.
For those who don’t know, this means they come out to the field before the game with the players for the national anthem. Needless to say they could barely contain their excitement – just like their parents!
The main market. If you’ve seen a shuk (market) in Israel or any other Arab country: well it’s nothing like that.
However, if you’ve been to EPCOT then you have a pretty good idea what this is, just larger: everything is brand new but built to look a bit old. It’s all giant fancy stores, boutiques, art dealerships, and restaurants. It’s very nice though. The day we went it was still empty – like everything – but that’s because the Brazilians were just about to arrive.
Little wooden boats that were historically used in Qatar for pearl fishing. In our case, it was a two hour trip for seeing yachts owed by monarchs and eat really good food.
Like with most other things in here so far, there were more workers than tourists and no beer. But the food was excellent and it was a really nice and relaxing experience.
Dhow boatsRoad to the dhow boat marinaDates stuffed with cheese everywhere!So much foodKing of Morocco’s toy iircSkeikh’s toy
A 0-0 tie in which Mexico was better and deserved to win. This is a terrible result when combined with Argentina’s loss to Saudi Arabia.
The match was held at the 974 Stadium, built using 974 shipping containers and will allegedly be disassembled and reassembled in another country. Mark my words: it won’t happen. It’s a very nice stadium though.
National Anthems before the matchMemo Ochoa stops a penalty kick by Robert Lawansowski and the crowd goes wild
Straight out of one game we headed out to the next one at Ahmad Bin Ali Stadium. Time to support my adoptive country and fellow CONCACAF team.
This ended in a 1-1 draw that the US deserved to win. After the match we ended up eating Lebanese food at 1 AM in the Mall of Qatar across the street. Pretty pretty pretty good.
Fresh(er) after a quick nap, we headed out to Al Thumama Stadium to watch Netherlands vs Senegal and then USA vs Wales. If this sounds crazy, that’s because it is. Originally we had plenty of time between both games but things got rescheduled after we purchased the tickets leaving us very little time to go from one game to the next.
This was a good match. Unlike past World Cups where I’ve seen Netherlands play, there were few Clockwork Orange fans and they were oddly subdued. There were lots of Mexican fans though. In a sad twist of irony, we had to leave a bit early while the score was 0-0 so we can catch the USA vs Wales game.
Me and (a replica of) the James Webb Telescope during SXSW 2013.
The telescope launched this morning and didn’t explode. Only took an eternity. Hope it unfurls successfully. I saw the replica en 2013, the photo deserves a repost.
