Well, the World Cup is over. What does that mean? It means it’s time for us to move on as well. It was a lot of fun while it lasted, and there were some great moments (and some bad as you read) but overall a fun time. But! That obviously doesn’t mean we’re done here. We can still find some places to explore. Since our flight is late in the evening, let’s head out one last time into Doha! 

We’re all packed and ready to go, so we take our last tuktuk ride to reception, and drop our luggage off. 

And you know how embarrassing this is? We hadn’t noticed that we can see two stadiums from our accommodation. Crazy. The benefits of having a small country host the World Cup. 

Then it was onto the metro and we took it in the other direction this time, getting further away from downtown. Why? We thought that looking at the National Library could be a cool way to spend a few hours, and there is a famous set of sculptures out in that general area that we heard about many years ago and we wanted to take a look. So let’s head out there. 

This almost looks like any metro, but believe me, there are other cars that are simply fantastic. Those are probably the Gold Club metro members that we saw advertisements for, but all cars were standard while we were there. 

Anyway, we were quickly at the Qatar National Library. 

Quite the building. Like we have come to expect here. We had expected this to be a quick “hello, goodbye” to the library and onto the sculptures.. we had even started walking away when we thought that we may as well enter. And thankfully we did. 

As you can see, we were in the right place. It looks awesome and there are football related things. What more can you ask for from a library? Well, apparently a lot. 

At the back of the library there was a small exhibit of football in Qatar. From the first match, to the creation of the association, to hosting the World Cup. A nice little exhibit. 

Just beyond that there was an art exhibit by an artist named Baya Mahieddine. Since we didn’t know her from beforehand, and you may not either, we will write a little information that we learned about her. 

Baya Mahieddine is one of the most important Algerian artists of her time, which spanned immediately after the Second World War, the Algerian War of Independence, and the Algerian Civil War. Her work was never easily classified as one thing, so she coined the term Baya-ism to provide some explanation to her art. Apparently she is world famous and having had different exhibitions in different cities around the world. So, let’s take a look inside. 

And if that wasn’t enough from your library, in the centre of the library they have what can only be described as a museum-level collection. Obviously it was mostly book/document-related pieces, but they had some incredible pieces. 

A few highlights include this, the first book to be printed in Arabic in Islamic territories, the Bible, printed by the Greek Melkite Christian community of Aleppo in 1706. 

This huge genealogical tree from the Prophetic Presence, through the messengers and prophets, to the people of that time period. 

Math and science books, going back to what we mentioned in the Museum of Islamic Art that the Arab world made some immense contributions to the world of science. 

To important works of poetry and literature, including some we’re very familiar with like One Thousand and One Nights (1835 copy here). 

Quite the place. Definitely worth a look. Again, would be even better if we could have read a bit from the actual pages. We will have to brush up on our Arabic. 

And the library still has more to give. The final exhibit was one that students had done under the guidance of their instructor. A small exhibit about the World Cup stadiums and how Qatar was welcoming the world. A cool part of this was that the paintings had tactile copies and braille descriptions for people who are visually impaired. A smart, inclusive touch. 

With that, we were done the library. It was pretty busy with people at the café, computers, and checking out books. It was a nice pit stop on our way to the sculptures. 

Then it was underground through the metro station to the other side of the street outside of Sidra Hospital to see “The Miraculous Journey”. Like we mentioned, we remembered reading about this years ago when it was installed, and for some reason it stuck with us. Maybe it was because of the bit of controversy it stirred up when it was unveiled. But it’s incredibly realistic and well made. You can judge for yourselves. 

Then it was back underground, back to the library, to then walk from one metro station to another. We had a bit of time to kill and the map showed there was a little park here, so why not. 

Our first find were these Minaretein. 

Both point towards Mecca and this space was created to be a great religious community space for the people of the region. It’s huge. It was built to resemble a intertwined ribbon of light and knowledge. Along with the main space. 

Then it was on to the:

All of the plants planted here are mentioned within the Quran. An interesting concept. Do other places have this as well for their religions? Each plant was accompanied by a sign showing what the plant was and how it was mentioned in the Quran. 

Then we walked through a portion of the park that had not been completed yet (just sand/dust) and made it to the next station. Jumped on our next train, went back to Caravan City, and then headed to the airport on our last metro ride. 

Quickly through security as we didn’t even get stamped into or out of the country (sad for our collection) and then we had a bit of time to enjoy the airport. Emphasis on bit. It was filled with World Cup tourists leaving the country. Will Qatar be empty now? We won’t be able to say because we are gone as well. 

And with that, we say goodbye to Qatar with our last shuttle ride, and boarding the plane to Oman! 

But just before we leave, one last thing. We don’t always show our airplane food because it’s almost “standard,” but on this Oman Air we were given this sandwich that was labelled as chicken. Not sure if this is an Omani sandwich or we heard wrong, but it was pretty tasty. Let’s see what else Oman has to offer us (other than a time change)! 

Good night from Muscat, Oman!