After what felt like a very short sleep, we’re ready to repeat it all again for today’s semifinal of Morocco vs France. We hope the fairy tale can continue!

Today our plan is to try to go to some exhibits around Doha. Many of them have been made free for the World Cup so that the tourists/fans can enjoy them and learn about Doha, Qatar, and in many cases the Middle East as a whole. We love that sort of thing, so let’s get going!

First stop, the Fire Station. It used to be exactly that, but has now been converted to an art gallery. But we are going there to see a special exhibit. We will get to that in due time, but first we need to take the metro. We got off at Al Bidda station, got out on the wrong side of the street… but it was well worth it!

Only true fans of the Beautiful Game will remember this legend. Had to take a selfie (really a few) with him. Then it was back underground through the station to come out into Al Bidda Park. Funnily enough, when we asked for directions everyone looked at us (really my partner) as if we were crazy. How would we walk all of that? “It’s not so near!” “Take an Uber!” But we of course refused and started walking through Al Bidda Park.

We almost immediately understood why. It was pretty hot, in the middle of December. Especially since my travel partner was wearing pants. I mean, I’m always wearing pants and a sweater, so he can’t complain about much, but he felt hot. The reason he was wearing pants is to try to respect local culture of modesty as we were planning on going to an exhibit and something else that we will reveal further along in the post. But that’s why this picture above is taken in the shade.

And in the middle of the park was this monument to the national flag. Coincidentally the National Day of Qatar is coming up on the 18th of December, so it’s almost on the right day that we saw this.

And then we had arrived at the Fire Station. Luckily inside was very air conditioned, as many places in Qatar are. But now we can enjoy the exhibit.

So the reason we came here today was to see a special exhibit about Al Jazeera, the broadcasting network based in Qatar. The exhibit went through the entirety of the history of Al Jazeera ever since it was created as an Arabic news channel, to its expansion into English, and finally its expansion into other types of media and languages. It was a very interesting exhibit. Here we will leave you with some of our highlights and this way you can learn along with us about what we saw.

Immediately on entering you see this frame (above) and they show different conflicts that have occurred in the world in recent history where Al Jazeera has had a presence on the ground. Their slogan here was “the Other Opinion,” showing a side of the news that is supposedly underrepresented. Throughout the exhibit they had quotes on the walls of Western media praising Al Jazeera for providing on the ground coverage of various world events. But then the mood quickly changed.

The above image shows the letters that the Al Jazeera news reporter Sami al-Hajj sent to his loved ones while he was imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay, where he spent six years without any charges being laid. He was arrested while in Pakistan on his way to do camera work for Al Jazeera in Afghanistan in 2001.

Sadly, that was not the only story along those lines in the exhibit. Many reporters have been killed while working for Al Jazeera around the world. The most recent (at the time of this writing) is the reporter below, Shireen Abu Akleh. She was killed while reporting from Palestine. Replicas of what she was wearing were on either side of the screen explaining what happened.

And the final exhibit was an interesting one as well (the whole thing was interesting). Still Here is an exhibit created in collaboration with previously incarcerated women in the USA. It has won many international awards, and the main portion of it is augmented reality where my partner sat down and had virtual reality goggles on and a headset so that he could see the story of a woman who had just been let out of prison and how she was trying to get back into society. It was very well done, and it is obvious why it has won so many awards.

Then, it was outside into the courtyard of the Fire Station where the sadness doesn’t end.

This is the logo of Al Jazeera. On the top right side they had the full list of reporters/people who had been killed while on assignment for the network, a very long list spanning many recent conflicts…

The rest of the Fire Station is a regular art gallery that we also toured, starting with the courtyard.

But then we went into more traditional gallery spaces to enjoy the art there as well.

Like this artwork done by a Qatari artist, Yousef Ahmad. A sign explained that he was a pioneer of the modern Qatari art movement and his inspirations were drawn from the Qatari landscapes. What do you think? We liked it. There were many paintings like these all over this gallery space.

And then it was onward to another exhibit called Note to Self. It was a student exhibit by students from VCUarts Qatar. It allowed for a bit more interaction with the pieces, as you can see we took full advantage of that fact.

The last seesaw had a set of questions on the side for you to sit with a stranger and keep going up and down until you had both answered all of the questions. The questions were for you to get to know a stranger. Too bad I was there with my travel partner and we already know each other too well, no need for extra questions.

And then it was on to the very last exhibit. This one was a mixture of styles and messages. We just took a quick snapshot here for you to get a taste of what we saw.

And with that we were done the Fire Station!

A little fire engine just to really drive the point home that this used to be a working fire station. As you can see, it has started to get dark while we were in there. So we have to hurry! Darkness means that the game is soon!!

We of course left walking, and a little further on we asked some security guards where our second goal of the day was. They pointed in the general direction, but told us it was too far to walk, to please call an Uber. We told them we were okay and would try to walk anyway. And off we went. We also asked them whether or not it was okay to take pictures of government buildings in Qatar. They said that it wasn’t always like this, but that they had relaxed a bit with the world coming to visit. So with their permission, we snapped some pictures of these huge government buildings. Although they told us that this one is still empty as it is just finishing construction.

Even the government buildings are in on the World Cup action in Qatar!

We found it very interesting that all of these buildings are clearly brand new, but that they are built in a way to evoke a more traditional/historical construction style. Qatar is very conscious of making an effort to quickly build forward, but trying to retain a historical identity as well.

And then, finally, we made it to our final goal of the day. We had to cross some busy streets, enter through a direction that wasn’t maybe the most normal (but others had clearly taken before us), but we made it to the Imam Abdul Wahhab Mosque (Qatar State Grand Mosque). This is the reason my partner has been wearing pants all day. (Later on it would occur to him that he could just bring pants and put them on overtop of his shorts). (AND, at this particular mosque it seems as though they allow you to borrow appropriate clothing, traditional Qatari clothing, to wear within the mosque if you are not dressed modestly enough, both men and women).

The mosque is absolutely HUGE. And they don’t seem to have any hours like the Grand Mosque in Kuwait. We just showed up, said which language we preferred, and we had Abdul Aziz give us a tour of the mosque. On the tour he explained what Islam is, what it teaches you, its history, and what the believers of Islam follow. It was a nice tour. And the inside of the mosque is just amazing. This is the main hall. We got asked to leave the main hall quickly because we arrived late in the day and the call to prayer was about to happen. We weren’t allowed inside while that and the actual prayer happened. Luckily we were able to see it just in time!

But then we took advantage of the situation and got a few more pictures inside the mosque. It is hard to convey just how huge it is!

We were then asked to sit outside of the main hall to watch how the prayer was conducted. First the Imam stands in front of everyone else to lead. Then everyone else lines up behind him to pray all together in a line. This line repeats itself backwards until everyone has lined up. We were told that during important religious holidays (Ramadan and Eid especially) the hall is absolutely packed and they have to open overflow spaces for people.

Then it was getting late, so we had to go to our game quickly. A little interesting note, we asked for the washroom as the metro stations would likely be packed at this late time just before the game. We had to go to a special washroom outside the mosque where non-Muslims could use the washroom. Just a very interesting aside.

Then we took some pictures and headed to the metro station with a little shuttle bus. There are shuttles for everything in Qatar. Must be because of the summer heat. No one wants to be outside for long when it is over 50 degrees Celsius (luckily for us it was between 20-25 degrees, depending on the time of day).

Then we got off at the last metro station where we were to take a shuttle to the actual stadium for today’s game. We got to see an old friend…

After another 30ish minutes by bus, we had finally arrived at our stadium. It is our furthest trip to watch a game that we have to do. It may even be the furthest stadium from downtown Doha.

As you can see, there is a loooooot of interest to watch Morocco tonight. The police had to close the access point so that only ticketed people could get close to the stadium. Luckily, that’s us!

And here is our first look at Al Bayt stadium. It is supposed to be shaped like a traditional tent that was used in the desert. You can kind of see the points on either end of the stadium. It for sure looks better from the air. We didn’t have much time to enjoy the offerings outside of the stadium, just enough time to get this picture before going inside. Very excited!

And inside was absolutely beautiful. It was designed with traditional Qatari imprints, like on carpets or other garments (we think), but either way, it makes for a beautiful stadium interior. Not many stadiums we have been in over the years thought about that sort of detail.

And then it was time to get ready for the game! We made it just in time. At least the screen doesn’t fully block our view of the field…

Another great atmosphere, this time thanks to the thousands and thousands of fans of Morocco. There was a lot of chanting and a lot of energy, but unfortunately for the Moroccan fans it wasn’t enough to beat France on this occasion. The fairy tale tournament came to an end (well, except for the third place game) for Africa’s first semi finalist.

This time we didn’t stay as late as last night, both because there weren’t as many France fans celebrating as Argentinians last night and because as a further stadium we knew we had to get going to make it back at a “reasonable” hour.

So we just grabbed a few mementos in the form of pictures, went to check out the concert stage really quickly, and then it was on to the shuttles again. Can you tell that everyone was for Morocco in the stadium from this picture…?

While in line we started talking to some guys who were asking what we thought about the tournament and the country so far, and then when they saw me they wanted to take a picture to be featured in the blog post! Of course we said yes, so now you can meet the people that we met in line.

Back onto the shuttle we go. Much faster leaving the stadium than arriving.

Then we joined all the people trying to get back home and to their accommodations. The metros were very full, of course. But we could go a bit faster because we would use the stairs. As you can see in the following picture, everyone preferred waiting for the escalator. So it was a little faster for us.

Well… even though we left earlier than last night, we were still awake until late after arriving late. Tomorrow is a rest day from the World Cup, so let’s see what we get into! We’ve started our odyssey to see if we can get tickets to the final! Argentina vs France will be amazing. Fingers crossed! Goodnight from Doha!