In a few minutes Rachael and I are going to get back on a plane and fly to San Francisco. From there, on to Frankfurt, then a couple hours for a layover, and then Doha. Twenty hours in the air, plus a handful on the ground, and we'll be home.

Rather than attempt a sweeping, generalized summary of our summer, I want to share a thought I had when we were driving to the airport this morning, packed full with suitcases and backpacks and emotion:

We're really lucky. Many people don't get to travel at any point in their lives, let alone when they're young, and many people don't get to have a decent job, let alone a fulfilling one. Not everyone gets time off, or the ability to take advantage of it.

It's impossible to forget about these things when people ask us about Doha, or traveling, or coming home. What is sometimes easy to forget about, I'm sorry to say, is that we're able to do this because of all of the people around us who've made it possible. Employers for offering us a job, friends for letting us stay with them and making the time for us. But most importantly, Rachael and I are surrounded by people, both friends and family, who've encouraged us to go off on our adventures, who've shown that they love us just the same, even though they have to say goodbye.

Most of the flights from Qatar back to the United States go through Europe, so we decided to start our summer off by visiting Rachael's best friend from high school, Sarah, who now lives in England. We hadn't seen her, or her partner Dan, for nearly seven years.

We wanted to make it a surprise on account of their recent wedding, but showing up on someone's doorstep without warning and expecting to be able to stay for a week is not the sort of surprise most people hope for. Luckily, Sarah's awesome airplane mechanic husband has a knack for details, and didn't mind having Sarah be the only one being surprised. He planned an entire week's worth of travel for the four of us around England and Wales, even going so far as to call Sarah's boss and arrange time off for her while Rachael and I were visiting. There were a lot of moving pieces and ways for Sarah to find out that we were coming, though, so I fully expected Sarah to figure it out one way or another.

When Dan picked us up from the bus station in Bristol it appeared that the con was still on. Sarah was out of town for work and would be arriving a day after us, so that'd give us a day to get settled before we went out to the train station to surprise her.

As Dan, Rachael, and I were driving around exploring the area around Bristol Sarah kept calling to check in on Dan and see what he was up to. Her voice came in through the bluetooth speakers in Dan's car.

"What are you doing?" Sarah asked.

"Nothing. Just going to the supermarket."

"Are you lying to me?"

"No. Why would I be lying to you?"

"I don't know. You're just acting really weird."

"Not sure what to say to that, but I'll see you at the train station later today."

"Why are you trying to get rid of me? Are you watching porn?"

Poor Dan. Rachael and I were starting to feel bad about the predicament we'd put him in, having to lie to his wife just a few months after they'd married. Worse yet, it's difficult to imagine a better husband than Dan, or a better pairing of partners, but if I were in Sarah's position, I'd be suspicious too. At one point I considered butting into the conversation and ruining the ruse, but I figured that'd just complicate things further and waste the surprise. Eventually Sarah hung up and we all sighed in relief.

Later that day, the three of us drove out to the train station in Bristol to meet Sarah. We decided that the best way to surprise her would be for Rachael to wait for her at the exit of the train station with their dog, Toby, on a leash.

Sarah must've been tired from her work trip and train ride, because she walked directly past Rachael and Toby. When Dan intervened and pointed Rachael out, it became clear that the surprise visit was in fact exactly that.

We spent the next six days driving around Southern Wales and Western England, which was as perfect an antidote for the Doha Beige as I could have hoped for. It's difficult to resist the temptation to compare the places we saw with the Shire from the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings, so I won't. The only thing I don't remember from those books and movies were sheep all over the place (though apparently they've since set up shop).

Once we arrived back in Bristol, Dan had to turn right around and head out to work, and Rachael and I had a few hours with Sarah before she took us to the bus station. We said goodbye and then, with little ceremony, Sarah drove off.

Just like that, they were gone again. But as the bus drove out of the parking lot and headed toward the highway, a thought crossed my mind. There are forever goodbyes and "I'll see you next week" goodbyes, and somewhere in a nice, Goldilocks place in the middle, is the goodbye that you know will be long enough to appreciate, but not long enough to forget.

Where does the water in Doha come from?

Qatar is one of the only countries in the world with no permanent fresh surface water. There is some fresh water underground, but it's being extracted much faster than it can be naturally replenished. The majority of the drinking water in Qatar comes from the Persian Gulf. Desalination plants work alongside the country's natural gas power stations to produce millions of gallons of fresh water every day. That's if everything is going smoothly, of course. What happens if the plants break down, or if the natural gas runs out? The Qatari government figures that the country's 2 million residents have a little over two days worth of water saved up in water tanks and small reservoirs. Needless to say, two days isn't much of a cushion, so the Qatari government recently contracted with a French firm (and others) to build five reservoirs which will expand the countries supply of fresh water to seven days.

How does the water get from the wells and desalination plants to your faucet?

There are two ways that water gets from place to place in Qatar. It might be moved by pipes (both above and below ground), or it could be transported by tanker trucks that hold about 7,000 gallons of water. I'm not sure how water gets to our house, but since I've never seen a water truck there I assume it's moved by pipe. The water is stored next to our house in a head-high plastic tank. Since the tank isn't on our roof (as is the case for many buildings around here), and there's no water tower in our neighborhood providing pressure, we use an electric pump to move water from the tank into our house.

It's similar to getting water from a pipe in the ground back in Oregon, with two significant differences: First, a power outage (which I've never experienced in Qatar) would prevent water from being pumped to the tap (though presumably you could get drinking water straight out of the tank in an emergency). Second, in the warmer months the water sits outside in the heat and gets incredibly hot. So hot, in fact, that in June we turned off our hot water heater because the cold side of the tap was the same temperature as the hot side. I can't explain how nice it felt to wash my hands in cool water when we got to England in early July.

Can you drink the water?

Yes. Rachael and I have been drinking the water since we arrived last August and haven't had any problems. It's worth noting, though, that there seems to be a lot of sediment in the water (though I haven't done any sort of formal comparisons). We filter the water that goes to our kitchen sink through a two-stage particle filter and you can see it start to turn yellow within a week or two. We swap the filters out every three months or so.

This is the first installment in my Qatar Questions series, in which I answer questions that people have asked me about living in Qatar. To see all of the posts in this series click here. If you have a question you'd like me to answer here, let me know in a comment below or get in touch.

One of my favorite things about living in Qatar is that I get to learn and share knowledge about one of the most misunderstood places in the world: the Middle East. In that vein, I'll be dedicating some of my blogging this year to the questions I've been asked about Qatar by family, friends, and strangers over the course of the past year. If you have a question you'd like me to answer here, let me know in a comment below or get in touch.

To start, I'll be answering a few questions my grandpa asked me about the water in Qatar when we were drinking Coronas and gin and tonics on his back deck a few weeks ago. To see that post, click here.

One of my least favorite things about living in Qatar is the air pollution. A recent study cited Doha as the 12th most polluted city in the world. Unfortunately, Qatar lacks real-time air quality monitoring stations (like the one the American Embassy in Beijing uses to post data to Twitter), so one of my goals when we first moved here was to build a basic air quality monitor and connect it to the internet so I (and anyone else with an internet connection) could see real-time data about the air quality in Doha.

When it comes to monitoring air quality on a hobby scale, there are three things you can test for: sulfur dioxide, nitrous oxide, and airborne particulate matter (dust). Based on the data I could find about Qatar, the poor air quality here stems mostly from airborne particulate matter.

There are a variety of causes of particulate pollution, both natural and anthropogenic. I don't know to what degree the air particulate in Doha stems from natural sources (wind blowing across a sandy desert) versus human sources (construction sites, vehicle exhaust, etc.), but it seems clear the Middle East and North Africa are just incredibly dusty places to begin with.

The first air quality monitor I put together cost about $100 in parts (which I purchased in the United States before I moved here), plus many hours in design and debugging. And in case you're wondering, I didn't do it from scratch. I had the work of others (namely, Chris Nafis) to guide my way. I taped it to the wall by our internet router where it still sits, sensing the cleanliness of the air inside our house and posting the data to the internet.

Ultimately, I want other people to find my data useful, and frankly, an indoor air particle sensor just isn't that useful to anyone who doesn't inhabit that particular indoor space. Does a spike in air particles mean that a dust storm is rolling through Doha? Or is Alex just frying some bacon? With those thoughts in mind, I built an upgraded version to be placed outside.

The upgrades include the addition of an LCD screen to display the data, a temperature and humidity sensor, and a plastic container to house it all. It sits on the windowsill outside our house, sensing the air and sharing its data to anyone who's curious enough to look.

If you're curious about what the data means, check out this page on my projects website. In short, Doha is definitely dusty, and some days are dustier than others. Beyond that, it's tough to say, but I've heard rumors that Qatar is in the process of installing a few professional air quality monitors. In the mean time, check out the data from my air particle sensor or build your own.

Four days. That's about how long Rachael and I have left in Qatar before we board a plane and head off on our summer vacation. First stop will be Europe, then Las Vegas for Forrest's wedding, then a road trip home to Oregon with Rick and Denise, a few weeks in Oregon, one week in Minnesota, then a few more weeks in Oregon, then back to Doha at the end of August. It's a lot, but I'm looking forward to it.

It feels cliché to write, but it's damn near impossible to believe that we've been here for ten months. I still have vivid memories of saying goodbye to our families at the Portland airport and getting on a plane with Mike, Liz, and Piper. Back then, the overwhelming sentiment was one of adventure and opportunity. As far as we were concerned, Qatar was another planet. We had a group blog entitled Settlers of Qatar. That's how it felt.

As we've overcome the challenges that come with moving to a new place, that sentiment of adventure and opportunity has slowly given way to a feeling of accomplishment. We've managed to uproot ourselves and move to the other side of the planet, start new jobs, learn new cultures and systems. And while it's not a "hardship post," as jobs in very difficult places are sometimes known, sometimes things are still hard.

For example, when Rick and Denise were visiting us back in May, we made plans to play at the Doha Golf Club on the north side of town. On our way out there we missed a couple of turns and ended up on a highway with someone in an SUV honking his horn and tail gaiting us so closely I couldn't see his headlights, all at 65 miles per hour. My heart was starting to race and I was getting frustrated, but it was Rick who put the emotion to words: "This so hard." Except he said the word 'hard' like how you might use the word to describe your first experience with unrequited love, or maybe finding out that you didn't get a job you'd been hoping for. It's not just a 'Dang, I need to turn around' kind of hard, sometimes it's an emotional, soul-sucking hard that makes you want to hug someone, even a stranger.

But enough about hardship, and for that matter, adventure and accomplishment. We only have a few more days here, and I still need to pack.

Exactly one year ago today, Rachael and I decided to move to Qatar. This is what I wrote this in my journal:

We met Mike and Liz in the morning and went to breakfast to discuss. We had a ton of questions, obviously, mostly about quality of life, contractual obligations, and what the school would be like. We met with the two representatives from the school and spoke for about an hour and a half. They said that if we hate it after the first year it's not in anyone's interest for us to hang around. That made me feel better.

After we were done meeting with them we all checked in about where we were. Mike was the only no. He said he liked Portland and his job there and didn't want to leave it. I was uneasy about it too, but thought that I should err on the side of adventure rather than not. Finally I brought up that this will probably be the only time in our lives that we get to do this with friends, and that seemed to make a huge difference. We kept checking in and getting closer to yes. We drove up to Liz's cousin's house to make our final decision. Her cousin and her cousin's husband helped us think it through.

Eventually, at 3:03 p.m., we got to yes. I was probably the most reluctant of the group, mostly because I don't want to put off getting my second degree. But we made the decision, and we're going through with it. We celebrated with champagne and sushi, and Rachael and I processed the fact that we'll be married this summer. I'm not really so nervous about that because I feel like it's just a recognition of how we already are. Nerves kept me awake tonight.

It's clear from what I wrote that I was nervous about hating Qatar and wanting to go home. Now, having been here about six months, I feel pretty confident that those fears won't materialize. Granted, Qatar is not my favorite place in the world, but it's not awful, either. I'm glad we decided to come, and I'm glad we're here.

First city: Ho Chi Minh, in the south, named for the man who brought the country through the war and established its identity. First sight: an endless stream of motorbikes streaming through the city and narrowly avoiding collision. First thought: I am about to watch someone die.

Our first hotel was tucked deep in the center of a city block, only accessible by an alley a few feet wide. When we arrived in the afternoon the alley was all but deserted, but when we walked out the next morning it had exploded with life. People were buying and selling nearly everything you could imagine — vegetables, pickled duck, shoes, haircare products. They filled the alley on both sides, and there was barely enough room to set down your foot and keep walking forward. This rush of activity would be a defining characteristic for us all over Vietnam, but nowhere was it as distinct as in that first, tiny alley in Ho Chi Minh City.

The only real tourist attraction we had time for in the city was the War Remnants Museum. It has some planes, an old tank, a few howitzers, and some other military junk rusting away outside. Inside there are some smaller arms — grenades and guns, mostly — and then there are the photographs. Straw buildings being set alight, people being dropped from helicopters, the terror of war. Another room, walls painted orange, chronicles the after effects of Agent Orange's active ingredient: dioxin. Limbs are curled like pretzels or simply nonexistent. Heads too small or too large. Eyes bulging out. It takes a concerted effort to keep your composure, but sometimes you pause and let it take you, accept responsibility for what human beings are capable of.

The American War, as the Vietnamese call it, is one of the most central pieces of their history and identity, and I often found myself wondering what sort of responsibility I, as an American, should take for it. Obviously it would be silly to feel guilty about the war itself, since it finished a decade before I was even born. But I did come to feel that as an American I had a responsibility to know about the war. Who fought it? What did they believe in? How did it change them? Perhaps you can be innocent of your forefathers decisions, but understanding those decisions — and their aftermath — is a burden we all have to carry.

After our day in Ho Chi Minh City we headed south to the Mekong Delta, a flat, green chunk of the country that's home to a tremendous amount of agriculture, aquaculture, and biodiversity. After spending four months in the brown, dry, dusty Middle East, the Mekong was a therapeutic change of scenery.

Life revolves around the river (apparently some areas are accessible by rivers and canals rather than roads), so it was fitting that we viewed it from an old rice barge that had been converted to a tourist boat. We spent three days on it, traveling up and down the Mekong. We stopped at floating markets, which were basically like a farmers market except that instead of being in a parking lot they were in the middle of the river, accessible only by boat. We also did a little bit of hiking and cycling.

My favorite part about the Mekong (besides seeing a ton of green activity packed into a small space) was sitting on the front of the boat with Rachael after the sun had set and watching the captain navigate the river using nothing more than a search light that he'd flip on for a few seconds at a time as we approached other boats. Besides that search light, it was just the moon, and the stars, and us.

Standing on the edge of Wadi Rum feels a bit like looking over the edge of a cliff. Behind you there's a small town with roads, a few shops, and a small school, and in front, nothing. Not anything that looks like civilization, anyway. Instead, there are towering sandstone spires that rise up from a flat desert floor. There isn't much greenery to speak of, nor are there buildings, roads, or many people.

Rachael and I had driven our rental car south along the main highway in Jordan and had parked it in a lot where it would stay for the next three days. Until then, our transportation would consist mostly of run-down Toyota trucks along with a short trip by camel.

Naja, the man who had helped us arrange our three day trek in Wadi Rum, met us with two cups of Bedouin tea, so-named because it appears to be as much a part of the culture as nomadism and living in tents. In our entire week in Jordan, I don't think we met a single Bedouin who failed to offer us a cup of the syrupy sweet, sage-flavored black tea.

Our time in Wadi Rum was to start with a short trip by camel to the main camp and then two days of trekking around the desert in a jeep with Naja's younger brother, Abdulrahkim. We'd return to the camp in the evenings for dinner and then set out early the next morning.

The first night we were there the sky was perfectly clear and I was looking forward to experiencing one of the things the area is known for: star gazing. Dry, cool air makes for better seeing, and being a mile above sea level doesn't hurt either. Unfortunately, the full moon spoiled most of those plans. It was simply too bright to see anything like the broad brush of the Milky Way I'd seen in pictures, and Abdulrahkim told me as much when I brought it up. Traditionally, Bedouins navigated using the stars, and I guess even though Abdulrahkim now owned a Blackberry and enjoyed posting to Facebook, he still knew what was up.

Despite knowing that I wasn't going to see anything very spectacular, I hauled out my camera and tripod shortly after the sun set and started taking pictures. After all, I could still see hundreds and hundreds of stars. Back home in Doha, I'm lucky if I can see thirty on any given night.

Rachael and I slept in really nice little tent with walls made of some sort of fresh, fragrant wood. There were two single beds, each with a Spiderman comforter. It got pretty cold that night, but it wasn't anything that couldn't be fixed by cuddling.

The next morning Rachael and I headed out with Abdulrahkim in his father's mid-70's beige Toyota truck. It was just the three of us, him up front and Rachael and me sitting on benches in the back underneath the shade of a Barbie fleece blanket.

Our first stop was a rock called Mushroom Rock which was shaped like…a mushroom. It was actually sort of funny to call attention to such an insignificant rock in such a stunning desert. I don't know that I could've really articulated it, but the real draw of Wadi Rum — for me, anyway — was not Mushroom Rock (nor the chicken-shaped rock we'd visit the next day). Luckily there weren't too many stops that included food-shaped rocks.

Next up was a several hour hike and scramble up one of the largest sandstone mountains in the area. At the top was a long and narrow arch which spans a gap a few hundred feet deep. It looked like it belonged in Arches National Park, except that you were allowed to walk across it. Pretty cool.

After we descended Abdulrahkim cooked some beans and tuna (a strange combination, to be sure) over a fire, added a salad, humus, and pita, and called it lunch. He said that some tour guides bring packed lunches but that's not as fun as eating a freshly cooked meal in the middle of the desert. I agree.

We spent the rest of that day and most of the next riding around in the truck checking out other cool parts of Wadi Rum, including canyons, dunes, and petroglyphs. It even broke down a few times, which I think added a bit of embarrassment for Abdulrahkim and Naja, though it was all part of the charm for Rachael and me. Especially when he showed me how to hot-wire it so that he could fix the distributor cap with a spoon.

Three days in the desert wasn't enough, but we had to make it back to the other side of the country to catch our flight home to Qatar. The drive back was uneventful (no breakdowns), as was the flight home. As far as one week trips in the Middle East go, this one was perfect.

Wadi Musa, which means valley of Moses, is right next to the ruins of Petra.

After trying to wash every last bit of salt off of our bodies after soaking in the Dead Sea, Rachael and I headed south along the coast and then up into the mountains toward Petra, the ancient Nabatean city nestled among towering pillars of sandstone. The drive took us from 1,400 feet below sea level to several thousand feet above it, as we wound up old, mostly deserted roads. The small towns we drove through on the way seemed pretty far off of the tourist trail, based on the gawking looks from adults and the waves from children.

The beautiful common area at the Rocky Mountain Hotel

Once we arrived in Wadi Musa, the city next to the ruins of Petra, we checked into a small hotel that Rachael had expertly researched online called the Rocky Mountain Resort. It was a decent and affordable place to stay, though its real shining quality came from the common space on the top floor. Not only was the view of Wadi Musa magnificent, but the whole place was outfitted with traditional carpet walls, floors, and roofs like a Bedouin tent. We ate our breakfasts and dinner here while during the few days we spent in Wadi Musa.

This is Al Khazneh (The Treasury, in English). You probably recognize it from an Indiana Jones movie.

If you came upon Al Khazneh (The Treasury, in English), you’d almost certainly recognize it. You may have seen it in a book, or more likely, in the third Indiana Jones movie, The Last Crusade. It’s one of the first ruins you see when you walk into Petra, and easily the most detailed. But unlike in the movie, it’s admired from the outside. Apparently visitors were once allowed entrance, but not anymore. That’s not such a shame, though. Rachael and I went inside a few of the other ruins, and they’re little more than empty, featureless rooms carved into the sandstone.

While walking through the ruins of Petra it’s easy to get the sense that you’re seeing the remnants of palaces, markets, and other buildings, but apparently the ruins were built as tombs for the dead rather than as homes for the living.

Rachael walking out of Petra through the Siq

The size of the ruins at Petra is impressive, as is the architecture and the way in which they are carved straight into the sides of cliffs. But the thing that I liked the most about Petra was the way we arrived. After purchasing tickets and walking down a dirt path for half a mile or so, we came upon what’s know as the Siq (pronounced “sick,” I think), a slot canyon with walls rising hundreds of feet above. As we walked through the Siq, it became narrower and narrower, until it was just wide enough to accommodate the two of us walking side by side.

Old pipes carved into the sandstone

Along the walls of the Siq there runs an old terracotta pipe that was used to carry fresh water into the city. Like the rest of the ruins at Petra, it’s carved straight into the sandstone.

Rachael and I spent two days exploring Petra, and hiked at least a dozen miles in the process. I don’t know why I had this idea, but I assumed Petra would be a bunch of ruins all relatively close to one another. In reality, though, they are very spread out, and we didn’t even get to all of them. Maybe it’s better to think of Petra as a few long, steep hikes that take you to a bunch of unique ruins. And the best part about this is if you show up early and strike out on one of the more difficult hikes, you’ll have most if the ruins all to yourself.

We wandered into one of the canyons and quickly found ourselves separated from other tourists and any sign that we were still in Petra. Olive and orange trees grew on either side of the path, and a small stream ran alongside it. We spotted some goats high up on one of the walls of the canyon, and them came upon their herder and his dog. The goatherd coaxed the goats back to the floor of the canyon and then began to lead the goats back downstream. We walked behind him and after a few paces he asked us the inevitable question, “Where you from?” America, we said, and then he handed us a couple oranges he’d grabbed from a nearby tree. They were delicious. As we began to part ways I offered him a dinar for his generosity, which refused until I insisted, saying it was the best orange I’d ever tasted. It wasn’t too far from the truth.

We wandered up a canyon and met a Bedouin family who invited us to share tea.

Once we had walked a few paces away he called after us in broken English. He said that his family was waiting nearby and wanted us to join them for tea. My gut reaction in these situations is to say no, because scams can be shrouded in generosity. But it seemed innocuous enough, so we followed him to a landing up on the rocks where he keeps his goats at night. Sure enough, three young kids ran out to greet him, and he handed each of them an orange from his pocket. He hollered something at his wife and motioned for us to follow.

He showed us the pen where he keeps his goats, a large room carved into the sandstone that was probably a Nabatean tomb 2,000 years ago. It was a good example of the fact that Petra is not simply a bunch of roped off ruins. I saw tombs off the beaten path being used to house souvenir shops, irrigation pipe, generators, and even one truck. I guess you could say that it violates the purity of the place, but it’s hard to fault the Bedouins for taking advantage of tombs built by their ancestors.

We sat with Solomon, his kids, and his wife for about an hour sipping Bedouin tea, a really sweet black tea mixed with sage. We didn’t have a lot of English in common, but frankly there just isn’t always that much to say. I let his kids play with my camera and then Solomon offered to share a cigarette with me, but I declined. Then he got out his wallet, laid out pictures of his wife and three other women, and asked me a question: “Of all my wives, which is best?”