Middle Eastern Fun Like No Other

Have you ever wondered what an amusement park looks like in the Middle East?  Well, here is one example.  This is the gloriously UNfamous Gondolania in Doha that is housed inside the Villagio Mall - yes, indoors is the only place you can find a roller coaster in this hot desert.  Villagio is a Venice, Italy themed mall complete with painted cloud ceilings and a canal where you can float in a gondola and have all the abaya-clad ladies stare at you while they shop at Dolce & Gabbana - but that is another blog post.

We went to Gondolania for the first time over the Eid break in September because desperate times call for desperate measures.  Two other families joined us and it almost felt like a real holiday outing, complete with KFC thanks to Axel.

 

The fun started at the climbing ball maze so the adults watched as the kids got lost in their own little chaos.  We only had the occassional interruption for bathroom breaks.  Then it was off to the races for the dads.  Brett, Axel, and Karl climbed into miniature race cars and played make believe for about thirty minutes. This is probably one of Brett's highlights of Doha so far with only the Islamic Museum of Art and Dunebashing ahead of that. 

 

 

Terah and Afton help cheer on the men.

 

Abbey and Heavah enjoyed this ride the most.



One of my favorite parts of the day was watching the abayas fly up and down and hear the screams of these usually very quiet women. Yes, there are some odd adventures in our life these days.