On Arrival Week 1
An English Girl Abroad – Life Qatar
We’re here for three weeks today, although it does seem longer. This was such a longed for trip, I’m not too sure why I feel so melancholy. One reason might be that I’m not using my grey matter much so have decided to keep a blog on what it’s like being here. These early days provide a unique insight into the upheaval of relocation and the complicated structure of a new society which we want to integrate into. On that basis it’s high time I got started.
We left Brighton in blaze of glorious sunshine, really pissed me off. The miserable grey weather was one of the main motivators behind leaving the country, but our house by the sea had never looked so fabulous in its recently painted, overhauled, de-cluttered occupation by us.
The packers had been through the house like mini tornados over the past two days and we were sure if we stayed still for a minute we’d have been rammed in a box, covered in bubble wrap and packed in the container. We slept overnight at Gatwick Hilton and without much of a backward glance, flew away.
We both were anticipating a hellish time at the other end, our previous trip had seen us spend a gruelling hour queuing up for passport control and we thought this time would be worse, plus waiting for luggage but we were wrong, straight through and out the other end in less then half an hour, very pleasantly surprised.
However we were not surprised that our driver had not turned up again – !!! but better prepared, we grabbed a taxi and I bit my nails as I watched the meter clock up the Riyals from ten to 20 to 30, then remembered that’s only a fiver. It turns out you can get to anywhere in Doha, pretty much, with a fiver.
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