My first days in Doha

Hi there!
I know I promised to start this blog as soon as I could, and this is the time. I've been here for a week now and got a laptop on the weekend, so now I'm good to go.

The flights from Halifax to Doha took forever, it seemed. The flights were great, except for the one from London to Doha when I large family with several young children were seated right in front of me. All was well until near the end of 6.5 hours of the flight, when the kids got antsy and bored... only their cute Cockney accents saved me from doing some disciplining - the parents and cousins seemed oblivious to the noise.

All my luggage (even the one I paid extra to take along) made it all the way with me, which was a miracle. But I knew I wasn't in Canada anymore when my glasses fogged up as I walked from the plane to the bus taking us to the airport terminal. 

The first two days I spent in the Movenpick Hotel, which was heavenly. This was the view from my room window:

It's Ramadan right now, so these tents are set up where people gather to celebrate after sundown, when they break their fast. Apparently the college's HR people are trying to arrange for us to attend one of these celebrations soon. You can see the Corniche in the background, along with the harbour area.

And this is what I saw in one of the corners of my hotel room:

It's to show Muslims which direction Mecca is in! And as it's Ramadan now, it's illegal for anyone to eat, drink or smoke in public from sunup to sundown because devout Muslims fast during that time and we have to be respectful of their observances. So we all have to be very careful about finding a private place to take a sip of water or eat. At the university, they're providing us with an enclosed area where we can't be seen having coffee and lunch during the fasting hours. And Doha is very quiet now compared to what it's usually like... which is chaos on the roads, apparently! Once the Eid holiday is over, I'll get to see the real Doha.


What I have seen during the day is usually filtered through the heat haze. So everything looks like this:

This is the view from my hotel window, looking towards the centre of the city. According to what I've been told, most of these very tall buildings were built only in the past five years. When the college was originially set up here in 2001, there were only a few buildings higher than three storeys.


And that's where I'll end my first blog entry. I hope you enjoyed it and I'll let you know when my next entry is ready for viewing :-)