Yesterday was a very British day in Doha. Well as British as you can get in the desert anyway. Our company had been invited to participate in a British high street event at a party for Queen Liz at the British Embassy. This is the second time I've arrived somewhere new to live and ended up at an Embassy event within a few days of landing. I'm a bit narked I didn't get an invite in New Zealand now!
Anyway back to Doha. The party was fab, everyone was loving Lush (of course) we had amazing goody bags, lovely pampering treatments and we made the awesome Space Girl bath ballistic. Lush aside it was really great to see some other awesome British brands there on the night. I went home beaming, what a start to my role here so many people exposed to the wonders of Lush yay!
I do have to mention my faux pas of the night, come on you've all been waiting for the first one. So they had a brass band playing at the start of the night to welcome the guests and let's just say they weren't your traditional British brass band. They played a couple of tunes, threw in some bagpipes and then they played the Great Escape music. You know England football fans, that tune they play in the crowd at matches and for some reason I found this just hysterical. Obviously no one else did. Of course this just made me laugh more, people around me not overly impressed. Cue more laughing. I did manage to recover eventually but had the tune in my head aaaaaallll night long.
Right now I'm battling with wifi in the hotel so I might just post this and quit rambling for now. I'm planning on a bit of exploring tomorrow it should be quiet in the morning so I can get about a bit easier. I will take some photos too :)
Thursday, 10 April 2014
Monday, 7 April 2014
Cheers drive
My first couple of days have passed in a bit of a jet lagged haze here in ever so sunny Doha. Note to self, no need to look outside to check the weather as it's always going to be clear skies and sunny. Apparently rain is a major event here, like everyone stop what you're doing and go outside it's raining type thing. I look forward to that.
The first two days at work have been great, although on day one I did slip into standby mode a couple of times. It was pretty hard fighting my brain telling me it was clearly bed time when in fact it was only lunchtime. I just sniffed the soap to bring me round. I should point out that I was at the lovely Lush shop, not just randomly pulling chunks of soap out of my bag to sniff.
The shop is lovely they had a refit last year so it's all shiny and the team are all shiny too. I'm so very lucky, I just hope the soap sniffing on day one didn't disappoint them - I was much better today I managed full conversations and everything, jet lag be gone! I was also tremendously excited by the huge number of other British brands in the mall where the current shop is. I know that's probably a bit sad but Nelson wasn't exactly a shopping mecca.
I also managed to find myself somewhere to live today, score! I'm going to be sharing a nice villa (OK house) with a Canadian, American and Croatian ooh get me. It's on a lovely compound with a pool and it's close to the one and only booze shop in Doha. Yay! I'll be in the hotel for a bit longer but that's all good, I need to get a bed sorted first!
OK time to sign off I'm running out of steam, jet lag not quite be gone. I will finish this post with a brief note about the driving here. It's best described as bonkers, in the most part due to the vast number of cars on the road. After the quiet roads of New Zealand it's a bit of a shock to the system. I feel like all the traffic I escaped in Blighty over the last 19 months has passed in front of my eyes in the last two days. Even my in built sat-nav skills are going to be tested here. Thank you to my lovely company for deciding it's best I don't start driving for the first few weeks. I will be saying cheers drive for as long as possible me thinks.
The first two days at work have been great, although on day one I did slip into standby mode a couple of times. It was pretty hard fighting my brain telling me it was clearly bed time when in fact it was only lunchtime. I just sniffed the soap to bring me round. I should point out that I was at the lovely Lush shop, not just randomly pulling chunks of soap out of my bag to sniff.
The shop is lovely they had a refit last year so it's all shiny and the team are all shiny too. I'm so very lucky, I just hope the soap sniffing on day one didn't disappoint them - I was much better today I managed full conversations and everything, jet lag be gone! I was also tremendously excited by the huge number of other British brands in the mall where the current shop is. I know that's probably a bit sad but Nelson wasn't exactly a shopping mecca.
I also managed to find myself somewhere to live today, score! I'm going to be sharing a nice villa (OK house) with a Canadian, American and Croatian ooh get me. It's on a lovely compound with a pool and it's close to the one and only booze shop in Doha. Yay! I'll be in the hotel for a bit longer but that's all good, I need to get a bed sorted first!
OK time to sign off I'm running out of steam, jet lag not quite be gone. I will finish this post with a brief note about the driving here. It's best described as bonkers, in the most part due to the vast number of cars on the road. After the quiet roads of New Zealand it's a bit of a shock to the system. I feel like all the traffic I escaped in Blighty over the last 19 months has passed in front of my eyes in the last two days. Even my in built sat-nav skills are going to be tested here. Thank you to my lovely company for deciding it's best I don't start driving for the first few weeks. I will be saying cheers drive for as long as possible me thinks.
Saturday, 5 April 2014
Kasia is officially in Qatar
So I finally made it to Qatar, more specifically Doha. I should warn you now not to have high hopes for this blog post as I am beyond delirious right now. I don't sleep well on planes and after two flights and losing about 10 hours along the way I'm a little confused about what day it is right now. My brain has definitely been telling me for the last few hours to sleep that's all I know.
After a bit drama at Auckland airport the rest of the journey was a breeze and thankfully there was a nice driver from the hotel which is my temporary residence to meet me at Doha airport. I got my fix of new arrival joy, you know where you stare gormlessly out the window of whatever mode of transport takes you to your accommodation when you arrive somewhere new. It's one of my favourite things about travelling, that moment where everything is new and exciting/weird. Things to note in Doha, many cranes because it's literally a city under construction, no one uses their inidicators, it's all yellow - cue Coldplay.
I went out for a little walk whilst I was still capable of making basic decisions like - turn left, walk down there etc and discovered, well not a lot. I'm not going to lie, it was hot, the directions the nice man on reception gave me were a complete lie and I was getting sleepier by the step. See I told you not to hold out too much for this post. In more exciting news I have a remote in my room for the lights that changes the colour and speed and some other buttons I'm too scared to touch after the few minutes where I had them stuck on strobe which were not so much fun. Fingers crossed I can work out how to turn them off when it's sleep time or my first day at work tomorrow could be interesting...
After a bit drama at Auckland airport the rest of the journey was a breeze and thankfully there was a nice driver from the hotel which is my temporary residence to meet me at Doha airport. I got my fix of new arrival joy, you know where you stare gormlessly out the window of whatever mode of transport takes you to your accommodation when you arrive somewhere new. It's one of my favourite things about travelling, that moment where everything is new and exciting/weird. Things to note in Doha, many cranes because it's literally a city under construction, no one uses their inidicators, it's all yellow - cue Coldplay.
I went out for a little walk whilst I was still capable of making basic decisions like - turn left, walk down there etc and discovered, well not a lot. I'm not going to lie, it was hot, the directions the nice man on reception gave me were a complete lie and I was getting sleepier by the step. See I told you not to hold out too much for this post. In more exciting news I have a remote in my room for the lights that changes the colour and speed and some other buttons I'm too scared to touch after the few minutes where I had them stuck on strobe which were not so much fun. Fingers crossed I can work out how to turn them off when it's sleep time or my first day at work tomorrow could be interesting...
Tuesday, 1 April 2014
One for the road
So I'm still in sunny Nelson, sans the sun today. I'm at the slightly tense packing stage that my Mum knows only too well. She might recall a slight melt down when I was packing for Nigeria, it's not quite as bad as that time. I'm very organised this time around but I am beginning to wonder how all of the stuff dotted around my room is going to fit into the one suitcase that isn't yet packed...There's no rule about how many clothes you can wear on the plane right?
I am really proud of my packing foo actually, I have come along way from the Kasia of 2011, there hasn't been a tantrum yet. The baggage handlers might have one when they try and lift my bags however. I have culled a fair few things along the way, I suspect the local op shops are totally loving me. As I had planned on applying for residency here in the New Year I had begun to accumulate 'general stuff' which now of course is not needed, or is not really transportable. For a hoarder like myself I'm sure you can imagine this has been a difficult few weeks.
Last night I got the final details through for where I'll be staying when I first arrive in Doha. I'm in a hotel for the first two weeks whilst I try and find somewhere to live. It all of a sudden felt very real when I could see pictures of the place I'll be staying and had confirmed arrangements for a driver to pick me up and bring me to my new offices on Sunday. Friday and Saturday are the weekend days out in the Middle East so Sunday is the new Monday. Confusing for me as Sunday and Monday were my old days off. It's all getting very real now, cripes!
Right I'm going to stop packing avoiding, and get some more important jobs done, like work out how many layers I can feasibly wear and still sit down in. But first I think I might open a bottle of wine...
I am really proud of my packing foo actually, I have come along way from the Kasia of 2011, there hasn't been a tantrum yet. The baggage handlers might have one when they try and lift my bags however. I have culled a fair few things along the way, I suspect the local op shops are totally loving me. As I had planned on applying for residency here in the New Year I had begun to accumulate 'general stuff' which now of course is not needed, or is not really transportable. For a hoarder like myself I'm sure you can imagine this has been a difficult few weeks.
Last night I got the final details through for where I'll be staying when I first arrive in Doha. I'm in a hotel for the first two weeks whilst I try and find somewhere to live. It all of a sudden felt very real when I could see pictures of the place I'll be staying and had confirmed arrangements for a driver to pick me up and bring me to my new offices on Sunday. Friday and Saturday are the weekend days out in the Middle East so Sunday is the new Monday. Confusing for me as Sunday and Monday were my old days off. It's all getting very real now, cripes!
Right I'm going to stop packing avoiding, and get some more important jobs done, like work out how many layers I can feasibly wear and still sit down in. But first I think I might open a bottle of wine...
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