Jolly well forgot to bring the doc for my camera so I can’t post anymore pics today, will have to do it next time. It’s a long hot walk to the internet café and it’s only going to get hotter!

It’s Friday and I have finished my 2 week of work in Doha. The work load is slowly starting to come on and we are getting used to the way things are done around here, slowly and with signatures from all the top notches. Not possible to do anything without the right signature but you have to go to one person who takes it to the next and so on, it takes ages to get anything done. Bec and I are working on the training for the supervisors and the volunteers that will be running the resident centres at the athletes village. There will be over 100 people that we’ll need to train so it’s going to be exciting.

Work is pretty sweet but it’s freezing in the air conditioning, it’s actually not nice most of the time and we have to rug up to go to work while its 45 degrees outside, quite strange brining a jumper to work. They have tea boys who come around throughout the day and make you tea, coffee, frappes and hibiscus tea. They remember what you like too and so by 7:40am I’m at my desk (usually on hotmail for the fist 30 mins so write to me!) and I have a nice cup of tea. There’s also our own little star bucks in the building next door so we are pretty spoiled, although it’s user pays. They also have bank desks, tour and travel agents, rent a car places and anything else we might need so it’s pretty easy to get organised. I thought we would take a while to get everything we needed but they basically have done it all for us.

At the moment we are waiting to get our residents permit. Once we have that we are able to rent a car, get a house and most importantly get our alcohol license! It’s pretty much a dry country but we are lucky that the Qatari people understand the importance of a cold beer on a hot day. So although they don’t usually engage in it themselves they are happy for us to drink in bars and buy alcohol, the amount of which is calculated by a percentage of your wage, but only from 1 shop in the whole country!! And it’s just as well as im not sure how exciting the football would have been otherwise. I have to admit that I have been supporting the Australians in their plight to get into the next round of the world cup, which I can report after a 2-2 draw with Croatia they have. I’m also afraid to admit that as of now I do believe that I have sung their national anthem far more times than I have recited my own. Damn Aussies!!

Quite a funny story…. The fist time a group of us went to the supermarket and went through different aisles to pay I was the only one to come out with two free mugs! So happy was I and how jealous everyone was of my sparkly new Carrefore (name of the supermarket) mugs. The next time we went to the supermarket and went through different aisles again I was handed a ‘free item’ this time a chocolate bar. However when I later examined my receipt I discovered chocolate bar .50 derhams! Robbed. The truth in this case was that the worth of their half dollar is very little so when the bill comes to say QR10.50 they either round it down to 10 or add something to make it 11. Oh well the chocolate bar was really nice, would have paid more for it ;)

Time to tell you all about my weekend. We went to the Four Seasons marina to meet the rest of the people coming and our tour operator Khalifa, not really a tour operator, a local Qatari guy who works in my department. He kindly takes out his boat and jet skis each weekend so people can hang out and enjoy the wonderful Qatari water! A few of Khalifa’s friends also brought out their boats and jet skis. We left the marina about 5pm and it took 20mins to get to the sand bar, which is a large strip of land in the middle of the sea. There were heaps of boats and jet skis everywhere it was quite a site. Maybe 60 boats all anchored along the sand bar with people having BBQ’s swimming and jet skiing. The water must have been about 35 degrees, not very refreshing, and with the constant threat of jellyfish. Luckily we didn’t see any, last week two people were stung while they were swimming. We spend the whole day on the jet skis, there were 3 of them. On the fastest on we got up to about 135km which is pretty scary. I only managed to get to 90km before backing off! When it started getting dark the numbers dwindled and we were some of the only boats left. An amazing site with the lights of the city in the background and a few boat lights dotted along the sand bar. People were sill jet skiing under the moonlight. When it was really dark the water glowed when you moved in it. I think it’s called phosphor essence it’s like this green sparkly stuff in the water that glows when the water is moved. It looks amazing when the jet skis or the boats are moving and it all sprays up behind it. We were in the water for like 6 hours, much nicer after the sun went down as it cooled a lot. The water is like a spa its so warm. The boats we were out on were soooo cool, with massive motors and brand new shiny white with room down starts, very flash!!
We headed back to the marina about 1am and the other boat + 2 of the jet skis ran out of petrol so we had to tow them back! It was a mission trying to get a large speed boat back to its berth with no fuel heehee.
We then spent 2 hours in the pool of the four seasons hotel a very enjoyable day.

Saturday (like Sunday as the weekend is fir, sat) Bec, Ellen and I went out to the intercontinental. The girls got massages while I sat browning by the pool. Its almost too hot though and there is no way you can sit in the sun before 3pm. The sun comes up about 4:30 – 5am so by 11am its bloody hot. The sun sets about 5:30-6pm no daylight saving here. We had a lovely lunch at the Italian restaurant and then headed home. Didn’t do much the rest of the day and then back to work on Sunday.

PICTURES!!

Ok this is the like seriously the 10th time i have tried to load this picture!!!! My god how hard can it be. Hope i dont totally bore you with the info overload below but i just had so much to say!

YAY YAY YAY ok this is a pic of Doha city as we flew in from Dubai. Its strange to see the sprouting little citys and compounds in the middle of the desert!! There is nothing for miles then pop a little plot of buildings.


This is a rather hazy picture of Doha city with all the cranes! We were on our way to the sand bar for a boat party and jet skiing but that is a story for another day. See how like evey building has a crane!! There is so much construction going on here it like a kids set of Lego city!! This is at about 5pm the haze is mostly dust from the sandy land and from all the construction.



This is the lounge room of our guest house where we are staying. It's pretty flash. We are ment to be there for 2 weeks before we move into our company housing but as its falling down we will be here for about a month. Not a bad thing really and means we are all together and its free so puts rent of for a little longer :)
I share a house with KT from Melbourne and Rafeala from Torino Italy.


This picture was taken at the camel, goat and sheep market. Locals come to purchase these camels for meat. They are massive. We later went to a Souq which is the name for a local market and saw some of the pots and pans they use to cook them, massive! When it cools down a little we are going to go for a camel ride out in the desert. It's too hot now and they have suspended them till september. Its not unusual for it to reach 50 degrees in the summer!



Will publish more pics soon, they keep deleting on me, plus its starting to get dark and dont want the hebegebes to get me!

My first week

I arrived in Doha on Saturday at 9am and was met by a driver to take me to the guest house where i’m now staying. There were about 15 of us from a couple of different flights. The men and women were separated into two different busses and we were taken to the Luxurious Apartments. Its lovely here, there are 3 apartments on each floor, 5 floors with a gym on the top floor. I share with two other girls, one from Melbourne and the other from the Torino Italy Winter Olympics. We each have a room, there are 3 toilets a massive kitchen, lounge and dining room, big tv! It’s fully furnished and so flash. A little cold at times as everyone in this country insists on having the air-conditioning set to minus 10!! Ok 21 but that’s cold when you come inside from a muggy 35 degrees. We stay here for free for 2 weeks while we find accommodation or wait to be placed in DAGOC Company housing. Due to the little “falling down” incident it’s likely we’ll be here for about a month. Free! Sounds good to me!

Saturday we were picked up by Lauren who has been living in Doha about 6 weeks. She took us to a big shopping centre so we could have some lunch and go to the supermarket ect. She then took us on a quick tour of the offices and the HUGE Athletes Village which is where i’m working. The village for the Asian Games will house over 10,300 athletes and officials so its going to be a big job, twice the size of the Commonwealth Games.

Here the week starts on Sunday and goes till Thursday. Sunday morning we caught the work shuttle from the guest house at 6:45am! Work hours here are 7:30-2:30. We were taken to a medical centre to have a blood test and an x-ray as they test for certain things for us to be allegeable for our residency permits. There was a lot of waiting around, almost 5 hours so we were thankful to get home to have a rest before going into town again.

Monday we had a city tour. We were taken first to the camel, sheep and goat sale yards. These camels are brought for meat and later we were shown the huge pots and pans they use for cooking and I mean HUGE!!! Camel meat is quite popular in the local families but it’s illegal to sell it in restaurants. Next we were taken to the Fruit and Vegetable Souqs. Souq is the word for market and there are fish, gold, vegetable and fruit and goods souqs. The prices are very reasonable and I brought lots of very fresh vegetables and fruit for only 16QR. The gold markets were amazing, I have never seen anything like the jewelry they have here it’s unbelievable. I spoke to one of the store men about the diamonds he was selling and the best quality one he had sparkled like nothing I have ever seen before, it was about the size of 2 pin heads and was US$7,000. Didn’t spend too long looking in that shop. It was funny walking around thought and being hassled into coming into their stores with such invites as “missy please come you no buy just take a look, its ok just take a look, the pretty lady discount store.” Heehee

We visited the Souq Waqif where you can buy dried fruit, nuts and spices, clothing, fabric and cooking equipment, big enough to cook a camel! It was full of amazing sites and smells. Before settling down for a cold drink we walked into a bird store. The local people have falcons and eagles for pets and this store was full of birds and birding accessories such as little hats and cages. Many of the places you stop for drinks and food also sell Sisha which is a traditional pipe for smoking tobacco, often flavored. You often see men sharing these pipes in the coffee houses.
Monday afternoon we went out to the Diplomatic club, one of the many country clubs in Qatar. One of the girls i’m living with organized her membership from the USA and we went with her to collect her membership card and have a look around. Very posh, even had its own private beach. There was a swimming pool, gym, sports facilities and sail, canoe, windsurfing hire as well as 3 lovely restaurants. We had lunch at one on the beach. We ordered drinks and before we had even ordered food they brought out plates of bread, pickled vegetables, olives and fresh vegetables, bringing more baskets of bread before we had event finished the first one.

Tuesday was our induction day; we arrived at work as usual at 7am and waited till 8am to start the session. We were given masses of forms to fill out and told about the company and the games. This finished about 11am and we were taken back to the guesthouse. A friend and I decided to go out in search of an internet café. Risking our lives in the sweltering heat and to cross the ever threatening Qatari roads where you have to look in the other direction, got to get used to that. That evening I went to a training centre to help with the first induction of our volunteers for the village and to meet others in my department.

Wednesday we were taken to immigration for finger printing and blood typing. Another day with lots of waiting around. We had every possible section of our fingers and palms inked and printed about 3 times. Then taken to another medical centre to get a finger prick for blood typing. Not sure why they needed that and would really trust the results as his documenting methods left many chances for sabotage, mostly by the air-conditioning fan blowing right onto his desk. He would take the register sheet from us and put it at the bottom of his pile, no number or anything. Prick our finger and rub it on the slide which he then placed in a line with all the others, also with no numbers?????? Dodgy system.

Over all this place is going great and i’m loving it. It’s great to be a newy with everyone else, also knowing that there are new people coming all the time. Work is pretty slow at the moment in our department so I’ve been told to make my stack of manual and policy reading take as long as I can. Apparently there is a lunch lady that will cook you lunch everyday for a monthly fee. It’s all very easy and we are being very well looked after. Cannot complain. Hopefully they will build our house a little stronger than the other one!

Unfortunately due to the coming summer months and the heat many of the desert tours have been suspended until September. We are entitled to 25 days annual leave which we cannot take until our 2 month probationary period is up which is about the 11 August. We found out today that all leave is suspended from the 17th August until the end of the games as we are needed to work so that shortens my holiday plans a little. There are the weekends though and we can get trips to Dubai and other surrounding countries for a good price to travel on the weekend.
The camel racing season begins in October and there are countless beaches, social clubs, classes and water sports to keep us entertained. Life here is going to be great.

Doha, State of Qatar

This is such an amazing place and nothing like what I ever imagined. Not that I’m really sure what I thought it would be like. Its getting into summer and the temperature is about 35 degrees most days. In the summer months of July August it can reach as high as 50 and it’s much more humid than I was expecting, because it is a peninsular and almost totally surrounded by water. Doha is the capital and more than 50% of the countries population lives here in this city. There are about 800,000 people living in this country only 200,000 of which are actually Qatari people. The rest of them come from all over the world.

The land is sandy and covered with rubble. There is little grass except outside wealthy homes and some buildings, which is watered constantly. Petrol is so cheep here I thought they were exaggerating when they said petrol is cheaper than water, they weren’t. It costs about 20 Qatari Riyals for a pint of beer and only 25 to fill a normal sized sedan. Water costs about 1 Qatari Riyals per liter!! (There are approx 2.7 QR to the Australian dollar) so that makes a tank of petrol about $9.25 aussie to fill your tank. I’ll try my best to bring some back ok! Taxis are very cheap a 15 minute ride only 7QR and if you hire a limousine (not really a limo by our standards it just means a big flash Toyota) then its about 35 QR / hour. There is a bus system but it has only been in service for about 5 months and most people don’t know about it. Some of the taxi drivers speak a little English, but they don’t know the names of the roads they navigate by landmarks. To get to the place where we are staying we say, KFC roundabout (yes as in the chicken place) and we can direct them from there. Probably a good thing as it we’d have a hard time trying to pronounce the Arabic street names.

The best way I can describe Qatar is unfinished and random. It’s a tiny country only about 11,500 sq kilometers but at present there must be at least 50 buildings under construction just in the city of Doha. There are huge holes everywhere and the roads are being dug up and changed which makes getting around a little tricky. Sometimes you would drive down a road then come to a road block and have to drive all the way back and find another route. The road system works on 5 rings around the city inside each other and then many long straight road sprouting from the rings going out as far as you can see.
They seem to use much of the traditional way of building on many of the new constructions, which I’m sure would never pass any sort of standards in our country. The new DAGOC (the company I work for) housing had to be evacuated last week as its falling down. People have only just moved in there and it’s brand new. A little scary. Thankfully all the hotels and stadiums we are building are a little more stable, though i’m not sure where I’ll be living for a while.

It’s a strange place to look at and as I said looks very unfinished. There isn’t any dirt as such so when they have finished a building it just stands in the middle of a sandy rocky plot unless they bring in the landscapers or pave/tar seal the surrounding land. There is a huge amount of development going on for the games and it will be interesting to see the country develop over the next 7 months.

They are currently constructing an island called the Pearl. Similar to “The World” and “The Palm” in Dubai which holds hundreds of houses, apartments as well as shopping centers on a man made pearl shaped island.

It’s a very safe place, you often see people park their car outside a building, leave the key in the ignition and the doors unlooked while they pop into the bank or a store so they don’t have to turn off the air conditioning. One of the people at my company, who has been working for a while, went on holiday for 5 weeks and forgot to lock his house. He discovered his door unlocked when he returned and nothing had been touched. There is almost no crime and the punishments are very strict.

Here people drive on the U.S.A side of the road, fast and I almost think they just close their eyes and put their foot down. Lots of very busy round abouts where people sometimes park their cars, and drop people off!! Most people have massive 4wd’s hummers, big jeeps and land cruisers. There are also busses just like the ones on The Simpson’s, the big yellow school busses for local school kids.

It has been more than a month since my last entry. I have moved to the Middle East to live in Doha, Qatar to work with the Asian Games.

I had a great time in New Zealand for two months with mum! It was really good to spend some time with her and get away from Melbourne for a while. It was very busy Jan-April with the Commonwealth Games, moving house and country, and having a little car accident. New Zealand was relaxing and mum looked after me really well!
I went back to Melbourne on the 4th June for my university graduation. Finally have my little pieces of paper. I flew out from Melbourne on the 9th June to Dubai on Emirates. The flight took 13 hours but was ok as left at 11pm and there were over 600 channels of movies, television, news and radio to be entertained by. After a 3 ½ hour stopover in Dubai we took off to Doha.