Hazzar!

Hazzar! Gene & I will be sharing accommodation as of Saturday. Even better still we get to stay at Al Waab which is where the bulk of the people I know are staying. Now all I need to do is work out when the dry cleaners are open (for sheets etc) and how to get there!

Notes

One thing I've discovered, in Doha, is that I can only send emails via a web-based email page. This is rather frustrating when just wanting to say a quick hello to someone who hasn't sent you an email in a while. So I've decided to do a few notes to people instead based on the assumption that if they don't read the blog someone who knows them will pass the message on if they read it. Did that make sense?

In no particular order...

Nick C, if you find time to check out Fringe, say hi to Sara & the gang for me. Anyone else reading this should feel free to say hi to Sara for me as well, but as I know that Nick actually knows who I'm talking about I thought it might be easier for him to do so.

Mum & Dad hope the China trip is still going well. Keep off the local food Mum! Enjoy your desert experience.

Fi, how's the new place? Hope you're settling in well. Miss having a place to call home! It's a little weird not to have one. Say hi to Mark for me and give Tori (Tory?) a hug.

Naomi, I can't believe you're back in Melbourne in just under two weeks. Seems like ages since I saw you last after swing dancing. Enjoy the last of your time in Indonesia and have lots of fun! Even with the 4am wake ups :)

Tanya, Apricots Tomorrow will be on its way probably next week along with The Son of A Duck Is A Floater, I'm just waiting on the later to be in stock.

Matt, hope rehearsals are going well, send photos or something? Really wish I could be there to see it as everything you work on is always amazing. Don't stress, all will be well!

Philby, hope everything went to plan for you last week! It was good to hear from you. You missed out on a tasty brunch! Maybe after Ramadan eh? :)

Lisa, Paris still sounds amazing. Can't wait to catch up with you! The airline better be giving you lots stuff to make up for your luggage shmozzle.

Nic, all the best with your show. Look forward to hearing about it!

Paul & Deb, always great to hear from you both. Some excellent names in that email! How's the house going? (I seem to ask this a lot)

Rami & Caroline, love reading your blog. Wish I could make it for one of the meals! Maybe you'll still be going when we get back! All the best for the thesis Rami.

That's all for now, if I haven't left a "note" for you, I haven't forgotten you, I've probably been in contact with you recently. Miss you all!

A brief pause

You can't half tell that this is the week that Gene's on night shift can you? I guess that's why I posted so much in Melbourne in between work. Gives me something to keep me busy.

Well, that and it gives me a brief pause from my obsessive email checking. As there's nothing of note I find myself checking it quite often. Don't get me wrong, there's usually five or so emails each day. Arts Hub, fun things to do in Melbourne, discount holidays from Melbourne and even better... my internet bill for the service that I'm currently not using. My email's fascinating and personal!

I've taken to reading The Age everyday as a source of news from Oz. Largely because I had the weather page bookmarked from when I was in Melbourne. I sigh wistfully at the 20 degree fine weather that I see all too often lately.

It's 35 degrees and "smoke" according to Weather Underground as of 41 minutes ago.

For those of you who are still in Melbourne please go and see lots of Fringe Shows or at the very least spend a night or two at the Festival Club Bar at the North Melbourne Town Hall. I'm really quite sad that I miss out on Fringe this year as it's been a highlight of my year for the last three or so years. It looks like there's plenty to see and it opens tomorrow night.

Snoooooooze

They say that sleep deprivation can have a similar effect to being drunk in terms of impairment of your body’s ability to function.

As I may have mentioned in an earlier post I’ve started to make friends with the snooze button on my alarm. In fact we go way back to the days of sprinting out the door to get to anywhere I needed to be early in the morning. We interacted several times this morning. Enough to have me sprinting out of the house to be blinded by the sunlight. I knew I’d forgotten something… left my sunnies at work as usual. Stumbled a little towards the bus stop, cursed my lack of coordination for anything other than pushing the snooze button, then discovered that said shuttle bus wasn’t there yet. I was a little early. I have a feeling it’s going to take me a bit to settle into the day.

Ramadan has started and we’re doing our best to adjust to the different cultural etiquette that comes into play during the next lunar cycle. Us girls have to cover our shoulders and preferably our elbows but luckily don’t need to worry about a headscarf or anything like that. We can wear skirts as long as they cover the knees (even while sitting) but pants are preferable. The boys are lucky because they get to wear t-shirts (they have to keep their shoulders covered too) and they even get to wear shorts at work. In public they have to be wearing long pants. Eating & drinking in public during the day is a no-no. Water is okay if you’re working in the sun. Chewing gum is not allowed either. Aside from those courtesies and horrible traffic at around 6pm when everyone rushes to the mosques to pray and break their fast after the final prayer, I haven’t really seen much else of the celebration.

This Friday I’m going to try and go to the Corniche to check out some of the Ramadan tents. They’re meant to be amazing.

Four Seasons In One Day

My computer (obviously not the one I'm on now) has thrown a hissy fit. IT are onto it but I figure I have a couple of minutes for a quick update.

Antibiotics are doing wonders. Can't possibly forget to take them as I start getting vague and dizzy when I forget. Missed today's check up though... whoops. Maybe on Wednesday when the doctors are in again...

The weather lately has been wonderful. The since Friday the weather has been a pleasant 32˚C during the day. Sometimes there was even a breeze that was cooler than the air temperature! I have a feeling the dust was blocking out the sun a bit and that's what caused the cooler days. Today the sky was rather clear and we were back to 38˚C. Happily our evenings are sitting on 28˚C so we get some respite from the heat.

Over the weekend I took Gene shopping at Landmark so that we could get some decent fruits & vegetables. Naturally the only fruit we ended up bringing home were dried cranberries, a necessity for life. Gene even got roped into installing Age of Empires II on the spice/nut seller's computer at the supermarket. Not sure how he ended up doing that... Gene reckons it was his glasses that made him look like a computer geek. It was a fairly successful shopping trip otherwise. We found a watch for Gene with visible clockwork that's self-charging.

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Well, I started this post five days ago and I figured it's time to finish it now.

Yesterday was our weekend making today is the start of a new week. All in all it was a good week last week!

Gene, Anneke, Mel and I made our first journey to the Souqs on Sunday. I think we ended up in the textile souqs but I can't be 100% sure. I base that thought solely on the large number of fabric shops that we passed by. It was a fairly successful shopping trip for me, although I'm far too short to wear the dresses that I was after (circle dress mentioned in a previous post). I think I'm going to get one made before I leave. I also found a dress that looked (depending on your point of view) a little like the dress the kid in Final Fantasy X wears (Gene reckons it looked Jedi). It had long bell sleeves and a hood. It was awesome! Sadly the small sizes were meant for people with a better build than I have. Again I may yet get this one made for me.

I ended up with a couple of wraps (100% cotton, I'm ready for Ramadan!) a top which is essentially a square folded in half diagonally and seamed to give it "sleeves" and an abaya which has a gorgeous domino pattern on the gauze-like material it's made of. The plan is to convert it into an overdress (which is not unlike its actual purpose). Beautiful fabric & made.

Speaking of Ramadan, there is every possibility tonight will be the first night! How exciting :) We're looking forward to checking out the Ramadan Tents at night to join in the festivities. "Chrismas everyday for 30 days" is the description we've had so far. Should be fun!

With only 69 days to go until the Opening Ceremony things are starting to get a little busier at which is always good! I like keeping busy, it's more fun that way and means that I'll get more done on my day off!

Yesterday was a fantastic day in every sense of the word. The lovely Amy Wee organised for us to have brunch at the Four Seasons and it was amazing. There's no way to really know how amazing that brunch is unless you go there but let's just say that the dessert room with a chocolate fountain you can smell from the lobby just made me the happiest girl in the hotel. I made it through about 7 courses, wait... make that 8 courses (five buffet and three dessert). There was a tasty selection of seafood, crayfish, oysters, salmon etc, freshly prepared sushi & sashimi, a caesar salad bar... and then there was dessert. We had a designated dessert time so that we'd actually eat some proper food before gorging ourselves on sweets. With an hour left of brunch after two hours of eating we got down to business. Amy enjoyed some chocolate covered prawns and cray tails among other more common dishes (there are photos). I must say that the fresh waffles were possibly the best that I've had. The drinking chocolate was good too... it went well with the chocolate fondue. The creme brulee was tasty although there wasn't much of a caramel top. Having eaten ourselves silly some headed off to the day spa while others headed home for a siesta. We decided to sit by the pool/beach outdoor bar and enjoy a drink before heading home. It was a big day!

Needless to say we skipped dinner and instead went home to relax on the couch while discussing how much exercise we'd need to do to recover from brunch. Something about exercise being 90% mental kept coming up...

Gene & I "exercised" by jumping into a taxi and shopping for a good deal on a PS2 so that we can play DVDs and, of course, games in our spare time. Gene figured that as we may end up moving it would be a good idea. Plus it's something that we've been talking about for a bit and they're quite small and cheap right now. So we ended up with a PS2 that came with 10 (well we got 11 somehow) games, two controller and a memory card. We chose to buy an additional game "Steambot" which we've been enjoying so far. It's a sandbox game and we get to play a blonde boy called "Vanilla". It's pretty funny. We're fairly sure he's got the hots for a girl called "Coriander". It appears everyone is a herb or a spice in the game. Good fun. Unfortunately as Gene's on night shift and I'm on day, it'll be about a week before we get to play it again as we're planning to play it together.

Okay well my backup has finished now so off to work. I can't believe I've been here for five weeks already!

Is there a doctor in the house?

It all started yesterday when I finally admitted that I should probably see a doctor as three days at home had yet to cure whatever was ailing me. So I spoke to Anneke who investigated the best way to get to a decent doctor in Doha. My guess is that she in turn spoke to the nurse at work and before I knew it she was calling me back with the names of two doctors, directions and some handy hints about what to expect. Armed with information and a dizzy disposition I called for Mr G and waited for my ride.

Things were going well really. We managed to find the HMC Medical Clinic, also known as the Omar Clinic or the "something that I've yet to understand" hospital with only one stop and additional call for directions. I was directed to the female entrance by the helpful driver and went to "registration". I asked for the two doctors that I'd been given the names of and was told that I needed to be on the men's side for that. The lady then moved away from the counter and went back to her conversation. I stood there making vain attempts to attract their attention through the glass to find out how exactly it was that I was meant to get to the men's side. It wasn't going so well. So I figured if I wandered down the corridor which led to the x-ray room (well, the "beware radiation room" anyway) that it might eventually curve around. That's how I ended up in the men's section of the clinic. Needless to say there were stares-a-plenty. Not to mention a total lack of queuing. The men queued vaguely with the other men. I was just non-existant in the queue unless it was to be stared at. Yup. I love going to the doctor most days. This just makes it more fun! Eventually I got to the front of the queue to be served by the same woman as before. At least I'm 99% sure it was the same woman, she was veilled so I can't be 100% but the voice sounded the same. I was then told that I'd have to come back later as neither of the doctors were in. Some people might wonder why this information wasn't shared earlier. I chose not to wonder anything and call Mr G again and go home to bed where my head would hopefully spin less.

It being Doha the clinic closed at noon so I ended up sitting outside the clinic - luckily it was only about 45˚ yesterday - waiting for the taxi. 20 minutes in the sun sucks. I forgot the golden rule about carrying a bottle of water while travelling too. Well, that's not entirely true. I considered carrying a bottle of water but figured I'd either be in a car or in the medical centre. Silly Sarah! On the bright side I spent the rest of the day drinking plenty of water to make up for it.

I considered getting back in a taxi at 16:00 when the clinic reopened but having spent QR40 and achieved nothing but feeling equally if not more dizzy. I decided to give up for the day and try again the next day. This is largely because I found out that the nurse generally takes you there and explains what's happening.

Today I bounded out of bed and jumped on the shuttle to work for the first time in a couple of days and it felt good. By bounded I mean I slid out of bed and held onto the furniture as I made my way to the door for added stability. By jumped on the shuttle I meant that I dragged myself up the steps and chose a somewhat reclined seat on the bus. Still, it was good to see Anneke, Mel & Hugh Jackman on the bus. Kelsey Grammar was there too, if a little blue and furry. I must say that X-Men 3 is a way that I could start my mornings, even though I didn't like it as much as the first two.

I forgot that there was a Ramadan presentation today so that it was good that I arrived when I did. It gave us pointers on what to expect and how to behave during Ramadan. It also advised us when the QDC (giant bottle shop) closed. You'd think that we liked to have a drink or something...

My day passed with a couple of spreadsheets, I'm a bit of an Excel convert, and life was good. I'd even managed to bring my own lunch to work today.

At 16:45 I met up with the nurse who said my ears looked pretty clear so it probably was a good idea to see the doctor. She then took me to the clinic while enroute to the hospital with a couple of other people (possible broken thumb etc).

Mary, the nurse, kindly walked me in the men's entrance and explained the colour coded numbering system and how it didn't always work. There's no waiting between patients. You just walk straight in after the person in front of you comes out. You have to keep an eye on your number because the guys tend to just walk in ahead of their number if you're not paying attention. The cards were colour coded to each doctor so you knew where to go. Even though they had our numbering system on one side, it was Arabic on the back. I really wished that I'd payed more attention to the Arabic numbers section in my Simple Arabic Writing book as most people had the Arabic numbers visible. After she was sure that I'd be right she headed back to the car to the other waiting passengers.

I waited... then number 23 went in... then I waited some more... number 23 exited and I made a run for the door (I had number 24). The Dr Ibrahim was very lovely and asked me which order my cold, dizziness and earache had started in. Pretty much that order I replied. Ah, he said while scribbling on a couple of pieces of paper. Take this page and go to your left and hand it to the lab and take this slip and give it to the nurse to the right then come back. I want to do some tests to find out what's wrong. I'll mark it as urgent and then you come back with the results. I must admit I wasn't really at my best thinking capacity so I nodded, smiled, reconfirmed directions and left. I decided to go to the lab first. Now, I'm not sure what I was expecting when I went to the lab. I'm really not sure why I was surprised when she took out a needle and asked me for my arm. Especially since that whole conversation followed my handing over a large piece of paper saying haematology. Suddenly this trip to the doctor was seeming more intense than usual. Apparently my blood sugar and red blood cell count was in question. While waiting for my results to come back I headed to the right of Dr Ibrahim's room to hand in my next slip. I knew this was to get my blood pressure checked. This was comforting as I wouldn't want to enter a room that says Vital Signs without knowing roughly what I was in for.

Happily all results came back normal. This meant that it was time to answer more questions, breathe deeply and say ahhhh. Apparently my ear drums are very clean. I think that was a compliment? Anyhow as nothing was visible he diagnosed me with an inner ear infection and prescribed some tablets for vertigo. Interestingly the little pamphelet inside the box of tablets states that they're not exactly sure physically how the chemicals seem to stop vertigo, just that they do and they have a hunch that it relaxes the capillaries nearby or something like that. Anyhow the medical system here seems to be excellent and exceedingly thorough!

Armed with my prescription medication and AU$20 less in my wallet I called for Mr G. I spent the next hour sitting outside the clinic singing Finn Brothers songs to myself for company. This was briefly interrupted by a man in a thobe trying to get me to get into his car so that he could drive me home. Taxi/limo drivers can be very insistant. At least they're polite and take no for an answer. Still, it was a little unsettling. Part way through Better Be Home Soon, harmonized with my iPod, my driver arrived and before I knew it I was sitting in traffic.

So here I am at home. Happy to be here. Still a little excited after my little adventure. Totally appreciating how much freedom I have back at home. Language is such a powerful thing.

That's the beauty of travel really. All these little experiences. Even simple things like grocery shopping, sending a letter or going to the doctor can turn into an adventure. I love it! I wish you all as many adventures in life as you can dream...

Dream or Death?

Which One of the Endless From Sandman are you?

Dream- you're Dream! you enjoy making friends, but sometimes you're very picky about who you're friends with. You are dedicated to your job sometimes, but this means you are a hard worker. your are a very classy person, thus making you very rare in this world.Take this quiz!



It would have been highly out of character for me to discover this quiz and not take it... Dream eh? I can live with that :)

Oh wait, apparently there's more than one quiz... I guess it depends on my mood!

Which Sandman Character are You?

You are Death! You are cheerful and pleasant, but you have a deeper meaning. You are optimistic, and can irritate people by this. However, you can also be firm and thoughtful. Take this quiz!

Enough geekiness for now. Must sleep.

Family

Home again today. Well at my villa anyway. Villa again today just doesn't have the same ring to it really. Tomorrow I'm going to the doctor (yes, it's finally time to admit that I'm not well and perhaps it's not just my allergies playing up). Nothing to worry about though, I think the pasta that I had for dinner last night may have been older than I remember. I should really watch that. It smelled okay though!

As Dad mentioned on his blog talk is really cheap. I had a grand ol' conversation with my folks at home while tucked up on the couch nursing my cold the other day. It cost me a total of $2.40 for the quick call home to get them online before our free 90 minute conversation. I love Skype for that reason alone!

When I was living in Ballarat I remember being tucked up in bed feeling like the world was ending all because I had the flu.(Did I mention that I don't cope well when I'm sick? I hate being sick). There's something more trying about being sick when you're not at home. I think it's mainly because you don't have all your comfort foods at your immediate disposal. Right now I'm feeling frustrated because I really want to be at work but instead I'm back on the couch not eating anything and being hungry. I realise there's a simple solution to the whole hunger problem but I assure you it's not that easy which is why I'm home in the first place.

Anyhow, whinging aside. Gene looked after me in the early afternoon before trundling off to work his night shift. This was after he called his Dad and had a chat with him on Skype and before we called Nick C for a quick catch up. In the true spirit of good timing he was catching up with Suze who I worked with at M2006 as well as the Comedy Festival this year! It was really good to speak to him today (or tonight in his case) because it feels like ages since we've spoken! I guess today's been about calling family and touching base. Gene & I called my parents as well to wish them a safe journey as they're about to embark on a 25 day tour of China tracing Marco Polo's journey. Sounds amazing!

Speaking to our families was a wonderful thing today. It certainly made me feel a bit better knowing that they were all safe and well.

I'm always amused by the way that I keep in touch with people better while I'm overseas than I do when I'm in the same city as them. It's almost like being at home when you speak to people back there! Family members are particularly good at "normal" conversation when you're overseas. There's nothing quite like hearing about the neighbours or the dogs when you're a quarter of the way around the planet!

It's almost 16:00 now and I've been awake for all of 4 hours but I think it's time to head back to bed for a cat-nap. I'm getting good at sleeping right now. The other night we had a bit of a party at the villa and I managed to sleep through it all. I meant to have a nap and get up and be social, figuring that the noise from the party would wake me up, apparently it was not to be!

Well, I should at the very least go and make my bed before I consider sleeping. I got some new bed sheets today for the handsome price of AU$27. I wish linen was that cheap back at home! I made sure that I didn't choose white sheets (there's something about white bedsheets that screams 'hotel') and they're cotton so they should be nice and cool. Pictures are likely to follow. I've been meaning to take more photos of Doha but have yet to work out where I can take photos. Want to make sure that I'm not going to get arrested for accidentally taking a photo of a strategic structure.

To bed!

Grumpus without a cause

I must admit that I've been a bit of a grumpus in the last couple of days. Not really sure why. After all I've got my lovely man here in Doha with me (working opposite shifts this week) and I'm loving the job. My current scapegoat for the grumpiness is my cold. I'm sticking with that for now!

Nothing to be grumpy about in the last couple of days. Had the exciting discovery of Rhinocort & Otravin at the City Centre pharmacy yesterday. I'm now on the road to being able to sleep and breathe at night!

Yesterday was pretty exciting really. I had my first brunch at at five star hotel. We spent a good three hours eating our way through as much of the buffet as possible. Okay, we spent most of the three hours eating the desserts but how could you pass up on a chocolate fountain and many many different cakes, creme brulee and creme caramel?

After that Gene & I headed to the City Centre shopping centre to find him some shorts for work. We ended up with 4 or 5 pairs of shorts for Gene and some daggy trackies for me for just over AU$30. Bargain! I also found plenty of Qatari dress shops which were just amazing! Let me just say that abayas are not cheap! They are really beautiful though, both in their construction and materials. I also found this great over-dress type thing which was a circle of fabric with a small wedge cut out of it to form a neckline and it just drapes around your neck halter style. Very cool! Haven't purchased it yet. That's for next week's outting! I figured that if I'm going to buy clothes that they should be fairly unique to this part of the world as I'm unlikely to come across them again anytime soon.

The phone that I'm using as a work phone is not liking the heat at all. It's started to freeze and is fairly inaccurate with it's call register. Hopefully it'll make it through the next few months!

Even though it's still hot over here the evenings are starting to be more bearable. It's beautiful outside between about 18:00 and 21:00. After that it starts getting humid and hot again. Still haven't gotten used to the concept of the temperature rising at night. Seems just a little wrong!

Tonight is grocery shopping night. I should probably be writing a list now of things I need to get but sadly the only thing I can remember is water. Luckily the supermarket will be open until midnight so if I get complete stuck I can just amble the isles and shop that way.

Traffic is crazy but my driver should be here soon so I'd best pack up and head off! I must remember to write about the "no trumpets" sign we saw the other day on the roads...

Dusty

You're all smart people so I'm going to assume that you can guess the current weather conditions in Doha.

I've seen a mini sand storm in the last day and today I could barely see the stadium from across the road. It's a little insane really! Dust allergies are not coping well at the moment and we've just been told that a dry cough is yet another sign of dehydration so yay for the feeling of having a cold constantly!

Gene & I may end up living together after all in two to four weeks. Our managers are looking into it for us so that would be GREAT! Like one of the guys at work put it, it's just like dating again - except we've been living together for the last three years.

My new local bank accounts have been set up and it's really quite novel to have to take money from one account an shift it to another before you can withdraw it. Novel and initially upsetting as you freak out because the atm's telling you have no money but really you do. So yet another piece of plastic fills my wallet.

Gene's feeling like he's been here for weeks already with the heat being a bit of a challenge. I keep hearing how wonderful the weather in Australia's been and I can't quite bring myself to keep up to date with that.

That said, Steve Irwin's accident was big news over here at work, being an Australian company with lots of Aussies over here. Sadly that's the only news from home that we've gotten. Feel free to let us know of other events!

This weekend (read Friday) we're going to have brunch at the Sheraton. We're still trying to work out transport but it should be a great day. We might even make it to the souks!

Well, time to make some Pocari Sweat up (good isotonic drink) to help combat the dehydration.

Happy Father's Day

Gene's landed safe and sound if somewhat jet-lagged and hot. It's his first day at work today and it's a scorching 46˚C today.

To be honest I'm looking forward to October as I hear it's going to be really gorgeous weather then. Until then we are happy to know that August is supposed to be the worst month of the year in terms of weather.

Today is actually a public holiday, Qatar's Independence Day if I'm not mistaken. So later tonight - provided I don't go home and fall asleep immediately (which is a promising idea) - we may head down to the Corniche and check out the celebrations. Fireworks and plenty of partying apparently!

Happy Father's day Dad! My best wishes from the desert!

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas

Gene should have touched down in Doha now. I feel like it's Christmas day and I'm waiting for everyone else to get up so we can do presents.

Spent much of yesterday asleep as I may have mentioned but have gotten a fair way through my book. Also more than halfway through Mum's sock (literally a sock, not a pair yet).

Argh! Impatient much!

Oh and it's hazy today. Giving the impression of possible rain without the likelyhood of it ever happening. Most of the drivers don't remember the last time it rained and they've been here on average 10-11 years.

Parking in Doha

Happy Birthday Fi! I'm a day early here but it's technically the 2nd of September where you are now!

As Naomi mentioned in her blog, Gene is on his way to Doha tonight (well today for me because it's only 17:00 here). So what did I do with my day so far in preparation? Well, I slept in until 09:00 and believe me those two hours of extra undisturbed sleep were a beautiful thing. I then rolled over and dozed for another couple of hours after turning the air-con off until the warmth of the room woke me up and I turned it back on again. In the process I called Gene at the most inconvenient time of checking in to the plane. So I plodded downstairs to chat with my housemates who were off to brunch at the Sheraton (having brunch at a five star hotel is the done thing over here as you can buy alcohol and food at the same place, just like home!). I did my, now weekly, French manicure and read a bit more of A Short History of Nearly Everything before returning Gene's call and wishing him a safe flight. I think the best thing about our one minute and 13 second conversation was ending it with see you in the morning!

Life in Doha is plodding along. Or at least if feels like it's plodding along until I realise that I've been here for two weeks already and we're about 91 days from Opening.

Carrefour Villagio is operational again which made us all very happy at work even though Mega Mart seems to be the supermarket of choice. I've decided against shopping this weekend as I simply don't need anything other than fabric softener. You may be asking how I can need fabric softener and I give you that without it I will more than likely live. However with my skin still drier than ever before I am planning not to repeat the grazing that I gave myself while drying myself with my towel. (Apologies for the poorly constructed sentence. I could re-write but I'm lazy and short on computer battery life and the charger's at work).

With each night I have been getting more and more grateful that Dad got me A Short History of Nearly Everything. Sure it's not going to see me through to the end of the week but it's been a really entertaining read and it's re-sparked my interest in science. Not that I'm planning on a career change or anything I love my job! It's actually been kind of nice to know that I haven't completely forgotten all my science general knowledge. There are plenty of recognisable names and I am happy to say that I remember what the discovered or what was named for them before Bill Bryson explains. I go through moments in my life where I feel a little dull in the mind but this book has been pleasantly reassuring that I'm not completely away with the fairies.

Speaking of books, Gene was saying that at the airport he had to keep himself from buying books. I assured him that Jarir Bookstore had a fair number of English books and that it even included a selection of Sci-Fi/Fantasy which had Pratchett but no Gaiman. I guess I'll have to wait until we arrive in London to get a copy of Fragile Things.

I must admit there is an impressive amount of USB adaptors for sale over here in Doha. USB to just about anything. Even phoneline plugs (CAT something?). I found some great looking iShuffle speakers at Jarir which as I have an iPod I probably won't buy, but I did find some cool and comfy looking wireless iPod headphones going for QAR120 (about AU$43).

It looks a little overcast outside but it's not actually going to rain. It's amazing how it can still trick your brain into thinking it might be cool outside. It actually seems cooler today but the temperature's still 37˚C.

On a side note I'm so happy that I've found the degrees symbol on my laptop. It was getting boring typing out the word! For those of you wondering how I found it... did I look at the keyboard map? No. I went `¡™£¢∞§¶•ªº–≠œ∑´®†¥¨ˆøπ“‘«åß∂ƒ©˙∆˚ ahah! Found it!

I thought I'd finish off with an example of why you should be patient while driving and preferably stick to the roads. You can see Khalifa Stadium, where I work, in the background.



This was there all day and took a crane to rectify. No one was hurt but you've been warned!