Day One: Mmm, Bacon. Hang on...!

The first day dawned and some time later I woke up. I'd slept very deeply, despite the Rattle Boxes (A/C units) doing their best to make sure I didn't. First order of the day was a cup of tea!

Packed prepared!

I'd already spied milk the night before so all I needed was a kettle and a mug. After a fair amount of rooting around, and a bit ofpanicking, I found the kettle under the towels in the dirty washing basket (where else?). Nearly there! Then disaster struck; no mug! The tide of luck heads out. After that disappointment I showered and headed out to meet my buddy.

On that note it's worth mentioning that the cold water is hot and the hot water is scalding hot. I've been reliably informed that this is because the cold water tank is on the roof (Doh!) and that the water heaters in the apartments aren't thermostatically controlled. In light of this I'm trying something new; leave the hot water heater switched off and use this as cold water (the 50 litre tank is, after all, in an air conditioned apartment) and use the cold water as hot (which, after all, is on the roof in direct sunlight and over 40 degree C heat!). I'll let you know how I get on.

On the itinerary for the day was a breakfast gathering; all the newbies and their buddies large-ing it up in the Al Waha club (behind closed doors due to Ramadan). What we had for breakfast was a big surprise; fried egg, grilled tomatoes, Baked Beans, Bacon and Sausage. Now the bacon, it has to be said, looked a little odd; sort of a dark reddy-brown. Obviously it couldn't be pork. Turns out it was Beef bacon! Regarding the sausages; I'm afraid I couldn't tell you what was in those, I didn't find out. The people I asked didn't know. I tucked in anyway.

Red tape followed breakfast as we had the opportunity to open bank accounts. A strange experience, manually filling a form out. I really can't remember the last time I did that. My hand writing certainly hasn't improved. Still, half the information was simply a bit pointless; Q: How long have you lived at this address?, A: I have an address?

A battle then ensued at the photocopier as we all needed 3 gazillion copies of our passport, including the entry stamp. I had the sense to ask a very pleasant member of the admin department; she went straight to the front of the queue and took charge!

My buddy happens to be the school's network manager. Normally I don't get on with these people (cagey empire builders with rubbish networks) but this one is a good one (the ones with good networks tend to be decent folk). We spent the next few hours chatting in my new office (affectionately known as the fish bowl). I reckon we'll get on just fine. Which is good; he's got a car!

In said car we took off, with a couple of others, on my first shopping trip. The destination was a shopping mall known as Villagio, just outside Doha, and an amazing place it is too! Internally it's designed to look like the streets of Venice with multi-floor buildings extending from the shop fronts to the ceiling, which itself is depicted as the sky at different times of day. There's even a canal, complete with Gondolas! Disrupting this theme, though, is the ice-rink at one end. As with a lot in Qatar, scratch the surface and you see it's all about outward appearance; the building fronts are obviously fake, the canal pretty short and the gondolas are all electric. The ice-rink, however, is real, and the VIP toilets are quite something with their Persian rugs. Still, a wander round a Virgin Megastore, Boots, Marks'n'Sparks and a coffee at Starbucks (after the sun had gone down) made the whole thing rather weird!

In order to obtain all the various permits and cards I needed, I had to get some passport photos taken (on a blue background). The couple we were with also needed them. We decided on a small photo shop in the nearest town to the community; Al Khor. No photo-booths here; rather a back room with dodgy backdrops painted on the walls, a blue curtain, couple of flash umbrella things and a cheap D-SLR. When finished you could tell the sales guy was wondering how much to charge us. I thought he said 130 Riyals, someone else thought he said 140. Wisdom prevailed and we split it three ways and paid 40 Riyals each. Oops.

Whilst in town my buddy took us to a kebab house and I had a, well, I'm not entirely sure what I had. One thing was certainly some kind of kebab sandwich. The second thing was apparently some kind of pastry thing with something vaguely resembling, or at least tasting like, cream cheese, with more cheese. No matter, both were excellent.

It was quite late by this time so straight back to the community and another deep sleep with the Rattle Boxes.