Qatar – Day Zero

Since our last update in Istanbul, we’ve now had a night’s sleep after the uneventful final leg to Doha, Qatar. Passport control and customs in Qatar was a breeze, so two weary thumbs up!  In fact, we made it through so quickly that Corey wasn’t there yet, but we were just happy to be on the ground and the evening weather was beautiful. It felt like a spring evening on the gulf coast… the Persian Gulf coast (ed: or Arabian Gulf, see naming dispute).

Side note: Corey and Jen asked us to bring a few hard-to-find items for them if we had room, so we packed an entire extra suitcase. It was no hardship at all. There was a note from the the TSA in the bag, but otherwise no issues. Some part of me thought that maybe Miracle Whip would be on the banned substance list, but apparently not.

After unpacking a bit, we hit the sack at around 3:00 AM local time. We set our alarms and were up at 8:30 AM to fresh coffee and a light breakfast. We’re still a bit janky from the time zone and losing an entire day to travel, but overall feeling good.

Corey and Jen live in the Education City Community Housing area, which is a very lightly gated community that has most of what you need, day to day. We took a short walk in the 80 degrees and sunshine to explore.

There’s a park, a recreation facility with pool and fitness center and a restaurant, and just outside there’s a small shopping complex with a very well-stocked grocery store, the Lulu Express. The store had a nice produce section, a bakery and a wonderful non-dairy section that exceeded the selection of most stores in Madison. Daiya cheese, all the alt-milks that we would ever need, Tofurkey, Field Roast. We were very impressed and felt very comfortable with normal/transactional interactions.

So today (Thursday) is a day for resting and getting our bearings.  Tomorrow is the start of the weekend here so we’ll be off galavanting with Corey, Jennie and Max. Can’t wait!