Arrival in Doha

After 4 good take-offs and 4 good landings, I'm finally here in Doha. I arrived Sunday night at about 9:30pm with 27 other teachers for the school. Immigration went smoothly and all my luggage (three 70lb. bags!) thankfully made it through without being searched. So, all my DVDs made it through. Whew!

My apartment is absolutely amazing!!! It has 3 bedrooms and 2.5 baths, and air conditioners in every room. The rooms are large and have big windows for lots of light. The setup is great. You walk in and see the dining room, living room, and a half bath. There's a hallway that leads to the kitchen, bedrooms and a full bath. The master bedroom has its own full bath. The apartment is tiled and will be a breeze to keep up. The kitchen has lots of counter space and I might be able to put a small bistro set in there.

The building's not quite finished yet so there are some issues, like the elevator doesn't work yet and I'm on the 5th floor! The school provided a few 'pack mules' to carry all our luggage up the stairs. I have hot water and took a nice shower this morning, but I had to brush my teeth with hot water because I have no cold water. Go figure. The management company has a crew on site for the next two weeks to sort out problems, thankfully. I'll be talking to them quite a bit for tons of small stuff in the apartment.

We went shopping this morning and I got all the plugs for my electronics. The apartment has British plugs so I needed lots of adapters. :-) I bought the typical things you need right away in a new place: trash cans, broom, hair dryer, hangers, tissues, laundry detergent, etc. I also bought an iPod speaker and a new cell phone. So now I've got music, phone and internet. I can function now!

At home, I've got a dial-up internet connection and I'll have that for about a month and hopefully only a month. By then my residency permit will be processed and I can apply for ASDL. In the meantime, I'll only be able to upload photos and videos while I'm at school because it has a high-speed connection. I hope to be able to upload a video tomorrow or the day after so you can see my apartment. :-)

More later...