K and A return “home”

Well it has felt like a very long month, but K and A finally returned to Al Ain last night. A long day for them both... final day of school/work, flying to Abu Dhabi, and a taxi to Al Ain! But now we can finally start making our villa into a home and settling into life in Al Ain. At the same time I guess this closes the Qatar chapter, which ended far sooner than I thought it would.

I enjoyed many things about Qatar and had no problems with Doha itself (minus the driving, disorganised roads and construction); the place has so much potential. Obviously I was very disappointed about not being able to obtain a decent job while there and found it strange the only two interviews I had were for positions in the UAE and Bulgaria. (A funny side note is that a potential position finally came up with Qatar Airways, but I had already left)

The end result though was this relocation to Al Ain, and so far the city and my employer have far surpassed any expectations I may have held. I know from the last experience you shouldn’t come into this with any expectations, but it is hard to not have some. As you may have guessed from the Qatar blog, one of the main reasons for leaving Qatar (apart from the package I was offered) was to remove ourselves from the situation we found ourselves in with regards to K’s employer. When you have nothing nice to say, say nothing at all... so I will leave it up to her to say what she wants if she feels the need.

When I think back the memories that I wont loose are:

• The night we arrived and lost all power in the villa. Very tired, hot and muggy but hearing the call to prayer echo around the streets for the first time was pretty special.


• Learning to drive all over again on the roads of Doha!


• Watching the sunset over the singing dunes.


• The whole process of getting a traffic incident report.


• Not just the closing ceremony, but being in Doha to share the whole Asian Games experience.


• The cats!

The funny thing looking back is I really wasn’t in Qatar for very long at all!