TravelChick

Doha, at Last, part I

I got to Doha really early in the morning on January 3rd, around 1 in the morning. A suited, smiling woman was waiting for me as I stepped off the plane into tepid air, holding a sign that said 'Virji Anar' atop three other names. I said, 'That's me', pointing to my first name, and she motioned for me to get on the bus headed to the terminal.

She was waiting as I stepped off the bus and took me to a room right next to the immigration area. It had comfortable chairs, tables with bowls of sweets and dates, and was separated from the main area by a wall of glass. She asked me if I wanted something to drink and I said 'Yes, water, please'. She took my passport, visa, and baggage claim tags from me, and a few minutes later, I had only had time to drink half my glass of water, she came back and said they had my bags and I had cleared customs. I followed her out to a waiting car, which took me and a non-linear editor named Tim to the villa where we would spend the night. All this time I didn't touch any of my bags: someone put them on a cart, someone put them through the x-ray machine, someone put them in the car.

I spent a somewhat fitful night of sleep in a very large bed after I noticed what seemed to be cat hairs on my sheets (cat hairs? where did those come from?). I've slept on worse, I was really tired; I shrugged and went to sleep.

The next morning Tim and I wondered if someone was coming to pick us up. We checked our welcome materials; on one of the sheets it stated we should call a number if we needed a driver to pick us up and take us to work. I dialled it. No answer. There were names and numbers on the bottom of the list. I tried all of those until I got someone on the phone; she said our driver would be there in half an hour.

We got to work, temporary offices in a villa. I blinked in the hot sun. We were introduced, in quick succession, to the people in the front offices (Sabr, who will give you keys - Anar, you have to pick out your apartment today - Rev, Carina, and Hosni). Hosni, an excitable man with a lot of energy, quickly took us outside to the other villa and tried to locate our line managers. First he speed walked over to external affairs, then upstair to human resources. On the way up the stairs, trailing Hosni and Tim by ten or so steps and having broken into a sort of jog, I asked 'Could we possibly slow down? I'm short; I can't walk as fast as you.' Hosni didn't slow down.

My line manager wasn't in, so I was introduced to someone else, who introduced me to several people and then tried to locate someone I could shadow. He couldn't locate her, so I was sent off to the bank to open a bank account. Quickly fading in the bank while I waited for someone to help me open an account, I rummaged around in my purse and found a Clif bar my brother had given me in Paris and I had smartly stuck in my purse that morning.

After I opened up my account, I went to the ATM (a drive-through, of course) and tried to withdraw money. I tried both my accounts several times; neither card worked. I walked back to the van where my co-workers were waiting and sighed. ONe of them asked me if I had cashed up and I said in a small voice, 'Neither of my cards worked.' They asked me if I minded if we went to the mall to get phones. I didn't mind.

Back at work, I went over to the finance department to get an advance on my pay so I could have some cash. Their cash shipment hadn't come in that day, so while I was waiting for it to come, Sabr took me over to the apartment building I was supposed to move in to later that day to pick out an apartment.

posted by Travel Chick @ 2:17 PM