A Whole Furry Family

Yes I know that title sounds funny , but the best thing since we have gotten here has finally happened. Our kitties arrived!!! What a long day for them , it took them 29 hrs to travel over 10800 kms !!! Not too many cats have that kind of milage. They were stuck in customs here for over 6 and a half hours and finally got to our apartment at 1:30 am. KLM is the way to go if anyone ever ships their animals. The boys arrived here cleaner then when they left and had nice little stickers on their kennels informing us that "they enjoyed their stay at the animal hotel in Amsterdam". The Dutch are great when it comes to hospitality. It took them about 24 hrs to be back to their old selves , 1 hr of cuddling , 1 hr of eating , 30 mins of playing and 22:30 hrs of sleeping. For Mike and I this was the last thing we were waiting for to complete our new home. What you probably didn't know is that we have two good friends here who are just as cat crazy , if not maybe a little more then us :) John and Prit will be getting their boys from England on the 22nd . Get into the pet importing business if you want to make money , I am telling you the demand for importing into Doha is out there.

Enjoying the Doha sun

Mike is enroute to an overnight flight to India. He leaves at 8:30 pm here and gets back home at 5:10 am I think. This is the 320 roster so we are going to have to get used to it. He has his caffeine breaks already scheduled . He leaves to Bahrain on Saturday for 5 weeks , so we are spending the last few days getting things organized and spending some time with friends. The women's tennis tournament is in town so we are going to go watch them grunting in their mini skirts this week. For some reason the guys are way more enthusiastic about going to watch these games then they were when the men were in town.

I went out for dinner with my department on Thursday and got to meet everyone. Everyone was super nice and it seems like I may just enjoy having a job here. I am the only female in the office - ever. I am also the only one from North America , so I am going to take advantage of this and plan some pot lucks so I can try some global cuisine. Hopefully , fingers crossed , I will have my RP on Thursday so I will start working next week.

Almost as good as Mama's - a little taste of Hungarian home cooking for Mike

Guess who's really excited to get a letter from home!! Thanks Grandma xo

Speaking of food , the food here is pretty good. The organic products for the most part are way cheaper here. One small annoying thing is that there is no fresh chicken breasts . It's a good day if you walk into the store and there are fresh whole chickens . When they are out there are always quail to buy though . We haven't tried it yet , it's on the list next to camel and mutton . There is no clear reason why there is such a lack of fresh chicken , but I have heard it has something to do with a "political situation" with a neighboring country. For now it's bulk frozen chicken breasts.

Going out for dinner can cost you a pretty penny if you eat at the hotels. If you like shawarma like we do then it's next to nothing. You can get 2 kebabs , Fattoush which is sort of like Middle Eastern Greek salad but hold the feta , and another pastry for 10 canadian. Not too bad I would say. The chains here are terrible , like I mean disgusting. I have said it before but there is seriously a KFC problem here. I can guarantee you that when the colonel died ( RIP) he would have never imagined how popular his southern friend chicken would be here. Heck I bet he never even heard of Qatar , ever. The only place we have been too that is remotely close to home is Cold Stone and McD's. Well actually we haven't been to too many places , but Chili's was terrible and I have nightmares now about Pizza Hut and Diary Queen. So maybe just avoid those places.

Other then that things have been fairly quite on the home front here. Weather today was 28 and no snow :) I actually miss having snow , I was a little jealous seeing everyone's pictures.

Well until next time

M&M + Winny and Bailey

xoxoxoxo