Inshallah

I do apologize for my lack of correspondence but I was hoping to announce that I too was coming home but I still have not gotten an answer from my lovely work. After two months of trying to get time off , I guess these things here take time ..... a lot of time. I will hopefully know within the next few days what is going on. So as they say here we can hope and Inshallah.....

On the bright side of things , Mr P will be home on the 10th until the 22nd ish. Boy got some extra time off that they owed him , and looks like he will be home to witness the once in lifetime Leaf's playoff appearance. I am sorry to say but I really don't see them getting through the first round , or the first 4 games. But to support my husband I hope they do , so he is able to sip a cold beer , munch on some chicken waangs and watch the leafs get crushed , I mean win. If I do come home I will be there from the 8th until 15th. We don't have any plans except for the following : 1*) (This is the most important) Cuddle babies and the small children we love YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE 1b) Roll San  2) Chicken Wings  3) Pizzaiolio  4) Get our teeth cleaned 5) Mama's cooking  6) have a "few " drinks with family and friends and 7) grab some poutine and St Hubert at the YUL airport. Please note these are not in an specific order. Please also note that Mike and I do enjoy being piggies and we miss a lot of things but these things are mostly food.

So what have we been doing?? Well I have been working and that's pretty much it. Went to Ikea again, but I swear it was just for the meatballs. Mike is training still , just went to the Sudan yesterday and heading to Cairo tomorrow. He is liking it but mostly loving the crew meals. To all our Porter friends I shouldn't even tell you because I feel like it is bragging. This is our typical post flight conversation

Meg " So how was your flight?"
PDP " Good ."
Meg " Did you get a lot of things done ?"
PDP " Yes"
Meg " Cool , did you see anything really nice that you flew over ?"
PDP " Mountains "
Meg" How was the food?"
PDP" Well I started with a salad with shrimp on it with a lovely balsamic dressing on the side . Then I had choice of mixed grill , steak , fish or chicken. I took  the mixed grill , it was sooo good. The meat was tender , it's hard to believe it is airplane food. For desert there was some ice cream and cheesecake but I was full from the other food."
* Side note for you guys wondering PDP stands for Pimp Daddy Pados . Mike drove 4 girls to lunch the other and the name has stayed*

Just because my blog wouldn't be complete without a pic of something I ate

So needless to say the food is great , he actually prefers eating at work for a change.

Remember that list I passed along with some points about the driving here in Doha , well I came across a list of how people change/what they come to expect after living in Doha for a while. Again just my favs :

1) When you no longer find the names of roundabouts amusing. Qatar operates on an exaggerated one-way system, with all roads being connected to all other roads by a series of roundabouts. These are often named after whatever happens to be on them or near them. TV roundabout sits next to Al Jazeera TV station while Slope Roundabout is built on a slight incline and Burger King Roundabout is, well, let’s say it isn’t near a McDonald’s. I cannot find this elusive Burger King roundabout , but that is because every roundabout has a Burger King. It will be a whopper of a day when I do though

2) When this is a totally normal thing to see.

     

No I have no seen this yet but I swear to you when I do I will follow it so I get some great pics

My pretty lunch dates : Prit , Angie and Erica xo

3) When speed limits and red lights are just gentle suggestions...

...and when it is no longer shocking for someone to make a left turn from the far right lane while navigating one of the 50 roundabouts you have found yourself on in the space of your five mile journey.

You have also developed a tendency to change lanes whenever a Land Cruiser comes anywhere near you for fear of being run off the road. Fo real though. You know how on smoking packs they show disgusting pics of cancerous lungs to scare you , when you get your driving license here they should have a picture of a Land Cruiser

4) When you get unnaturally excited about Ikea opening. I am not ashamed to admit that I went twice in a fortnight, although potentially I should be . I think you can tell from past posts my feelings about this

5) When rain is a cause for a) excitement and b) everyone forgetting how to drive. Or you curse because you just washed your car. It actually rains dirt here , not men , dirty dusty sand. Mike is the king at doing the ol' car wash and then rain in the next 5 hrs. 

We have a new roommate , he arrived on Saturday after a very long and stressful day. Meet Oscar !!

Day of capture

12 weeks old , Doha speciality . As cute as he is we are trying to get him a new home because we have two other kitties we might rescue and that would bring us to 5 cats. I know we will likely have 20 by the end of the year. Oscar made quite the entrance into out lives. Prit and I were on our way to get our nails did on Sat when Prit , with her eagle eyes and lovely British accent  ( had to add that for the affect), yelled " There's a kitten running between those cars , he is going to die !!!" With our adrenaline pumping and eyes on the prize we did a stunt man moved and parked the car on the shoulder. I would also like to add for affect that this was Saturday morning in front of a very busy mosque where Prit and I were the only expat women around , so we didn't go unnoticed. Oscar was still running like a made man through the traffic. I ran in front of a car that was on the road and yelled stop with my hand out  ( finally all those Spice Girls videos came into use) , and found the little guy had crawled up into his wheel well in about .3 seconds. We ripped him , literally , off the tire. Now in the mean time the driver with an extremely bewildered look on his face was out to inspect wtf was going on. With Oscar squirming and crying in my hand Prit and I made a be-line to our car and put him in. All very dramatic but I hope you can see the humor in it all now. So end result he's in our bathroom until we find a home for him. He is the size of Winston and Bailey's head.

I think he only speaks Arabic

Well that is it for now my dear friends , hopefully I will be home next week and you see this sweet mug in person. With all my love and stuff .

So sweet!

Meg and Mike xo

Neil Who?!

What I actually do at work all day, my work cat Sascha

Is it bad that I expect everyone to know who Neil Young is? People know who Celine Dion is , and I think we can all agree that as Canadians we are probably more proud to tag Neil Young as a Canuck. The other day at work while  I was focusing on the million overflight permissions I had to put in the system , all of a sudden " My Heart Will Go On"  started floating through the room. I liked this song in 1998 when Titanic came out , but in 2013 in the middle of Doha coming from the IPhone of a Qatari is a very funny situation. What was even more funny was that this song was played voluntarily. Celine is still going strong in the hearts of her million fans.

Ladies out for brunch , I have two legs I promise

So back to Uncle Neil .... After a long day of sipping cocktails and eating at a buffet for hours , my friends and I returned to our apartment. It was my time to shine ,  to show my British friends some Canadian goodness. So what do I do , start blaring Neil Young and preparing some KD. To my surprise no one knew who Neil was . Not only did they not know who he was , but they didn't really like him either. I was shocked , you might even say flabbergasted , so much so that I overcooked my KD and it was a disaster. What a failure. I am currently in the process of convincing Prit that KD is delicious and that was just a bad box. It is not going well.

Le Cigale rooftop

My handsome husband is home and type rated from Bahrain. Six weeks felt more like 6 months , but as they say " Distance makes the heart grow fonder ". Mike starts his line training next week and is traveling to very exotic destinations like Kuwait City , Tehran  ( Naz Mike is going to pop into see your family can you please let them know he is coming :) xo) , Dar Es Salaam , Jeddah , and Warsaw. Mike actually gets 2 days in Warsaw and I am of course working. Right now his line check is scheduled for the end of this month. Thank goodness , it's been almost 4 months , this man is ready to get his "wings" back.

Went to Ikea the other day , it was so nice to Malm beds  and horsemeat meatballs . The selection is the same at home , so it was nice to get some color into our apartment. Oh and the frozen yogurt here is only 1 Riyal so about 27 cents Canadian . On that note I have been meaning to write about the price of gas here. Now please do not get angry with me and brace yourselves. For the cheap gas it's .23/litre while premium will run you an extra 4 cents at .27/litre. Hard times here.  We have been driving the edge around Doha with our Ontario plates for the last few days , it's weird that no one has stopped us but we will keep on trucking along until they do. Well hopefully not , yesterday we spend 7 hrs trying to get our new license plates , driving all over the city , only to return to the DMV to find out the power went out ...... this is Doha

Souq Waqif

It is getting hot here , like very hot .... too hot for this white girl from Guelph. Yesterday the car was reading 39 degrees , it is April 3rd!!! I know you guys are going to be saying " Stop complaining it has been such a hard winter at home", but when you walk out side and instantly get upper lip and back sweat it is not easy. Sorry if that is gross but that is the reality and people it is only going to get worse. SPF 50 all day , everyday .

DOOR BELL JUST RANG ... letter from Rachel has arrived !! Yahooo , I think that the Doha mail system was sucked a few other letters into it's blackhole .

On the home front our friends Kosta and Lindsay welcomed their first little angel Eve into the world on the 28th. That is the fifth little bundle of joy that has been born since we left. Mike and I have some serious cuddle sessions ahead of us when we get back to Canada.

Well it's time to make some taco's , Mike has had some serious Mexican cravings lately.

37 on April 2nd !!!

Representin' Ontario!!

Miss everyone

xoxoxoxo