First day in Qatar

Didn't get much sleep last night. When I arrived, I found that the pre-paid sim card, which should have worked in Qatar, didn't. To make it worse the payphones all needed special cards and there was nowhere to buy them. Luckily my new boss came along on time. Unluckily, I forgot that my wife was staying with her mother and I left a voicemail on our home phone saying that I'd arrived safely. I then went to bed, only to wake a couple of hours later remembering that she was not home. I then spent a long time finding a wifi signal and managed to send a couple of smss. Today, I got up pretty late, went to the office, went to the 5th biggest shopping center in the world, called the "city center" (not much imagination there). I now have a working pre-paid card. Only thing that sucks is that you need to top them up by buying cards, no online top-up. Anyway, I eventually made it out for a run at about 21:00 and ran for just over an hour. Tomorrow morning, I'm getting up at 06:00 so I can get in a good run before work.

It's pretty weird out here on my own. I'm so used to hanging out with my wife in the evenings. Now I have to hang out with her on the phone, or to save some cash, on skype.

Well, time to sleep and see what the morning brings.

It's a funny old world

I'm in Istanbul airport waiting for a connecting flight to Doha, which is the capital of a very small country called Qatar. Now until not so long ago I new very little about Qatar, but then fate took a good hold and gave my life a shakeup. We'd (me and the wife) been planning on spending some time living abroad in the not too distant future, hence last year's trip to Canada. Then one day in the office a colleague mentions that he's been offered a job in Qatar, but he can't go because of family obligations. A month later, I'm on a flight out to Qatar to have an almost week long live-in interview. That went well and I'm now off to be the CTO of small internet company. I've swapped a job with a fantastic salary, car, very good benefits, security etc.... for a job with non of the above. I do however run the risk of making a lot of money in the long run and I fancied a little adventure along the way. It is of course the perfect place to do my last 2 months of training before the big run. Speaking of training, I've slacked a little in the last couple of weeks. It's more worked than I ever imagined, moving to a new country. Especially when you're moving from The Nehterlands which is one of the most buerocratic countries in the world. Well, all I can say is, bring it on and let's see what the near future holds. I'm guess it's going to involve lots of working a running and skyping with my wife, who will join me in a couple of months.

I think the simple rule from now on has to be "I will not miss a single training session". Let's see how that goes with a new job in a new country................