Round Two

So I arrived back in Doha a few days ago, safe and sound. The trip back was less eventful than my flight to Toronto, except for one tiny detail: I was upgraded to First Class on my Toronto-Munich flight! It was heavenly. Once you go First Class, you can't go back (cheesy, but true). And difficult it was, my economy connection from Munich to Doha. Anyway, something that I thought seemed to have eluded me for so long has actually happened. It was a little taste of luxury that I may never get again, who knows.

In any case, when I landed in Doha I took at taxi home which ended up costing a bit more than necessary because the driver gave me 5 Euros as part of my change (he didn't have riyals on him), which turned out to be useless because it was taped together. In other words, the currency exchange place would not accept my taped-together Euro bill. Ah well...I guess it happens here too. Anyway, when I got to my flat, I discovered that all the cockroaches in my building came into my flat to die a nasty death. The flat stank, as expected, and was sprinkled with dead roaches in every room. In every room. It was the worst in my bedroom, right by the ensuite bathroom, where there were at least about 50 dead roaches blocking the entrance. Lovely. Before I could even think about sleeping, I cleaned up all the roaches which took a few hours. Of course, there were some nasty stains on the floor, something like a roach outline of where it lay. That was tackled the next day as I went around the flat scrubbing the floors. Nice homecoming, huh?

Three days later and my flat is liveable once again. I am calm and relaxed enough to do a little blogging, see? So all is well and I'm "home". I have another day of the weekend left before I report back to work on Sunday. And so it begins, my 2nd academic year here. More interesting reporting to come soon, inshallah.