Germany, Doha, and dilly dallies!

I am currently sunburnt, energized (going to bed at nine will do that!) and honestly in love with life.

So what have I been up to?

Well, a little bit of this... as in, photoshooting, story writing, and generally working. I love working. My job is fantastic. Where else would I get to interview bikers, sit down with a non-traditional Qatari woman, talk fashion with Kathleen while wandering around one of Doha's many malls, sample new restaurants and meet people from all over the world? Every day is a diverse adventure. I go in with a rough idea of what to expect, and at the end I'm always a bit surprised by what happened. In this pic here, Bryce is taking shots of some acrobats who I guess have been training since they were around seven. Now that's dedication to a craft.

I've also been doing this: traveling. Work sent me to Germany for an Audi press junket. It was my very first actual business trip (and my first time traveling business class!) I had a plane seat that folded into a flat bed, access to endless snacks during layovers and great company. Germany itself was, of course, beautiful. I didn't get to see much of Munich itself, since most of my time was packed with Audi press events. Guess that's the nature of business, eh? But I'm learning. Guess some people will ask to stay on an extra couple of days, book their own affordable hostel, and travel around in the country where they're sent. That's good to know.

Turns out Germany, while beautiful, is also cold and rainy. Here's me, sad-face style, with a plastic poncho and borrowed suit jacket.

So working, traveling... what else? Friends. I've started meeting people outside of work, while simultaneously getting to know the folks I work with better. I'm glad there's such a great team at ABODE and other Bilal-owned operations. They make the weekends fun and my fridays under the sun more exciting.

I'm really missing Whole Foods (salad bar!!!) and my little sister. Yes, I realize putting those in the same breath is odd, but the two tend to go hand-in-hand for me (leia! Let's go eat! ok!). So I've booked a flight to Cali before I leave for Cambridge. I'll be there for about a week visiting the lil, the bro, and even the pops. Since it'll be the last time for at least two years (most likely), I think this trip will be extra precious.

I've also decided to try and run three races in three cities: 5k in Omaha, 10k in Modesto, CA, and a half marathon in Birmingham, UK. This means I've started training again, which has, if anything, made me that much more of a nerd. Didn't really know that was possible!

Speaking of nerd... I'm running out of books. I'm down to my last one. It's Kathleen's and it's surreal fiction. I've also found it increasingly difficult to read magazines without thinking about work and business. This could be a problem.

Just finished "The Alchemist," a book given to me by the lovely SAO staff (thanks Liz, Katie, Katy and Eric!). It was fantastic... all about pursuing your dreams, rushing forward in pursuit of your true life goal. One of the things that resonated strongest was how so often we settle, and thus we exist with this sort of slow, pained feeling that says 'this isn't right, this isn't right'. It's a monotonous death. I do not want to settle, not for a moment.

Which is why I'm going to work hard while I'm here and work hard at Cambridge- not only to achieve the basic goals, but also to strengthen who I am. I'm finding out.

...through techniques like buying these investment boots, a la Kathleen-inspiration. ;)

Celebratin the fourth, Doha style!

My goodness (my guinness!) I'm hungry. It's almost lunch time here in the office, and considering I still wake up around 5am (thank you sunshine!) I've gone far too long without food. How am I ever going to survive during Ramadan?

Well, the July issue of ABODE has hit the shelves, offices and gyms. This means I'm out and about in the glossy world of magazines, a published journalist. It's crazy. Absolutely crazy. When Tessa dropped a copy off on my desk, I almost started crying. Call me young, naive and all other sorts of names, but at the end of the day I can't help but to be young and naive and all sorts of happy. I'm a journalist, for real. 

When I'm not hiding behind a desk in our fortunately air conditioned office, I'm out and about getting lost on the Doha streets and meeting my interviewees. I can't really detail the stories I'm working on this month; suffice to say I'm excited and I think they're going to be pretty good. Tessa made a point the other day about how writing is more significant when you feel it might impact people, when it might make a little change in even one life. 

That's the kind of writing I want to do. Change lives. 

The ABODE staff got together on the 3rd to celebrate 'merica in the 'merican style. We ate hotdogs, burgers (Bryce requested veggy burgers for me. YUM!) and sat in the sun for hours. After lounging around lazy in the exhausting heat, Kath and I ducked out to attend a salsa "Bad taste" party. My gangly limbs struggle to dance, but I still had a great time. Kath, dancer o'15 years, was naturally pretty good. And pretty. Even in her colorful outfit.

Being in Doha for the fourth made me miss my family, especially lil sis 'n bro. I think last year, my pops tried to grill a lobster. Not quite sure what they did this year. It's getting tougher to cope with the fact that I'll be leaving Leia for two years in two more months, and that I probably wont see her during that entire time. She truly is one of my best friends.

Maybe she can fit in my suitcase.

That having been said, I really can't imagine myself anywhere else right now but here. I absolutely love what I'm doing. The people are so well travelled, interesting, diverse, loud and dirty and pristine and chaotic. It's everything at once thrown into a desert, with opulence and poverty shoved side-by-side. It's astounding. 

 

Yesterday after dinner at Thai Snack (which is absolutely, positively one of the greatest not-secret secrets here in Doha), the team'o'staff popped into this nearby antique store. It's the first used-goods shop I've seen yet in Doha. I fell in love, mostly with the upstairs attic room filled with hundreds of books. Swollen from heat and dusty with age, the books were stacked against the walls and falling in piles. I could have spent hours going through each one. It's times like that that I realize just how awfully nerdy I truly am. I love books. I enjoy reading. I wanted to accost the store owners and demand they sit down and talk with me about literature. 

 

Instead, I went home, finished off my fruit supply, and watched a film called "How to make an American quilt" with my sleepy suntanned roomy. It was the perfect end to a beautiful couple of days.

Friday Fun Day!

(yes, that man does look very freaked out in the background...)

Days off are few and far between here.

The Doha work week stretches from Saturday to Thursday, meaning Fridays are free days. Folks do get a three hour break in the middle of the day, which I suppose makes up for the one-day weekend. Only hey! Journalists don't! Because the news never sleeps, even if its writers try to get into bed at 10 (rarely happens). 

But I'm getting ahead of myself. 

These past couple days have been a'rushing and busy. We had dinner on Mr. Bilal's boat. Sitting around munching on nuts and bites of small talk, Mr. Bilal stood up around 9pm and announced there was a little 'snack' upstairs. The snack proved to be an amazing spread of around thirty dishes. Dinner ran until midnight. 

I had three plates and could've eaten more. See me there, in the left corner? Please notice I'm the only one who still has a plate. Oh yes. And that's other ABODE staff in their snazzy best. 

Friday arrived after several more interviews. Taking the day slow, I woke up at 6 and bounded off to the Sheraton for my morning jog-a-thon. I love running. In the company of two other crazy earlier morning'ers, I had probably one of the best runs yet. Great start to a great day! I keep trying to convince myself to run outside, but the 90-108 degree temp somehow keeps me indoors.  

I wandered around Carefourre for a bit trying to find contact solution for Kath (no luck) and groceries for me (always luck). Blissed out from running, I found myself narrating the story of every passerby, always circling back to one central theme: I love it here. The woman in the pink sari, the little girl running past shouting in german after her mom, the men jostling at the produce stand trying to find onions (what do they do with all those onions?!)... all of it. I hear french, arabic, italian, british english, accents heavy and rich with travels of the world. I wander through isles filled with food unfamiliar to me, hailing from regions as diverse as this population.

I love Doha. 

We brunched at the Ritz where my mouth found a new sanctuary. There's something to be said about a buffet where caviar,  champagne and fois gras are on the menu. Here's a shot or two of the interior. 

Kath and I retreated then to the private beach at the Sheraton, to melt and die in the 105 heat. It was so hot that people couldn't move- they just floated on rafts in the water, bobbing almost comically in the sun and gentle waves. Occasionally I'd dive in, swim, flop, swim, and then somehow find myself just laying across my own personal bobbing mat. 

So that was my weekend. Grocery stores, food, and beach. Now it's time to get back to work. Tonight I'm going to a salsa class to interview folks and try to get my gangly limbs moving in time. Funny, I know.

 I love writing. I love this job. I'm even starting to be amused by the crazy traffic and how people park on sidewalks, resulting in people walking on streets, resulting in even crazier traffic (look! Dodge that man! Don't stop or they all walk in front of your car!) 

Maybe I shouldn't be behind the wheel. Kath did test drive a saucy red built-for-street-racing car with a switch that made it go even faster. 

And I'm probably going to Germany to test drive another. I say, bring it on. Who needs two-day weekends when jobs are this amazing?