Iftar Dinner

Wednesday evening all Honeywell people on site were invited to attend a traditional Iftar dinner. This is an evening meal when Muslims break their fast during the Islamic month of Ramadan. We left off work at 16:00 jumped one of the arranged busses, and headed for the Retaj Al Rayyan Hotel, in the capital Doha. There was a huge variety of traditional food to savour. A very interesting, enjoyable evening. We may look drunk in the picture on the left, but there is of course no alcohol at this function, just having a good time. The meal was followed by a raffle, broken down into groups depending on length of service on site. There were dozens of great prizes, from IPod's to laptops. Of course most prizes went to the usual suspects. You know, the same batch that win every raffle. It always baffles me how it turns out that way. But hey, I'm not bitter! All in all a great evening. As usual I hit the gym, followed by the pool this Friday morning, on another lovely day. Now taking a stroll in the Sun to the cash point outside of camp, to get some local currency (Rijals).

Languages in Qatar

Working along side so many people from practically every country in the world, it is really interesting to get to know a little bit about their languages and cultures. In the office where I am based, we have a white-board and several people write down various sentences from their language, or any other language that they understand. It's a kind of ice-breaker when new people come onboard, which is almost every week. Also we teach each other snippets of languages that we know. All good fun, and you get to know people from all over the world. It's Friday afternoon (another week gone by so quickly), so as usual I spent a couple of hours in the gym this morning, followed by a couple of hours at the pool. I have some Sun tan lotion this visit, so I was able to lay in the Sun and listen to my IPod Touch for an hour or so without getting burned. The tan is comming along nicely now. Been writing some Excel VBA at work this week, to look for duplicate points across all 15 severs, that was quite interesting, and useful, and worked!

First Week, Second Visit

Already completed the first week of my second 6-week visit to Qatar. The week has just flown by. The weather is just the same, hot and humid very early in the morning, hotter and dryer by 08:00, and scorching hot by 09:00, getting more humid again mid afternoon. Not been too busy yet, just doing odd jobs, helping out at the moment. My role should change soon to a role as a Technical Expertise, so I'm told. Photo's of myself and Jatenda heading for lunch, the background shows part of the Air Separation Units, the eight big square white things in the distance. Ramadan has just started, so we must not eat and drink, except in designated areas, not in public areas. This goes on for one month. It is our day off Friday, so I intend to go to the gym and then spend me time at the pool, sunbathing and swimming. What a life hey!