On my last day in Barcelona I actually woke up earlier than my alarm for once. I finished packing, called a taxi and got to the airport in record timing. I got to check in early enough to choose my seat on the plane! Then I just hung around the airport until it was time to board the plane.
And that was my last day in beautiful Barcelona.
My flight to Doha was alright, I spent my time listening to music but after a while a child started screaming and wouldn't stop. I got a bad headache and decided to sleep it off. I woke up as we were flying over Kandahar, Afghanistan. Then I fell asleep again and woke up as the plane was about to land.
In Doha airport I kept mainly to the duty free area to spend the rest of my riyals! 65 riyals (about AUD$20) is too much money to take for two hour-long stopovers at the airport, considering one bottle of water costs 3 riyals and a meal (from what I saw) cost around 10 riyals. I did get something nice from duty free though so no complaints.
My next flight was the real long haul one, 13 hours from Doha to Melbourne. I slept half of the flight, and the spent the rest listening to music and reading. I watched a version of the film Water for Elephants that was edited by Qatar Airways for "flight viewing" and had all the violence, sex and swearing cut out. As always, the food was excellent.
And now I'm home! Short and sweet description of my day. It's good to be home but I miss everything about being away, staying somewhere new, the beautiful weather and being with the best people. I'll make another post later on with a little summary of my absolute favourite parts of the trip.
Showing posts with label doha. Show all posts
Showing posts with label doha. Show all posts
Monday, 29 August 2011
Wednesday, 3 August 2011
Buon giorno!
Hello everyone! This blog will chronicle my (admittedly short) one month odyssey through Italy, Greece, Turkey, and Spain. I named it Ciao Melbourne because I live in Melbourne and "ciao" means both hello and goodbye in Italian (at least I think it does, my Italian is really not that great and has been tested to its limits already). Plus if I name it something ambiguous I can keep it and use it again for future travels! Hopefully.
Firstly I have to apologise for any spelling errors because I'm typing on an iPhone and despite having owned it almost a year I'm still not good at the whole lack of a tactile response thing.
So I got on a 15 hour flight to Doha, Qatar on Monday, then a 6 hour flight from Doha to Rome, Italy on Tuesday morning. I have to say, Qatar Airways has some awesome meals. For dinner, I had spicy fish cakes with sambal sauce, turmeric rice and sauteed broccoli. Then breakfast was vegetable frittata with a croissant, yoghurt and lots of fruit. The good food definitely made up for the screaming children. I think I spent most of my time on the planes sleeping. My advice is, if you want to sleep on a plane, don't listen to the Spirited Away soundtrack on your mp3 player. I thought it would be a relaxing choice but there were way more cymbal crashes than I remembered.
The view into Doha from the plane was amazing. It seemed like thousands of low, flat Middle Eastern style buildings, stark white against the beige sand and rocks. And then a massive, sprawling city skyline off into the distance, coveted by what looked like a dust storm, fog, or maybe pollution. As we landed, we were told it was Ramadan and not to eat or drink in public. Luckily there was a little cafe in the airport cordoned off for non-Muslims, but I don't doubt that some of the employees would have been fasting. I got a bottle of water and had a mildly embarrassing currency moment where I thought the register lady said it cost 60 instead of 6 Qatari riyals. Anyway, it seemed like minutes passed and then I was on a plane again, and that was my first and (as yet) only Middle Eastern experience. Definitely somewhere I want to go in the future. It was 40 degrees Celsius at 8:30 in the morning!
Now I'm in Rome, about to check out of my current hotel room and into another one to start the Contiki tour. I got here at about 3pm yesterday, checked in, put my stuff down in the room, and went outside to wander the streets to get a feel of the place. Then my back started hurting because of my awkward seating position on the plane and I came back for a nap with the intention of going back out for more discovery. My nap turned into a 9 hour sleepathon and I woke up in the middle if the night, alert and ready to look at more stuff, still fully dressed. Then I had the idea (actually Melpo's idea!) to start a blog and here I am, almost 10 in the morning, nerdily excited about everything I see out the window.
I thought I would do an introductory post, and there it is. Next time I update, I might have done some incredibly touristy things. Today I'm going to walk to the Vatican and have a look in there, look at the Castel Sant'Angelo and lots of beautiful bridges, take some pictures. The tour officially starts at 4pm. Exciting!
Firstly I have to apologise for any spelling errors because I'm typing on an iPhone and despite having owned it almost a year I'm still not good at the whole lack of a tactile response thing.
So I got on a 15 hour flight to Doha, Qatar on Monday, then a 6 hour flight from Doha to Rome, Italy on Tuesday morning. I have to say, Qatar Airways has some awesome meals. For dinner, I had spicy fish cakes with sambal sauce, turmeric rice and sauteed broccoli. Then breakfast was vegetable frittata with a croissant, yoghurt and lots of fruit. The good food definitely made up for the screaming children. I think I spent most of my time on the planes sleeping. My advice is, if you want to sleep on a plane, don't listen to the Spirited Away soundtrack on your mp3 player. I thought it would be a relaxing choice but there were way more cymbal crashes than I remembered.
The view into Doha from the plane was amazing. It seemed like thousands of low, flat Middle Eastern style buildings, stark white against the beige sand and rocks. And then a massive, sprawling city skyline off into the distance, coveted by what looked like a dust storm, fog, or maybe pollution. As we landed, we were told it was Ramadan and not to eat or drink in public. Luckily there was a little cafe in the airport cordoned off for non-Muslims, but I don't doubt that some of the employees would have been fasting. I got a bottle of water and had a mildly embarrassing currency moment where I thought the register lady said it cost 60 instead of 6 Qatari riyals. Anyway, it seemed like minutes passed and then I was on a plane again, and that was my first and (as yet) only Middle Eastern experience. Definitely somewhere I want to go in the future. It was 40 degrees Celsius at 8:30 in the morning!
Now I'm in Rome, about to check out of my current hotel room and into another one to start the Contiki tour. I got here at about 3pm yesterday, checked in, put my stuff down in the room, and went outside to wander the streets to get a feel of the place. Then my back started hurting because of my awkward seating position on the plane and I came back for a nap with the intention of going back out for more discovery. My nap turned into a 9 hour sleepathon and I woke up in the middle if the night, alert and ready to look at more stuff, still fully dressed. Then I had the idea (actually Melpo's idea!) to start a blog and here I am, almost 10 in the morning, nerdily excited about everything I see out the window.
I thought I would do an introductory post, and there it is. Next time I update, I might have done some incredibly touristy things. Today I'm going to walk to the Vatican and have a look in there, look at the Castel Sant'Angelo and lots of beautiful bridges, take some pictures. The tour officially starts at 4pm. Exciting!
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