Thoughts in our final Canadian days

The last week has been odd. We are currently staying at home #2 on our friends tour. Because we moved out of our apartment July 31, we needed somewhere to stay until our flight - August 12. For some reason, I was afraid to impose on any one person/couple/family to put us up for that long a time frame, so we asked 3. Yup, I decided it would be good for us to move around from house to house to house while Darren and I each finished teaching and prepared to start our new adventure. But it has actually been nice to spend some time with different sets of friends before leaving, and not nearly as stressful as I imagined.

So here we are, sleeping in guest rooms, with clothes and toothbrushes in tow. I am proud to announce that all the earthy possessions we are bringing to Qatar are packed and neatly stored at my in laws'. Except, of course, that which we're using this week. We took one small carry-on-sized suitcase back to St. Catharines with us to use for the week, as well as the backpack that houses our laptop and camera, and a "school bag" each for teaching.

Now that it's time to move to our last stop on the circuit, we're finding it a little trickier to fit everything into the same number of bags we brought here. It's amazing how things can quickly multiply. Besides a few gifts we received at our going away party (which we HAVE to bring with us!), we have accumulated a year's worth of prescription drugs, a few more toiletry items, and a Qatar-appropriate skirt that I couldn't turn down. But I'm married to a master packer, so I'm just going to fold everything nicely and wait for him to come and work his magic!

The fact that we're moving to a completely different country with a different culture, climate, set of expected behaviours, etc. hasn't really hit me yet. I know that we will be immersed in an expatriate community, which will soften the foreign-ness of the experience, but this expat community exists in the midst of a middle eastern culture.

We really have little knowledge about what we're walking into. We've familiarized ourselves with all the information the school provided for us to read, and I check a few blogs written by people living in Doha semi-regularly. Darren talks to his Saudi students about Qatar, and we just re-watched The Kite Runner to renew our excitement for "that part of the world". I've also been reading a book about Iran which is peaking my interest in the region as well. But like any overseas experience, we won't really know what life will be like until we get there and experience it. And that's part of the fun.

But at the moment, I just feel like I'm on vacation. That might worry me except for the fact that my friend Kathy didn't realize she was moving to Japan until she was in the car on the way to the airport. And she turned out alright.