All we ever talk about...

I'm noticing that there are (of late) two main topics of discussion among my colleagues here: residency and travel. This is not surprising considering the time of year. A new batch of employees has just arrived, all waiting to purchase cars and get cable television. Every day a few more get their residency, and with it the go-ahead to apply for a phone line and Qatari driver's license.

Each person prioritizes the privileges that become available once one's residency is secured differently. There are people in our building who went out and rented cars the same day they got their ID card. Darren's first order of business was taking a trip to Q-tel to apply for a residential package, including land line, Internet service and post-paid mobile phone. For me it was searching for flights for the upcoming holiday.

Although it seems as though we've just arrived and classes have just started, we're about 2 weeks away from our first vacation. Eid al Fitr, the celebration that marks the end of Ramadan, is almost upon us, and with it comes 5 stat holidays! So including weekends, college faculty have 9 days off at the end of September.

Since we've just arrived, Darren and I were initially thinking of just staying put and discovering more about our new 'hometown'. But 9 work-less days here would seem very long. So travel it is. It would make sense for our first order of business to be to explore the Gulf further. We know people who have traveled to Syria, Oman, Yemen - all with great stories and fond memories. But we've opted to do something a little more outrageous - we're planning on going to Paris.

France has never been high on my list of places to visit. I'm not exactly sure why that is. I would like to see the Eiffel tower, drink a coffee-substitute in a French cafe, view the Mona Lisa in person, and see just how much of my high school French has stuck. I didn't ever really think I'd have the chance, but thanks to our dear friends, now I do.

Dan and Marie are going to Paris for a vacation in 4 or 5 days and will be there until the second day of our vacation. If that's not incentive to plan a trip to la belle Paris, I don't know what is. We'll only really have a day and a half to visit, but we'll take whatever we can get. That is, if Darren's papers arrive on time.

You see, while I have received my Qatari residency, Darren has not. In order to be a resident of Qatar, one has to be sponsored. My employer is my sponsor, and I am Darren's, so we had to wait until I was a resident before I could officially sponsor him. At the moment he is here on a visitor's visa. He can leave the country, but doing so would make all the work he has done in getting his residency void and he'd have to re-do the medical tests and fingerprinting, not to mention start the waiting all over. And I'm sure the college would not be very excited in helping him get all that done AGAIN.

So here's the plan: If Darren's residency comes in by the end of the day, we'll call the travel agent and confirm our flights to Paris. If it doesn't, we've got a few more days to try to rebook, hoping that the flights we want aren't full. If it still hasn't arrived by the end of the week, we will be two thoroughly disappointed Conleys. Let's hope it doesn't come to that.

Having read this, you can feel like you've been part of a typical Doha expat conversation. I wonder what we'll all talk about after (1) all the residencies come in and (2) we all get back from our trips. Maybe the next trip?