Pia Sundstedt

We have been in Doha about 10 days by now. We have met wonderful people, who have been so helpful. Jim has taken care of us during the bike rides on Lusail track, where we ride every Monday and Wednesday night. It is a 11km loop, but with good company 2 hours is not a problem at all. Jim also guided us to the weekend rides, the first weekend we were here. The weekend rides start at 6 am from the Golf course, so it is an early wake up, but with the warm weather it is better to get the exercise done as early as possible.

A new country, a new culture is always a bit difficult in the beginning. It is not scary, but you just have to try and understand how everything works as quickly as possible. Makes the daily life easier and the daily routines. We still do not have a residence permit. Everything is connected to that. You can’t get an internet connection, you can’t rent a villa or an apartment and you can’t buy a car. As soon as you have the RP, all is good. All the doors will open for you. In the meantime, as we are waiting, I am not sitting still. I have checked almost every tower on the Pearl. That is where we want to find our home. The rents are high, about 4000€/month. It is Doha. We now have a couple of nice flats to choose between. After the decision is done, my next work starts. Find a car to buy. Hard work indeed to get all organized. Have been falling into bed dead tired every evening.

Tomorrow morning it is Friday. Yeah! Weekend and a weekend ride. Tomorrow is a special day. We will do a 160km long ride. Start is at 6.15 am. 118 riders are registered for the Century ride. There are 2 distances 100miles and 100km. We will do the 100 miles, of course 🙂 Looking forward to a nice ride tomorrow morning. I will try to make some pics and post them later for you so you can see some pics of a bunch of cyclist in the desert.