Whew, the last gazillion hours have been LONG. I got to the Minneapolis airport at 1:00 on Sunday for a 4:00 flight to Philadelphia. It was a fairly turbulent flight, which wasn’t amazing, and then the jet bridge wouldn’t work, so we were stuck on the plane for a while. Thankfully, I made it to my gate in time for my flight to Doha, where I met my friend Matt (from North Carolina). Except, I was assigned a middle seat. And the flight was full. And it was a twelve-and-a-half-hour flight. I slept as much as I could, but the plane wasn’t super dark (my eye mask helped), and the little kid behind me was using my chair as a punching bag while his dad seemed to have a full-length conversation with no one and every one. We made it to Qatar, though, at 5:45 p.m. Monday — which was 8:45 a.m. Minnesota time. I basically missed an entire day. Time zones are weird. The airport was huge and beautiful but pretty tough to navigate, namely because we were on a wild goose chase for the concierge service that was assigned to us. But again, we made it. It was quite the travel day(s), but tonight’s posts will be brief because I am absolutely exhausted. Nearly 24 hours of travel will do that to a girl. Check out our awesome hotel. We’re staying at the Mandarin Oriental in downtown Doha, and omg, it’s unreal. I legit feel like a princess. I’m sharing with one of my besties, Lindsay, and we have two queen beds, a floor-to-ceiling window that opens to a courtyard, a marble bathroom with two sinks, a walk-in shower that makes it feel Iike you’re being rained on. Also, the shampoo and conditioner smell soooooooo good. We were also welcomed with a platter of dates. So far we’ve only sampled one, and it was utterly delectable. The arrow on the ceiling points to Mecca so that Muslims who stay in the room know which direction to pray. There’s also a Koran in the nightstand as well as a prayer rug — not a fancy blanket, as I initially thought. After freshening up just a teeny bit, we walked just a block away to dinner at Nourlaya, a Sri Lankan restaurant. I had a mocktail (like all other drinks in Qatar), and I'm pretty sure it was pomegranate something. I also had lamb biryani, which was incredible. It was so, so nice to reconnect with some of my besties -- clockwise from me is Tara (California), Brielle (Minnesota), Erik (Illinois), and Susy (Massachusetts). Our view at dinner was also wonderful. Obviously, there are still a lot of World Cup remnants around Doha.
Today was already amazing (aside from that darn middle seat), and I know this week is going to be incredible.
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