Innsbruck - here despite it never being on my to-see list

The city of Doha, in Qatar from the hotel. There is an ocean here but it smells like the industrial port and fish. Most people come to Qatar for business but not vacation. This country is moving a full pace to be a business leader so the airplane was full of people from everywhere in the world. Customs was a matter of minutes, instead of the long detailed process in Oman.

The running theme over the last few days is the airline ticketing agent wants to send us on to the next city. Each stop has been for less than 24 hours, so it looks like a connection instead of a layover. We've had to reconfirm our tickets twice a day, to ensure we have seats that night. Here, when a flight is overbooked, it really is and it's the passenger's responsibility to reconfirm or the seat is gone.

Back at the Doha airport, we were in the same holding pen as one of the Arab regions biggest pop stars. It would be the equivalent as sitting in the same room as Gwen Stefani and her entourage except that when you have no idea about the person, it's meaningless. However, she is a big enough pop star that I've heard her name and seen her video on the music channel but I would have never even recognized her. The person that I was with was happy to see her and she returned Hello and a smile to him, which was gracious of her.

Okay, so now I have a full day in Doha and an evening flight to Kuwait. Next post will be tomorrow from the seat of my most active posting for lack of anything else to do. The school countdown continues now at 8 days and counting.