Sayonara Qatar!

It's the end of an era!
Our time in Qatar is now over. We are leaving behind very well paid and sort of interesting jobs, an excellent and spacious house, magnificent weather for the vast majority of the year and some good friends that we'll keep for life. We are leaving behind a very comfortable life. A life where we stroll to work for 10 minutes while Flora rides alongside on her scooter, counting cats we pass along the way, where we can see each other at any time during the day and have lunch together, where we leave school between 2 and 3pm to go to the Al-Waha Club to swim, play tennis, snooker, use the gym or to have food, or just go home to listen to music and prepare dinner, while Flora is free to play outside, go in and out of her friends unlocked houses or to the park at the end of the road, in a life style resembling distant times where children could play on the streets without

constant supervision, fearless of "imminent" danger. A life where we can go to the beach during the weekend, attend and host countless barbecues, have drinks in our friends' boat, watching gorgeous sunsets over the Persian Gulf and be half-way to the other side of the world for great holidays during school breaks.
But we are also leaving a repressive and conservative country (still the best in the region), where society is openly organised in castes, the landscape is uninspiring, the beer is obscenely expensive, where there are no gigs and some of the people we meet and socialise with are dull, self-centered and intellectually disengaged.
We are ready to go... Sayonara Qatar!