Service Training is done in a ridiculously fast pace. Hundreds of new items need to be learned and memorised every day as we have started learning the basics of Economy class, where I will be gracefully serving trays as I read menus and pour drinks with the cheekiest of the grins.
I learn the basic tricks behind the (apparently) unique features of an airplane tray and, despite not being a drinker, recipes for Bloody Marys and G&Ts are memorised and recurrently practiced in the airplane mockups.

Every day, I wake up at five thirty in the morning and, shortly after a quick breakfast, we are bussed out of the apartment block and into the Qatar Airways Tower, the sunshine already beaming at full blast through the classroom windows whilst the building vibrates at times when a heavy aircraft lifts off the hazy runway just a few streets away.

A day off provides a good insight into the life of my multi-cultural training colleagues. The dry dismissive wittiness of the Brit, the humble eyes of the Sri Lankan and the shy laughter of the Japanese who abruptly interrupts statements with awkwardly placed questions for the amusement of the whole batch.
We take three taxis to the Villagio Mall which, just like any other Middle Eastern extravagant desire, emulates the streets of Venice under a roof painted in sky motifs, even providing gondola rides in a makeshift pale blue canal.

A statement left on my notebook perhaps better expresses the innocence of this moment in life:

‘I must say that I feel like a child in a candy store , every day is exciting and with different things to see, finally study something I pay a hundred per cent attention to.
Today we had training inside the planes and I remembered that it was actually what I always wanted to do , since the very beginning.
Sometimes it seems like I am dreaming or something and will be awake in a few minutes, sometimes it is very real ( like when I have to wake up really early to get ready and well groomed for training).’


The days in Doha grow warmer. At times I look at the weather forecast in the hope of finding some sort of cloud coverage but the outlook is always pretty bright and hot. Forty-two degrees Celsius hot.

As I gain confidence in the new city, I venture out to the Souq.
The rebuilt market which, as any new tourist attraction, sells postcards and souvenirs on the main street, also hides secrets and stories of bygone times in narrow alleyways where locals still make bread in circular stone ovens and sell them with butter on top and wrapped in old newspapers for two Riyals.

Doha proves to be a decent city for the Western expat. I finalise some running routes along the dusty streets of Al Mansoura to the refreshing greenery of the Corniche and I am joined by some of my batch mates in excruciatingly hot and humid runs. The constantly-changing skyline revolving around our very own steps in concentric rings of speeding cars and half-built towers.
The exercise routine is welcomed by my small circle of new friends. Routine will keep our sanity in the weirdness of the Gulf and, with the flying weeks approaching and days of traveling through many time zones soon to come by, it is good to keep the body trained to endure some extenuating physical activity at a time in which we also need to keep away from the shopping centres spending money that we do not particularly have.
A basic twelve kilometres routine is completed several times a week: two kilometres walking the distance from our accommodation to the Pearl fountain, an 8.6 kilometres return run over the half-moon shaped Corniche, and a two kilometres cool down back to our air conditioned rooms.

The weeks grow busier and the days off shorter. The routine of the Middle East swallowing us into its dusty dynamics.
The ‘glitz and glam’ of the brand-new buildings in Doha substituted by small doses of skepticism, for my eyes cannot ignore the reality of the people behind the never ending construction sites for long. The dusty labourers hidden from the eye of correctness in battered buses that leave at six in the afternoon daily and disappear in the damp darkness of the desert. A cheap shameful secret to be concealed from the rest of the world, whilst Qatar is sold as a top-of-the-range brand for business.

We finish our Service Training and start Safety & Emergency Procedures. The classroom hours drastically changing from the flowery language and theory of serving passengers, to the pragmatic international statements to be memorised as part of the safety procedures put in place in worldwide aviation.
Drills, door commands, announcements, a very uncoordinated safety briefing and even a video featuring ‘Virgin Atlantic’s evil cigarettes’, which instinctively dove into paper bins at the tone of dramatic music, flick in front of us whilst training continues and brings the thought of working on the plane even closer.

The Asians break the ice and join us on a night out at our very own Sheraton Irish pub in week number three. I receive a call from home informing me about my grandma’s deteriorating health on week number four. I fail to properly use the washing machine and dye all of my whites in shades of blue on week number five and, on week number six, we are almost ready to bid for our first flights.