Table for One!
Hotels are great.... when you're with someone! The little dude, partner (if you're with someone), friend(s), even a rowdy bunch of colleagues. When you're on your own it's boring to be honest. A couple of day's are ok, but a couple of weeks, naah!
After spending a great weekend with my friend (who's hubby was away) in the splendid Kempinski with a gym fit for a king and an appartment big enough to play hide and seek in as grown ups (we didn't but I may suggest it next time - light bulb moment), it's back to the hotel tonight. Not the poshest hotel in Doha; but the Radisson Blu is still one of my favourites as you can be fairly anonymous, whilst at the same time being greeted with lots of smiles by the staff cos I've been there that often. You don't have to dress up and there's a good choice of restaurants (11 or so). I've probably spent as many nights here as in my own bed this year! Driven out of my room by 'housekeeping madam' and the depressing thought of trying to find something I hadn't tried from the room service menu, I headed out to the Italian Job. Not the best Italian in Doha foodwise, it still gets great reviews as the Filipino staff sing along to Karaoke tunes as they serve you (or just linger by your table) in a very serious manner. Tucked out in the garden of the Radisson Blu, behind the swimming pool, I didn't have far to go.
Table for one please!
There were plenty of other 'table for ones' as Radisson Blu gets a lot of business folk; everything from offshore overall-wearing dudes (the coveralls tend to be at breakfast, not dinner), to the suited and booted with a spattering of people like me, on their way to relocation. We all sit at our own little individual tables either playing with our phones or head firmly hidden in a book (I tend to multi-task and do both). You go because you want to eat, not because it's fun to sit in a restaurant on your own. Even more so during Ramadan, when your beverage choices are sodas, alcohol free beer or one of the strange Mocktails they offer (virgin cocktails we'd call them). There's almost never any women alone, probably for fear of being approached by weirdos!
Keeping busy of an evening (at friends, at the gym, at the mall) keeps me from missing NJ too much, but sometimes I need a rest and, after an hour in the pool exercising, I was too tired to go out. Note: the hour in the pool is normally half an hour, but after being approached mid-swim by a fat middle-aged Indian who gasped between mouthfuls of pool swill 'I want to talk to you when you get out,' I made my swim longer, long enough for him to have gotten out, gone in the jacuzzi, come back and perform some showy off middle-aged man drying ritual at the side of the pool whilst watching me swim up and down (yuk). I'd have swam all evening if I'd had to, unwanted attention is definitely good for my fitness levels!
So back in my room, half full of stodgy lasagne (the salad was ok) and tired. Even though I don't eat the turn-down chocolates, the room service dude still brings me one every evening and lines them all up like little soldiers above my bed. It's like my own little chocolate advent calender to count the days, except instead of getting less, there's an extra one each evening. I'm not tempted to eat them, I've probably had a hundred of the blooming things this year alone!
After spending a great weekend with my friend (who's hubby was away) in the splendid Kempinski with a gym fit for a king and an appartment big enough to play hide and seek in as grown ups (we didn't but I may suggest it next time - light bulb moment), it's back to the hotel tonight. Not the poshest hotel in Doha; but the Radisson Blu is still one of my favourites as you can be fairly anonymous, whilst at the same time being greeted with lots of smiles by the staff cos I've been there that often. You don't have to dress up and there's a good choice of restaurants (11 or so). I've probably spent as many nights here as in my own bed this year! Driven out of my room by 'housekeeping madam' and the depressing thought of trying to find something I hadn't tried from the room service menu, I headed out to the Italian Job. Not the best Italian in Doha foodwise, it still gets great reviews as the Filipino staff sing along to Karaoke tunes as they serve you (or just linger by your table) in a very serious manner. Tucked out in the garden of the Radisson Blu, behind the swimming pool, I didn't have far to go.
Table for one please!
There were plenty of other 'table for ones' as Radisson Blu gets a lot of business folk; everything from offshore overall-wearing dudes (the coveralls tend to be at breakfast, not dinner), to the suited and booted with a spattering of people like me, on their way to relocation. We all sit at our own little individual tables either playing with our phones or head firmly hidden in a book (I tend to multi-task and do both). You go because you want to eat, not because it's fun to sit in a restaurant on your own. Even more so during Ramadan, when your beverage choices are sodas, alcohol free beer or one of the strange Mocktails they offer (virgin cocktails we'd call them). There's almost never any women alone, probably for fear of being approached by weirdos!
Keeping busy of an evening (at friends, at the gym, at the mall) keeps me from missing NJ too much, but sometimes I need a rest and, after an hour in the pool exercising, I was too tired to go out. Note: the hour in the pool is normally half an hour, but after being approached mid-swim by a fat middle-aged Indian who gasped between mouthfuls of pool swill 'I want to talk to you when you get out,' I made my swim longer, long enough for him to have gotten out, gone in the jacuzzi, come back and perform some showy off middle-aged man drying ritual at the side of the pool whilst watching me swim up and down (yuk). I'd have swam all evening if I'd had to, unwanted attention is definitely good for my fitness levels!
So back in my room, half full of stodgy lasagne (the salad was ok) and tired. Even though I don't eat the turn-down chocolates, the room service dude still brings me one every evening and lines them all up like little soldiers above my bed. It's like my own little chocolate advent calender to count the days, except instead of getting less, there's an extra one each evening. I'm not tempted to eat them, I've probably had a hundred of the blooming things this year alone!
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