Water unites

Sometimes we get a little melancholy about being so far away from the people we love and the homes we have known. We're not in a situation in which we can just jump in the car or hop on a train and reach our friends and family. A plane trip to most European destinations is a minimum of six hours in the air, taking a train is out of the question and I don't even want to think about how long it would take to drive. To give you some perspective of how far it is from Doha to the places with which we are bound...

Klagstorp, Sweden: 2824 miles/4544 km
Halden, Norway: 3021 miles/4861 km
Cologne, Germany: 2921 miles/4701 km
Munich, Germany: 2658 miles/4277 km
Saarbrücken, Germany: 2880 miles/4635 km
Portland, Oregon: 7529 miles/12,131 km
Spokane, Washington: 7352 miles/11,831 km

Think of all the frequent-flier miles!

In the end, all I can say is thank goodness for modern technology like e-mail and Skype which allows us to stay in touch with everyone.

A few days ago, a German colleague told me about a wonderful gift he received as he was preparing to move to Qatar. A friend of his gave him several stones taken from the Elbe River and told him that if he ever gets lonely, he should throw one of these stones in the ocean. Isn't it nice to think that somehow, somewhere, all the rivers and oceans of this world are connected? So maybe we're not so far apart after all.