Flying Qatar airlines, and adding another country to the country count

I have had a hankering to fly Qatar Airlines since overhearing a Qantas steward on a domestic flight extol the virtues of Qatar. I was travelling back from Canberra for work and it was one of those Doris delayed flights and the attendants were doing their best to calm the frustrated passengers, mostly by plying us with more grog, and this rather vivacious and very camp steward was regaling passengers with his humour and tales. I thought if a Qantas steward, a known tough-to-please character, is impressed by an airline then it must be good.  And I am pleased to report that our experience so far has been excellent. I am not going to bore you with stories of seat pitch, or EES (electronic entertainment systems) or other technical stuff - I am going to say; fly Qatar for the safety demonstration. 

No one watches the security demonstration on an airplane, that is, unless it is a Qatar airplane.

Qatar AIrlines are the major sponsor of Barcelona Football Club and they have capitalised on that association with their award winning safety video. On any other plane passengers blithely tune out when the safety demo starts, but on a Qatar flight the passengers are glued to the screen. As Molly would say, do yourself a favour, and check it out. It is well worth watching - as its over 11 million FaceBook Likes attest to. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WS2CQQfQzEM

I think my favourite part is the swooning female fans requiring oxygen. Then again the red card to the passenger smoking in the toilet is pretty too. 

The Qatar Airways emblem is the oryx antelope, the national animal of the country. The Arabian oryx became extinct in the wild in the 1970s but conservation by zoos and private breeders has seen the animal reintroduced to its natural habitat. It is thought that the myth of the unicorn is based on oryxes that have lost one horn 

I need to also acknowledge that Qatar found and returned my iPad which I stupidly left in the departure lounge on the first day of our travels. They have a fantastic lost and found property service which they cleverly call "Found Property" - how is that for optimism and service. 

To top all that off they even offer a complimentary three hour tour of capital city Doha for passengers with long transfer layovers. That is us - we have an eight hour layover between our arrival from Oman and our departure for Melbourne, so I am now the happy holder of a Qatari visa (gratis) and will soon enter Qatar territory. Meaning - I have added another country to this trip and my growing list of countries visited. 

A Qatari pigeon tower (don't ask me).

Home tomorrow - and looking forward to that first glass of wine after the five day alcohol fast in Oman.