My family (which consisted of Hambone - clever husband who got the job in Dubai, Lion - 4 and a half year old boy with attitude and great regrets at leaving behind best friend, and Goldilocks - mad and skinny one-year old with sleep problems) arrived on April 17 2008, and started our desert adventure.
To be honest, I can remember little about our feelings at the time, but I do know that we had certain expectations of this move.
1. We were going to live somewhere exotic
2. It was going to be very, very, very, very hot most of the year
3. I was going to get a maid
We went straight from the airport to our temporary home, the Trade Centre Apartments. You know those email-circulated pictures you see of the Dubai architectural progression (before it ran out of funds and stopped), and the comparison the the flat 1990 dustbowl? There was one building on the skyline then, and that is where we moved in. Needless to say, I was a little disappointed. I had heard that rents were expensive, but my husband was now earning stacks of money, and his firm had put us in a building that looked like council flats on the outside, and had pub carpet and teak furniture on the inside straight out of some ridiculous time warp that should have been obliterated before it began.
I should have known right from the start that Dubai was not going to be nearly as shiny and slick as the Emirates Airlines promos made it look. Everywhere I looked I found that once you scratch the high-tech exterior, the paint peels off to reveal a rusty clapped out inner. But I am grateful for the jolt it has given my sheltered little soul. It gave my exotic new world the light and shade I needed to make me grow. I am here, and for the moment at least, here to stay....
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