What to Write?

I've started about 40 different blog posts since landing in Dubai, and none of them have hit the right note for me. Some have been about my daily experiences, others have been about how this move has affected me on an emotional level, but not one has really worked.

So maybe I'll just hit publish on this one and see what happens.

Dubai is interesting. The city itself is perfectly adequate. Not a ringing endorsement, by any means, but it's the truth. I've said several times how shocked I am at the lack of culture shock I've experienced. (Though I don't exactly know what culture shock feels like, so maybe it has yet to set it. Who knows?)

It's definitely a different world, though. There is a class structure unlike anything I've seen or experienced and this is honestly the biggest challenge I face. I grew up in a world where things like where you were born didn't really matter, but here, it matters.

I am asked every day by one person or another where I am from. When I say 'Canada' in my non-Indian accent, they are often taken aback. Indian expats make up more than half the population of Dubai, so my skin colour puts me in a very large category.

Exactly four weeks after landing in Dubai, the boy came for a visit. It was both amazing and gut-wrenching at the same time - just as I was accepting the loneliness that comes with a new move, he showed up and made me forget about how much I missed everyone and everything and then poof, he was gone again. I'm glad he came but  I'll be happier when he's here full-time.

While he was here we did some touring about - it was great to have someone here to do all the touristy crap with. We toured the city, found some good happy hours, went on a desert safari and discovered my new favorite thing: dune bashing! Seriously, riding around in the desert in a 4x4 was more fun than I've ever had in a vehicle.

Work is pretty great. It's amazing to that the work I'm doing is based in so many different countries - managing time zones and organizing things on different continents is a new challenge for me. It's also been an interesting change going from a small company to one with more than 55,000 employees.

So there you have it. Only my second blog post since relocating. It's weird to think of myself as an expat and that there's a whole community of people in the exact same boat. I feel like I'm starting to settle and hopefully that will give me more things to write about.

Four months til my probation is over and my travels can begin. WEE!

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