Re: Has Dubai/Mideast fever gripped your family or desi social circle yet?
I've been living in Dubai for one year-
it's been in some ways a better and also in other ways a worse experience then either my husband or i had thought.
It is nice not worrying about what you eat everything is turkey ham or beef salami...it's nice hearing the azan and having a place to go pray. it's nice speaking urdu as commonly as Spanish is spoken in California/Texas.
My husband finds the work environment really challenging and exciting. He works with both Arabs, Desis (both ones from india/pak and others from europe/american) and Europeans. He finds people very smart and hard working. He also finds the rapid speed of change and movement in business here is much more exciting then the US. It is an exciting time to be here...very hot.
It is a family friendly area- my daughter gets loads of attention and i feel fairly safe with her here...I also appreciate how easy and relatively inexpensive it is to find help for cleaning and babysitting though it is not super cheap either.
It is DEFINITLY not cheap in comparison to the US- we moved from NYC and rent is running the same here though you get a bigger place. Restaurants are the same...clothing is more 20-30% for me up to 100% more for children's toys and clothes. You can buy cheaply but you have to hit the "old" dubai areas which are a pain to go too..and not where you'd spend most of your time.
For Americans we still owe income tax on everything you make- though you get a tax free allowance on your first 80k....so there is some saving but if you're over the 80K income bracket it's not as nice as is it for other nationalities. I find that most friends who live here...especially recent arrivals are finding it much more expensive than planned.
I also don't know if i want to stay here forever...and though we're enjoying it now we plan on going back.
That sounds pretty nice...what about the worse experiences though??