There are two kinds of experience the expat gets to have when they come to the middle east. You can have the walled in, resort like compound living where you're surrounded for the most part by other Westerners, there's usually a pool or two to lounge around, and if there's a Mosque around the corner, the calls to prayer aren't quite as insistent, or you could live like us, what I like to call the authentic experience, surrounded by a cacophony of sights, sounds and smells. It can be a little jarring, and not all of the sights or smells would be considered exotic. You also get cockroaches and rats with this package, but if given the choice between vacation and adventure, I'll always choose adventure, though it is nice to go on vacation every now and again, but that's what friends are for.
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| Lucy night swimming in our friends' pool. |
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| The real Abu Dhabi, more or less. |
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| Karate Lessons next door are one of the luxuries. |
And now that a shoe outlet opened across the street, we really do have everything we could need within a city block, and what we don't have delivers. All of the conveniences of city living combined with all of that yard work that I no longer have to do (thanks Pillings for continuing to take care of that monstrosity of a lawn on Hardisty Court--that is a debt that will stay on the books into the enternities.), I don't know if I'm cut out to return to the subburbs. I've been spoiled.
1 comment:
I've lived both ways, and I just have to say, you still get cockroaches with resort living!
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