Sun-dried

Hmmm...

Where to start. OK. The beginning. After my last post, things started to get better. The weather has started to cool down, I'm getting used to the place and TOH has returned.

I'm not new at work any more and I'm actually beginning to be able to answer questions without having to consult junior members of my team.

I've been to Dubai for a weekend. Dubai is enormous - not by London standards - but the scale of the place makes it seem like a cartoon. The buildings are unreal. We had a great time and I really thought that this part of the world could be a fun place to live. Sipping cocktails on the outdoor terrace at the top of the Jumeirah Beach hotel was fabulous. The hotel is really narrow at the top so it was like drinking booze on a knife edge but I was already a bit tipsy by then, so it wasn't scary, it felt kinda cool. Well, not cool exactly, it was 29 degrees at 12.30am!

Dubai is very different from Abu Dhabi, more sophisticated and more modern. However, it's also full of British and German holiday makers. In a way that's not a bad thing as the place has more of a holiday feel about it, but it also means that you see the worst drunken behaviour that your country-folk can inflict upon a nation. Abu Dhabi is much smaller and quieter and very few tourists come here. It's more of a business destination than a holiday one.

So. Things are getting better. Or, they were...

This last week has been a bad one. My boss has basically been sidelined and demoted, he was told that he has been replaced. I have been invited to a meeting to discuss the merits and value of my role and my team. 6 weeks in and I'm already having to fight for my job. I understand that business is business and decisions of this nature need to be made. But to do this without letting any of the concerned parties know until the day they are actually bumped out is pretty low. I guess that's the way it works here.

I was out walking the other evening - taxis were bustling about everywhere but for some reason, none were willing to stop and people were literally squabbling in the streets over the few that pulled in. The walk gave me time to think (I was walking to a bar, it took 45 minutes, so I felt I deserved the gallons of beer that I ended up guzzling). My conclusions were that no-one actually comes to this city because it's a place where they really want to live. People are here because of the potential to earn so much more than they could at home. Whilst walking I made a small, private plea to the new place where I live - "please just give me one thing to really, really love about living here". For the past six weeks I've been optimistically bullying myself into the belief that I do like living here but my resolve has started to crumble.

I know that almost everyone goes through similar thoughts and feelings in a new place but I'm feeling it quite keenly lately. I hope I'll learn to like and enjoy living here, I'm sure I will but I don't think I'll ever actually love it like I do London, New York, Sydney, Hong Kong... all places with a soul and a feeling of ... I don't know... something! This place doesn't feel like anything. It's just a concrete and glass grid, built where the desert meets the sea.

I'm a positive person. I'm usually optimistic and foolishly believe that things will always turn out right in the end. This is becoming a big test of the way I see things and how I view the world through my rose-tinted specs. Perhaps this is good. It may teach me a new way to see things and that could help me learn to enjoy this place and what it has to offer.

I promise, whatever happens, that my next post will not be doom and gloom. I'll pick out the small things that have actually made me smile here. I have smiled, I'm never that full of woe!