Day three in the UAE
Until recently, the UAE were not on my relocation wish list. But, coming from Austria, I have always had a thing for odd little countries and the more I found out about this specific odd little country, the more curious I got. Abu Dhabi, more than the other Emirates, offers an intriguing mixture of local culture, cosmopolitanism, location and, erm, remuneration. The UAE are, in a way, the Middle East light, offering the prospect of an easy-going, lucrative kind of adventure, and a good base from which to explore a region I know only through expat friends and the media.
Now, after three days here in Abu Dhabi, a mild culture shock is beginning to give way to a comfortable sort of moodiness that depends on three factors: the availability of taxis, the sight of exhausted construction workers and the current state of various, rather Kafkaesque bureaucratic processes.
But all misgivings pale into irrelevance in the face of the city’s electrifying atmosphere. Years later than its neighbour Dubai, Abu Dhabi has brought forward a gold-rush of its own, stemming from a comparatively prudent economic diversification scheme driven by the Emirate’s rulers. Opportunity and misery lurk at every corner, but Abu Dhabi’s boom is more orderly, grounded and stable than the one that has just come to a brusque end in Dubai.
People from all over the world now come here to make the best of it; from Bangladeshi garbage-sifters and Phillipino nannies to Japanese engineers and British lawyers; everybody wants a piece of the ‘Diamond in the Desert’, as Jo Tatchell refers to Abu Dhabi in her brand new book about the city.
In deciding to come here, I have joined the ‘immigrant mercenaries’ Christopher Davidson likes to speak of. The world’s richtest city entices legions of expatriates, blue- and white-collar alike, with its tax-free earnings, healthy job market and stable, if undemocratic, government. London’s the-end-is-nigh ambiance feels pleasantly distant, as does Vienna’s bated breath.
The crisis may not have reached Abu Dhabi, but its fugitives have. And so have I.
