Expat Travel Mom

Same, Same, But Different

Life so far in the UAE is the same, but different. What I mean is: almost everyone here speaks English, in varying degrees. You can get most of the foods you love from home, just at a slightly elevated price. And there are so many expats here that you never really feel out of place. Sure, the writing on your soda or water bottle is in Arabic, but thanks to branding, you still know exactly what it is.

Like I mentioned before, you'll find all your favorite restaurants here: Papa John's, P.F. Chang's, Dunkin' Donuts, McDonald's, and more. Even familiar clothing stores, H&M, Payless, Carter's, even a Toys "R" Us. More often than not, though, I find myself reaching for the local brand instead, since it's far cheaper. Toys "R" Us alone nearly broke the bank. Transformers get shipped to us in care packages from home instead.

A Toenail, an ER Visit, and Very Cheap Healthcare

Since the last post, we've moved from Abu Dhabi, an hour and a half inland, to a town called Al Ain. Not before I tested out our insurance here first, though, with a trip to the ER. I tore my toenail off in the hotel room, landing myself in the emergency room, I'll spare you the rest of those details. But I do want to say the staff was wonderful, and the cost of care here with insurance is remarkably low. Between the ER visit and three prescriptions, we walked out having paid 76 dirhams total, about $22.61. I was genuinely impressed.

Home Base: A Hotel Suite in Al Ain

Al Ain is the oasis of the UAE, where all the bottled water comes from, and this is where we'll be living. Except, one month later, as I write this, we're still in a hotel. "Home" life hasn't quite settled in yet. We're lucky, though, the room we've been given is a full suite: a large living room with a dining table, couch, and TV, plus a kitchen and two bedrooms. We've made it home for now, and will probably keep doing so for another week or two, based on the pace things tend to move here. Not ideal, but very doable.

The hotel facilities themselves are lovely: a lap pool, a lounge pool, a covered baby pool, a handful of restaurants and pubs, a great health club, and a salon and spa. I hear the massages are wonderful, about 120 dirhams, roughly $32, for a full hour with aromatherapy. Hard to beat this little "vacation" lifestyle we've got going for now. And yes, to answer the question I keep getting asked: you can drink here, in hotels and clubs, or you can get an alcohol license and buy your own from the liquor stores around town.

School Starts

Another "normal" part of life that just started for us: school. We'd originally planned to homeschool, but ended up finding an affordable private school under Cambridge curriculum called Global English School. Our four-year-old will be in KG1, our six-year-old in Grade 1. The school's population is 59% local Emirati students, the rest expats like us, taught in English with a Montessori emphasis. Both kids only have one other American in their entire class. They'll have Arabic four days a week, plus Islamic Studies and Morals classes, mixed in with English, Math, Science, Art, Computers, and Library. The uniforms are adorable, not at all what I'm used to. Again: same, but different. Both kids have loved their first few days, though when I asked who their new friends were, they couldn't tell me, since they don't understand a word their friends are saying yet. I have a feeling they'll come out the other side of this with a real appreciation for other people, and hopefully fluent Arabic to go with it.

So Much to Do

There's genuinely so much for a family to do here, whether you're visiting or living here full time. First thing to do: join a hotel club. That membership gets you a pool, a gym, other facilities, and often discounts on restaurants and kids' activities like soccer or swim lessons. Most people who live here belong to one. Beyond that, there's a zoo, an arcade in nearly every mall called Fun City (complete with a roller coaster), indoor ski slopes and ice rinks, and camel souks full of hundreds of camels, along with plenty of men happy to charge you for a photo with one. They really are adorable, though.

We are loving the UAE, and I'd genuinely encourage anyone to put it on their bucket list. It's a place unlike anywhere else. Some things here will drive you a little nuts, and some things you already know you'll miss the second you leave. But isn't that just what home is, wherever it happens to be?

Update: Al Ain has since become known as the birthplace of Sheikh Zayed, the UAE's founding father, and its "Garden City" nickname isn't just a figure of speech, the Al Ain Oasis alone contains over 147,000 date palms across nearly 3,000 acres, still fed by a millennia-old falaj irrigation system. In June 2011, less than a year after this was written, the Cultural Sites of Al Ain became the UAE's very first UNESCO World Heritage Site. We had no idea we were living somewhere that historic at the time.