Millhouse

Only teasing

DXBtoDOH

Hmm. I miss Dubai. Sort of. Sometimes. It's been a few years but I still remember all the roads and short cuts (assuming more flyovers haven't been built or rerouted). In a world gone mad the UAE, of all places, seems sane. Could just be speaking from the sand is yellower over there perspective, of course

Millhouse

I’ve just come back from the U.K. my god what a mess. I had to wait for the lights to go green to walk into Ikea... and book a table for the meatballs. Madness.

DXBtoDOH

At the end of the day it's an old, tired, crowded and worn-out country. Only one place approaches the optimism and can-do mindset of the UAE and that's London, but then again you'd also have to put up with woke transgendered SJWs who still cry themselves to sleep every night over Brexit and with a fetish for the latest 'he be a good boy' thug shot by the police .... all the way over in America. What can I say. A mad country in a mad world in a mad year.

Millhouse

I share your views.

scrubbedexpat141

Interesting. I fear this sort of missing Dubai feeling when we eventually leave

I think you're pretty much spot on.

Leave Dubai and move to the UK, back to where we come from and take a job paying OK money and job done.
OR
To earn good money, take a job in London. Be surrounded by the biggest bellends on earth (Londoners) and have to get a train or cycle or walk or just generally commute in the rain. I got a scooter to work today, rented, took minutes and cruised along a safe, spacious pavement to work. I'd have been stabbed 8 times in London before I even got to the scooter.


All that being said, we've been talking more about how it may be getting closer to the time to go. Mainly because of work related reasons (we've both changed jobs and both are proving to be every bit the challenge expected but with some more pain on top) and changing jobs at the moment feels mad foolish.

I'd love to just take a year off and **** about somewhere cheap but every time we move the wedding someone wants money so stopping earning now is a bad time!

Millhouse

You'll fit in well bruv, don't worry.

Millhouse

We are ready to go at any time now too - we don't really want to, but we have accepted that if I lose my job here then there is just no point in staying anymore unless something really great pops up. We would just sell up and go.

scrubbedexpat141

Fair point, fam.

We've not quite had that discussion. I'm avoiding it as it sows a seed for her to latch on to, I think we're just going to have to get back at Xmas whatever the situation or she might implode. I'm not far away either, being apart from family this long is wank.

DXBtoDOH

When you are an expat you are cut off from all the troubles of home, whether family, political, cultural or social. They become abstract concepts and it's a liberating feeling. The rootlessness of expatdom comes with a freedom of its own. Because you're neither of home nor of the place you live as an expat, you're your own man (or woman). At home you're much more conscious of being an irrelevant cog in a machine that doesn't care for you.

Oh, don't get me too wrong. Being close to the folks is wonderful. The English countryside can be glorious. Certain English ways of doing things are so very endearing. Notwithstanding COVID, life isn't too difficult for me and I have things to be fortunate for. But I always remember a friend of my parents who, just before I left the UK for my first expat stint in Singapore, warned me not to spend too much time overseas or I'd never get over it. Given that I'm pushing 41 and have spent nearly 12 years of my professional life as an expat, I've discovered he's right. I knew he was right because barely a month after I bought my house I was actually seriously talking to the company about going overseas again, this time to the US. I backed out because I realised I couldn't do that yet. Note the emphasis on yet

MataHari

[QUOTE=DXBtoDOH;12930662]When you are an expat you are cut off from all the troubles of home, whether family, political, cultural or social. They become abstract concepts and it's a liberating feeling. The rootlessness of expatdom comes with a freedom of its own. Because you're neither of home nor of the place you live as an expat, you're your own man (or woman). At home you're much more conscious of being an irrelevant cog in a machine that doesn't care for you.

This with bells on!
Been gone 4 years now and still feel not quite settled 'at home' after 12 years in Dubai...

Millhouse

I shed a tear. Honestly. Please come back. We are lacking milfs

co durham boy

We're even lacking Gilfs on this site .

scrubbedexpat141

Interesting. Some good insight there, thanks for sharing.
I always knew I wanted to live overseas and I've been here almost 10 years now. It's less expatty and more - I live here now, if that make sense? I've succumbed over the years to pissing cash away and I've saved, I'm firmly in the latter camp and am lucky to still be young, employed and paid well.....so the thought of 'giving that up' to return to the UK and plod along in a house in the 'burbs and a job similar to mine now but for much less cash just doesn't appeal massively (although it does at times). I dread doing that and making that move to end up wanting to be back overseas again...not that it can't happen but yo-yo-ing must be expensive.

Anyway, just thoughts and discussion so I'm grateful for your input.

MataHari

awww...love you long time