Being in the UAE myself
I can vouch for the fact that this is not an uncommon story. Dubai in particular is full of cutthroat types- and from what I understand, they're not typically Emiratis. Dubai is infamous for having a lot of Russian organized crime types, for instance, and I've met some Britons and Americans there who struck me as being less than savory.

We are here in a smaller city while my wife works as a professor, so I believe that we're reasonably safe from that sort of twatbadgery. That said, we know better than to put all our eggs in one basket and have an escape plan if things go ugly. We could put everything important into a few suitcases, grab the cats and ditch the rest if we had to.

The important thing, of course, is to keep your head down and be paranoid about doing anything to piss off anyone in authority. We have friends who have lived here for close to 20 years, so we've been given a little bit of advice here and there about staying under the radar.

But I agree about Dubai being boring, at least for me. It's impressive to see, but it's full of Western stuff that I could get at home so there's really not much lure for me there. I by far prefer the smaller city we're in as it's much more Arab. Not to mention that it's well inland, so it's not as steamy as Dubai or Abu Dhabi.

Sorry to hear of your troubles, and I hope you're better sorted now.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Tue 5 Mar 2013, 11:19, 1 reply)

we're fine now fella
i got back on my horse pretty quickly. i have a great job and we live well. it's all good.
( spimf ™ is whoever you want him to be, Tue 5 Mar 2013, 14:30, closed)