by Deborah Quinn | Nov 14, 2013 | Abu Dhabi, environment, expat, NaBloPoMo, Politics, UAE
It’s hot here in the desert. Even now, in November, when people say “ah…the heat has broken,” we’re still talking 90F at midday. The road I have to take to my house winds through a whole huge construction project designed to make room...
by Deborah Quinn | Nov 5, 2013 | Abu Dhabi, exercise, Politics, UAE, What's It Like?
What it looks like when repairmen come to your house in Abu Dhabi: Everybody’s shoes get left at the door–whether it’s friends stopping by for a visit or workers coming to see why the dishwasher spews water all over the kitchen floor. And even...
by Deborah Quinn | Nov 24, 2012 | Abu Dhabi, Politics, surat al-sabt saturday snapshot, UAE, What's It Like?
It’s hard to avoid “service” in Abu Dhabi. Labor is (disturbingly) cheap and it seems sometimes that there is always someone offering to wash your car, clean your apartment, carry your bags. But the other day in Lulu (a big grocery store chain here),...
by Deborah Quinn | Oct 5, 2011 | Abu Dhabi, UAE, wordless wednesday
The boys play soccer at Zayed Sports City, a huge sports complex about 20 minutes drive from our apartment (or 8 minutes if you’re the Emirati dude we saw last week, zigzagging through traffic in his Maserati like he was trying out for Formula 1.) We get there...
by Deborah Quinn | Oct 2, 2011 | Abu Dhabi, expat, Politics, UAE
I’m anxious today. Well, actually, I’m anxious a lot of the time, in a kind of anticipatory free-floating sort of way–I like to have a sort of stockpile of anxiety on hand, ready to whip out at the slightest provocation, but this morning, my anxiety...