Coming to Dubai Part the First

Part the First:
I moved to UAE 4 years ago in early 2006. I’m 57, married to Yvonne and no kids and I came to Dubai to work for the Chairman and owner of the A Local Family Group and one of the richest men in the country – the world actually.
I was the Group Director of Strategy and Planning, though in this country titles mean little descriptively and lots socially. So I was one of the most senior directors in one of the biggest local companies with a direct line to the Chairman. This gave me huge amounts of kudos and access but precious little actual power to DO anything – perfectly normal in this country.
I pitched up here with my wife having arrived at 0430 in the morning, met by a car and whisked off to the company’s first hotel, which would be my home for a month or so till my apartment would be ready. This would be in a company residence attached to the hotel and right next door to head office. I would be able to walk to work – the whole commute taking 6 minutes including locking the door and waiting for the lift. We were very centrally located on Sheikh Zayed Road – the main drag through the city – at the Metropolitan Hotel, about equidistant from the new Dubai of the Marina area and the old Dubai of the Creek and Bur Dubai. You could walk (in Winter) to the site of the then new Burj Dubai, soon to be the world’s tallest building and now renamed Burj Khalifah. Emirates Mall (big, posh) was about a 5 min drive or 20 Dirham cab ride (less than GBP3) and outside the rush hour 20 minutes would take you to anywhere in the city. The traffic got worse despite the wonderful roads but it remains a small city even allowing for its phenomenal growth. The traffic is different now the recession has burst the economic bubble.
I must say the apartment was something of a disappointment – as were many aspects of what was promised vs what was delivered. It was a decent one-bed apartment. But it was supposed to be a 2 bed so we could have visitors. It started out as fully serviced with full access to all the hotel’s services but after a few months this all fell away. But the worst thing was it looked over the air-con equipment for the hotel and the noise was highly debilitating. Moreover we were right by the English Pub and the Tex-Mex bar which was one of the two best-known haunts of prostitutes in the country – and the most profitable establishment the company owned. The hypocrisy is stunning. This is a Muslim country after all.
And the roaches…building work nearby and poor pest control meant our ‘Executive Apartments’ were infested with roaches that no amount of spraying seemed to be able to eliminate. We knew the roach guy better than the housemaid!
But this was all fixable over time in various ways and we got on with our life in a new country. Which was great fun.