Living in Dubai - I

One month has passed and I almost didnt notice it!

Life here is quite easy... Not sure exactly how to explain this but the thing is that I didnt had any problems in settling down (excepct for the maniac pressure of finding a suitable apartment).

You can easily access all things and most of the times with cheaper prices than back in Portugal (so I dont even want to think about what british and german people think!!)
You get a coke for 20 cents of a euro, a proper meal in a decent restaurant for 10 Euros and a Good meal by the sea, italian food, candle lights for 20 Euros.
I guess I end up spending more money here than I did in Portugal just because I find things so cheap... Anyway my favourite is definitely buying fresh fruit juices/milkshakes for euro!! :) I cant get enough of those...

Anyway.. looking into the society aspect of it there is clearly something that strucks your attention easily. Around 90% if not more of the population of Dubai are Expats. Meaning that the amount of "locals" (people who are actually UAE citizens) is quite small and also meaning that you will be able to know exactly who they are,The 2nd thing that grabs your attention is the division of those 90% of expats.
Basically, you have the top managers level who most probably will be British, followed by americans or australians and then some western europeans.

Then, on the other side you have all the "labour force": "monhes" (basically the portuguese word for indians, pakistanese and sri lankans) followed by Philipinos.
Honestly I believe this is actually the biggest negative point I have found up to now... It works almost as closed clusters and it leads to lots of prejudice and racism.Also, the fact that there are many indians here working in those jobs that no one else wants to take, therefore probably being the least educated people from India, makes overall "white expats" to consider indians as dumb and stupid.

This actually makes me wonder how people would call my portuguese ancestor some years back when we flooded Germany and France in search for better payments and ended up becoming their housemaids and construction employees.It really annoys me for people to think they are so superior that they cannot perform certain job and still have the nerves to actually say bad things about the ones who are taking it. But I guess this is happening almost everywhere now.. In Portugal with the brazilians, russians, ukrainans; in SPain with the latin americans..

Well, dont want to focus exclusively on the negatives points as as I was saying overall life here is quite straightforward, especially for europeans expats. Most of the apartments have their own pool and gymn, shopping malls in almost every corner, beach 20 minutes away, camels 30 minutes away : (they are SOOO cute!!) and plenty of people in the same situation as you (young expats) so it is actually difficult to figure out a day when there are actually no plans!

Main issue now is definitely "Saudade" of my friends, my family, my Lisbon, my Tagus River...

But as soon as the weather gets better (personal mental note: dont forget to post about the weather) I am sure everyone will start visiting me, right?? :)

Oh, and saudades of a " crepe de chocolate com banana" in Cup&Cino :) Can someone DHL it to me?? :)