There are certain life skills that expats need to learn when they arrive in Dubai. The ability to mind-read when driving would be a good example. How to arrive at a meeting in July without sweat patches showing through your clothes. How you need to turn on the hot tap to get cold water in summer. When you’ve lived here some time, these things become normal – that’s life in Dubai.
I was reminded of a key “Dubai life skill” that I’ve learned since moving here when my mum was visiting last week. As we drove to the behemoth that is Dubai Mall, I quizzed Mum about where she’d like to have lunch. Why, she wanted to know: why did I need to know? Couldn’t she just enter the mall and then decide?
Several of Dubai’s malls now offer a buggy service for those who haven’t yet mastered tactical parking – but at AED 15 (£3) per trip the cost soon adds up
Of course she could, I explained, but, like the Pan-Arabian Enquirer’s fictitious tourist who was “lost in Dubai Mall for 13 months” we may not emerge for some time. Oh no: what I like to do on an efficient visit to the shops in Dubai is to practice tactical parking.
Most mall-savyy Dubai residents must surely do this, too. While parking in the UK probably involves little more than getting as close to the mall door as you can, in Dubai, where mall size is increasing as fast as a new expat’s waistline, many hours can be wasted clickety-clacking up and down marble floors between the handful of shops that you need if you park in the wrong car park. Dubai Mall is so huge that, to park at Fashion Avenue when you’re going to the movies could mean missing the start of the show.
But tactical parking is just one of the life skills you learn when you move to Dubai. Here are some more:
- How to make sense of a movie plot that’s been cut to shreds by the censors.
- How to look blasé when your date arrives in a gold-plated Ferrari; you come face-to-face with a shark in a shopping mall; or your neighbour installs a helipad in the garden.
- How to shake off an aggressive tail-gater without ending up in jail (thanks to the Catboy & GeordieBird Breakfast Show for that one).
- How to eat a canapé while holding a clutch bag, a phone and a champagne glass.
- How to avoid mentioning how lovely the weather is when talking to people back home.
- How to tell the supermarket bag-packer politely that you’d rather pack your shopping yourself – in just one bag.
- How to drive 0.005kph below the limit at which the speed cameras go off.
- How to tell a taxi driver to stop speeding / get off the phone / drive the quickest route without infuriating him.
- How to cook a crowd-pleasing Nigella recipe on a disposable barbecue in the desert.
Annabel Kantaria is a journalist who’s lived in the UAE long enough to call it home. She’d quite like to ride a camel to work, is totally over gold-plated supercars and is the queen of tactical parking. Follow her on Twitter: @BellaKay; and on Instagram: dubaipix