Why we moved to Abu Dhabi

Peter regularly asks me how he could make me happier. Usually I have no idea what to say, because he already makes me the happiest ever. At other times I think about it, and I come up with something, like one day I said to him: ‘If we lived somewhere warm.’

Things in Belgium haven’t turned out the way we thought. We were only there for 2 months, but we didn’t feel anywhere as good there as we did in Poland, where we lived for a year. The work-life balance wasn’t as good, prices were expensive, people we met weren’t that nice, just to mention a few things. We had some good days too and we knew we’d get through it if we had to, after all we had each other but we weren’t exactly enjoying ourselves.

So even though Peter’s contract in Belgium was for a year, he kept looking out for positions that he might enjoy more, or for locations that stood out.

I completely forgot about my wish to live somewhere warm, when one day he says to me ‘Look, there’s this job on LinkedIn in Abu Dhabi, it looks quite good!’ ‘Wow yes Abu Dhabi!’ I said… how amazing would it be to live there.... I knew it would probably never happen and it was just a dream, but we can try, right? I mean, everyone probably wants to go to a place like Abu Dhabi, they must have lots of applicants… But we both go excited at the thought of it, and he contacted the person advertising the job in via every possible channel. She got back to him shortly, and they started talking…

Pretty soon an email came saying they’d like to interview him! So we started hoping that maybe, just maybe it could work out and we’d live in Abu Dhabi. How cool would that be! We knew we’d have to move very quickly if the interview was successful as they wanted someone right away, so we both started reading about what life was like there for expats, about the work culture, possible problems we could encounter. I joined Facebook groups with expats living there and asked them lots of questions…

There was a so much research we had to do in order to make an informed decision on whether we should really take that step. We found out that the UAE is a very different place to Europe, with a different culture and we’d have to be careful in many ways if we were to move there. We read so much about it that doubts were creeping in. Should we really move there? What if we go there and the employer doesn’t like Peter? Then it would just be an expensive ‘holiday’ we’d take in the UAE, which we really don’t have the money for right now. Do employees have the same rights there as in Europe, and if not, what are the differences? So you can imagine it was a stressful time for us.

On the one hand we were excited to maybe have the opportunity to live in a country with a completely different culture.

On the other hand we knew what a risky move it would be to go there. It could potentially be a huge setback for us financially if it went wrong. Or what if we just make a simple mistake while living there, for example we give good-bye kiss to each other on the street? They could lock us in jail or deport us for it because it’s not allowed… At the same time we were excited about all the things we could do there, all the places we could visit… both Abu Dhabi and Dubai are a gateway to many places that we’d like to see.

Then it was finally time for the interview! Peter thought it went very well, that he gave a good impression. A few days later their answer came; they liked him and they would like to hire him, when can he start? Oh wow, it’s becoming real, we’re going to Abu Dhabi. We started feeling even more excited, but at the same time stressed out about the enormous number of things that could go wrong. We thought it all looked too good to be true, there must be something wrong with it… What if they just want us for kidney donors?

And we had so much to do! Peter needed to give his notice in, we had to move out from our flat in Belgium, take our stuff back to the UK, get all the paperwork together, buy a plane ticket, health insurance, look for a place to live…. and we only had a couple of weeks for that.

The company wanted him to start his new role as soon as possible, but his old employer didn’t want to let him go, so we were getting very stressed. He had a month long notice period, but they wanted him to be in Abu Dhabi in 2 weeks! His old employer was playing it hard and didn’t want to release him early. We had another worry now; we might just fall in between two stools as they say and have no job at all.

The next few weeks were difficult. Peter couldn’t sleep and I couldn’t eat. He was trying to negotiate with his old boss, and I was putting together all the paperwork for the new role. I kept reading up on the work culture in the UAE, looking for a flat to rent and we made calculations to see how much money we’ll need to start a life there. Things were not looking too good, it was a big question mark if we’d enough for everything. I research what I’d need to get my visa there, which we could only apply for when Peter’s employer arranged his. The information I found was very vague, I even called the Foreign Ministry in Abu Dhabi, but they weren’t helpful at all. I thought I might have to go back to Hungary in January to get our documents attested, but we still weren’t sure about it because all the information on the subject was so unclear.

All the while we lived in an apartment in Belgium that we rented from a creepy guy who kept coming in to the flat that smelled of cat piss. And on top of all it was cold and raining all the time, so of course we couldn’t wait to leave.

Finally Peter’s boss agreed to let him go whenever we needed to leave, so we told the new employer that he could start on time. They bought his flight ticket and I bought mine for the same flight. That was when I started to believe it was really happening! We were moving to Abu Dhabi!

I packed up our stuff on the last day and we loaded everything into the car and we drove back to the UK for a change of clothes. We got some decent summer clothes and work attire for Peter.

Finally Sunday came, and it was time for our flight. We got to Abu Dhabi and moved into an apartment that Peter’s company provides for his employees, where they let us stay until we find something else. We didn’t expect much, thinking it would be a regular apartment, nothing special. Then we got here and… Wow! We saw that this place has a private beach, a gym and a swimming pool (which we’ve not seen yet). We fell in love with the place.

We’ve been in Abu Dhabi for over two weeks now and we love it. It’s sunny and hot every day, Peter’s colleagues are nice and he even likes the job, he can do a few things he’s wanted to learn and he has the chance to do them here. His company will even help arrange my visa.

The country is fascinating to us, we love watching people who live here and wander about how they got here. The city is 80% immigrants, so we don’t see too many locals here, but if we do we recognise them straight away, the men wearing long white shirts (Kandura), women dressed in black abayas from head to toe.

So we’re having a great time here so far, getting to know the place in the evenings when Peter is not working, and we have lots of plans on what to see and do on the many weekends to come. We’ve even mapped out where we’ll go on long weekends. We want to go to India, Lebanon, Oman, Maldives and so on. Hopefully we’ll see a few of those places while we’re here. I can’t wait for our family and friends to come and visit us, so we can show them around, they will love the place I’m sure!

Peter said to me the other day ‘Remember when you said it would make you happier if we moved somewhere warm? See, I love you so much that I made your wish come true.’ ‘Yeah you did!’ I answered, laughing.

Thanks to this opportunity we’ve learnt that sometimes we need to take a risk if it brings us closer to our dreams. If we chose to stay in Belgium instead of going to the unknown here in the UAE, we would have had an income that we could rely on without all the stress, but we wouldn’t have had all the experiences we can get by living here, and we definitely wouldn’t be this happy. So it is important not to jump into any life changing decision without weighing all the risks, the positives and the negatives, to be sure that you’re making an informed decision, but don’t be afraid to take risks either.

We’re not all the way there yet and there are a few uncertainties as we haven’t got our visa yet, but we’re hoping things will work out for the best and we can stay here as long as we want and enjoy our life here.