This January was the first time I can remember being, for all intents and purposes, alone abroad and entertaining myself. I used to think that it would be very easy to pass time on holiday by yourself; after all, sunbathing and swimming are hardly restricted to being group activities. However, having spent a short amount of time alone in Dubai, I quickly realised that this is not necessarily the case. Sure, it’s easy to while away a few hours on the beach or by the pool reading a book (or, in my case, working on my accounts in order to submit my tax return in time), but what happens after that? I found myself wandering around, enjoying the sights but wishing I had someone to share them with, and knowing all too well that there were some loved-ones who would definitely have jumped at a chance to be there with me!
One thing I found most disconcerting was being somewhere in the world where I have no understanding of the native language, and only occasional wifi access to help me out with my general queries. I had been staying in a friend’s apartment while he was away, so there was no hotel concierge to offer advice. And while taxis in Dubai are incredibly cheap they were also useless as no taxi driver seemed to know where anything was; consequently they spent a long time driving around before calling somebody to ask where they were going – so, I learned to be as specific as I could, which is quite hard in a place that you don’t know at all. It was all very foreign – the Metro stations were like airports, nothing at all like the Tube in London, there was often no pavement by the side of the road – just sand, the restaurant staff were hit and miss with their English… It’s a very unusual and somewhat fake place, the city in the desert, but in some ways one of the more fascinating places I’ve been to – such a mix of peoples and cultures and more highrise towers than you could care to imagine. But as I sat alone, finishing my meal for one in a Lebanese restaurant by the marina and then trying to navigate back to the Metro station with my box of leftovers, I was still extremely grateful to be enjoying some time in a place far sunnier and warmer than dreary London in January. I was wearing flip flops and a t-shirt and feeling rather smug about it!
