Edgware Road

Fact: I do and perhaps always will miss London. Like it or not, it's the place I felt most at home. And today, while reading The National (one of 2 or 3 major UAE papers), I found a new connection: Edgware Road.

I remember Edgware Road - it was a place I felt like an outsider, and no surprise. It is, according to Omid Djalili, after Damascus, Mecca and Medina, the most Islamic place on the planet. (What about Dearborn, Michigan?) Hoping that next year this time I'll be completing my second or third month of a 2-year stint in Abu Dhabi, I now look back with fondness on Edgware Road.

Okay, let's be honest. I look back with fondness on any - even the slightest - connection with my favorite (favourite!) city on the planet.

But the next time I'm in London, Edgware Road might be the place I feel more at home than before, when I lived in trendy West Hampstead (though not in the trendy part of West Hampstead) and worked in rough and tumble South London (Bermondsey). Who knows, maybe I'll even be able to communicate in the local language of Edgware Road!

Is it wrong that I'm already planning my holidays for a job I don't actually have yet? Well, tough. I have friends who are almost family in London, fond memories of living and working in London, and an unending love for that city, even though it didn't work out for me to live there in 2009.

Anyway. This article makes me smile. And hope. And want to practice my Arabic anew!

Read.

from September 2010

Today I started reading Culture Smart! - UAE. Also, my Urdu book came in. And some of my lovely bloggers decided to update their blogs today. All in all, a good reading day. Plus, I've decided on my ereader. I'm getting a nook, but I'm waiting to see if they go down in price any more for the hols.

That's all, really. OH WAIT!!!

No it's not. I also discovered dubizzle, thanks to Brandy's blog, and I had an epiphany.

Some of you who know me in real life (or via twitter) will know that I lived in London in 2009. And you may know some of the details of my living arrangement there (my studio flat was about 100 square feet, including bathroom). I paid GBP560 for the privilege of living in that flat. Well, today on dubizzle (seriously, guys, dubizzle), I had a glance at studio flats in Abu Dhabi. The majority of the flats were 500 square feet. Now, mind, prices varied between AED45 and 75000 p/a, but that actually works out to only about $200 (to double the price, depending on location) more per month than I was paying for an 8x12 room in London!

I mean, I don't think I even know what to do with 500 square feet!

And this was my epiphany: I neither need nor want a palatial villa in the desert. Like Eliza Doolittle, all I want is a room somewhere. (With internet. And on a bus route. Also air-conditioned. The rest is 100% negotiable.)