The Strange Way Time Feels Different When You Live in the UAE

When asked by someone who has been living in the Emirates for several years to give a length of time spent living there, it is not uncommon to hear responses like this:

Honestly, I don’t feel like I’ve been here that long.

Doesn’t seem like it, and yet, many times what feels like a short period of time has turned into years.

The pace of life in the UAE has an unusual rhythm; everything goes very quickly, and many new “projects” appear to have occurred at a rate beyond the imagination of many newcomers to the area; neighborhoods of tall buildings seem to “pop up” overnight, roads are continually expanded or improved, and you can look at almost every neighborhood in the Emirates and realize it has changed within the last 5 years so quickly that you may have forgotten what was originally there.

Regular daily activities and routines remain the same and continue to develop in a familiar way.

Meeting places will be the same cafes, regular weekend activities will be held either walking along the beach, driving into the desert, or having dinner with family or friends quietly, or continuing to see same people at coworking spaces, fitness facilities, or grocery stores.

Between the continual change and the familiar routine, there seems to be an almost imperceptible way time passes.

It is day after day you watch your city change right. You can see former construction sites have now been turned into important places. When you’ve watched abandoned areas turn into busy districts.

The experience of living in a constantly changing location gives an unusual outlook. Instead of reading about history in a book or watching a documentary, many people who live there actually see it happen daily as they look through the window.