- I grew up in Dubai but moved to New York for college in 2022.
- New York and Dubai are bustling metropolitan cities, and surprisingly, they share many similarities.
- But I miss my friends and family, my go-to food spots, and the beaches.
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When most people think of Dubai, they picture towering skyscrapers, glittering lights, and people decked in designer clothes. While that’s true to some degree, for me, the city has always been about community get-togethers, roadside shawarma chats, and weekends by the beach.
I was born in India but moved to Dubai when I was 4 years old, and I have called it my home ever since. In the late 20th century, when the city launched multiple transformative construction projects, South Asian construction workers and other skilled expats moved to the region. As of 2023, the Dubai Statistics Center reported that 3.3 million expats reside in Dubai.
Some people might think it’s strange to consider a place where you’re not a citizen as home. Still, many expats — like me — who live there or have lived there consider this city home simply because of how it embraces you, even as an outsider. For every year that my family renewed our rental lease, the feeling that living there was temporary disappeared a little.
That was until 2022, when I moved to New York City for my master’s degree. I’d never been to the US before then, but I had a vague idea of what life in New York would be like from TV shows I’d watched growing up. And when I landed in August 2022, three suitcases in tow, the city was just as dreamy as it looked on Netflix … but only momentarily.
In the beginning, setting up my apartment, navigating the subway system, meeting new people, and attending my classes kept me busy and distracted.
But, as days turned into weeks, the excitement of living in a new place began to fade, and the dullness of routine replaced it.
Two years on, I’ve come to love New York City and its many quirks. It may not have shawarma shops where I can hang out with my friends late at night, and the closest beach is an hour away by train, but it does have the most beautiful parks and piers.
Ultimately, like the 1.5 million other international students who left their countries to study here, I have found myself a new home on this 2-mile island. For now, I exist between missing parts of Dubai —especially around the festive season — and loving parts of New York.
Here are five things I miss about Dubai and five that I love about New York.
I miss having the freedom to drive on the Sheikh Zayed Road, a 347-mile-long highway that connects the whole country.
After I got my driver’s license in 2018, I loved driving around town, partly because of how liberating it felt to go places without having to ask my parents for a ride or to navigate different bus and metro routes, and partly because of how smooth driving in Dubai felt.
The eight-lane Sheikh Zayed Road, named after the UAE‘s former president and ruler, Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan, connects the whole country, making it convenient to drive and visit different parts of the city and country.
For those of us who’ve lived in Dubai long enough, we’ve seen the landscape surrounding SZR change drastically every year. In 2004, I could tell where a certain neighborhood in Dubai began by looking at the buildings we passed on the road.
The fact that it’s a single-long highway also means you only have to remember specific exits for your desired destination — you don’t even need Google Maps to navigate.
The joke among residents in Dubai is that as long as you’re on Sheikh Zayed Road, you will find your way home and never be completely lost.
But the biggest appeal, for me at least, is that, until 2020, traffic was light, and one could get from uptown Dubai — think North Harlem — to downtown Dubai — think Wall Street — in less than 20 minutes, barring any road accidents.
But I love how easily I can get around anywhere in New York City with the swipe of a MetroCard.
After watching countless New York City-based TV shows and some YouTube videos before my trip to New York, I felt confident about taking my first subway ride without messing up the direction I was headed.
Thankfully, I had a smooth first ride from my home on Second Avenue to NYU — except for the one time I walked down the wrong flight of stairs and had to cross the road to reach the correct side of the platform.
Eventually, navigating the subway became second nature, and I loved how easy and affordable it was to get around the city compared to public transport in Dubai.
Until 2009, the only form of public transport in Dubai was the city buses, and connectivity to all parts of the city wasn’t the best. Once the metro was introduced, commuting to major tourist and commercial hubs like The Dubai Mall and World Trade Center became slightly easier. Still, unlike New York City, where you can traverse multiple subway lines for $2.90, in Dubai, one has to pay per zone, which can quickly add up.
Experiencing New York City from one stop to another also means I can walk around and explore new parts above ground while discovering and enjoying the many entertaining activities — such as subway musicians — that happen underground.
Without overly romanticizing an often stressful everyday commute, I learned that often, as much life happens underground on subway trains and platforms as it does above.
I miss the easy access to beaches.
My earliest memories of Dubai are of weekends spent at public beaches or, when the weather was right in December, at beach parks.
Ask anyone who grew up in Dubai, and they’ll tell you that heading to the beach every weekend was routine, and never elaborately planned.
In my family, Fridays — until 2022, the weekend in Dubai was on Friday and Saturday — meant packing up our beach clothes and towel, stocking up on Oman Chips — a really popular brand of chips in the Middle East — and then spending all day swimming and lounging by the Arabian Sea shore.
This was usually followed by feasting on a spread of Indian food at a nearby restaurant or, on some days, a McDonald’s drive-thru dinner.
Dubai beaches have fun, kid-friendly activities and spaces like beach volleyball courts, mini-waterslides, and toddler-friendly play areas, offering everyone something they can enjoy.
But public parks here in the Big Apple have filled the beach void for me.
When most people picture a park in New York City, they usually think of Central Park. However, when I moved here, I learned there were 1,942 parks spread across the five boroughs, with smaller ones in almost every neighborhood.
I loved exploring different parks around the city and found that each had a distinct charm. Some, like Tompkins Square Park, were popular for their dog parks, while others, like Washington Square Park, were a platform for budding musicians, poets, dancers, and photographers.
Even during winter, when most places in the city feel deserted, some parks are full of life.
I miss waking up to early morning family banter at the breakfast table.
Being a 12-hour plane ride from my family and friends means I see them only once a year or sometimes every two years.
On most days, I am swept up by my everyday routine, but I miss waking up to the familiar whiff of my mom’s home-cooked meals and the morning chaos — which, even though annoying, was comforting, too.
In New York, my roommate and I have tried to replicate the dishes our mothers made back home, but our dishes are no match for theirs.
However, I’ve also learned to love my quiet mornings partly because of the spectacular sunrises and the momentary stillness in this fast-paced city.
When I moved here, I began jogging by the East River every morning. I watched in amazement how each sunrise signaled changing seasons, shuffling from bright orange hues in late summer to softer tones of purple and pink during fall and, finally, pale blue and grays during wintertime.
Now that I live alone, I’ve developed my own morning traditions, which involve movement and experiencing the city before the day’s chaos begins.
I miss the days when taxes were just a vague concept in my mind, and I didn’t have to watch endless YouTube videos to learn how to file them.
People are always surprised when I say this, but growing up, I never watched my family fill out tax forms or run to the nearest post office to file their taxes come April.
And having been part of two tax cycles now, I’ve got to admit, I miss when life was simple like that.
I wish I could say I knew all about filing my taxes correctly by now, but I don’t, and every March, I find myself searching for answers to the same questions on Google or sending panicked texts to friends, asking for help.
I especially miss Dubai’s pleasant winters and end-of-year festivities.
Come late September and early October in Dubai, the sun softens its blaze a little, and suddenly, hot winds are replaced with soft, chilly breezes. Then, in November, the temperatures begin to dip, and sometimes, the city is blessed with rain showers.
In the past, the rain was a welcome refuge from the summer heat, but in April this year, it led to massive floods and caused damages all around the city. Still, the occasional downpour has always been a happy sight.
This is also when the city hosts its annual shopping festival as well as a mix of festive-themed shows, fireworks, and popups. Every street is covered in Christmas lights, while stores in malls undergo a cheery-festive transformation.
While I hate New York winters, nothing beats the city’s Christmas transformation.
If you grew up in hot, sweaty Dubai, it’s hard to find any joy in the gray, dull winters of New York City.
My only sources of happiness come layering season are all the wonderful festive-themed musicals, markets, and street lights.
Still, as soon as January arrives, all traces of the festive spirit are wiped away … and so is the joy from my life.
Around this time of year, I’m constantly plotting ways to escape the harsh cold by wishing I could temporarily move back home or head to the West Coast, but so far, I haven’t been successful in my attempts.
Finally, I miss my go-to shawarma spots back home. But I’ve found equally good wraps at halal trucks in New York.
New York City and Dubai’s culture and food scene are heavily influenced by its expat populations.
I’ve been privileged to experience some of the world’s most well-known cuisines at the best restaurants while also relishing local street specialties on both sides of the world.
While I miss my go-to night haunts like Antar Cafeteria and Al Reef Bakery, which I would visit with my friends, I’ve found the same joy and love in a bite of the chicken gyros sold across halal carts in New York City.
Even though I sometimes feel as though I may always be mentally longing for one place while living in another, I’ve realized that both Dubai and New York City are cultural melting pots with distinctly different yet very similar characteristics.