The Gulf

10 Things I like about living here:

1. No taxes!
2. Long holidays.
3. Perfect winters (warm and sunny for about five months of the year, cool for about a month)
4. Interesting students (though many of my colleagues don't like the students, I find that by separating them from their study skills, they are lovely people.)
5. Most of my co-workers and all of my friends are fairly liberal, so I don't have to listen to any pro-Bush rhetoric.
6. The mixture of different peoples.  (The population of the UAE is 15% Emirati and 85% expat.  Most of the expats come from Pakistan, Egypt, India, Indonesia, and Afghanistan.  There are also sizable numbers from Iran, Turkey, Bangladesh, Iraq and the Philippines.  There are peoples from China, Thailand, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia and Morocco.  And the UAE just opened up embassies in Laos and Myanmar, so I anticipate an influx of people from those countries as well.  There are also a lot of Westerners here - North Americans, Europeans, etc. 
   
7. Arab music - fantastic!
8. Cigarettes are cheap and you can smoke anywhere, and the smell of Shisha.
9. Oman is right next door.
10. The opportunity to experience a different culture, though I guess I could say that about anywhere.

10 things I don't like about living here:

1. Only crappy Hollywood movies at the cinemas.  (I guess I should be thankful for anything.  In Saudi there are no cinemas at all.)
   
2. No local live music scene.  Usually only 'big' acts come here - Blue, Destiny's Child, etc.  In addition, the discos (in my city, at least) are awful.
   
3. Insane drivers (In my current class of 13, two students have been in comas because of traffic accidents within the last six months, two others have had major accidents and several with minor accidents, yet still they list driving fast as one of their favorite activities.)
4. No outdoor drinking, so no outdoor cafes.  (drinking alcohol is limited to houses and hotel bars)
5. Censored Internet (though that might be a good thing in some ways as it keeps me from wasting time)
6. A bit soulless.  Of the expats that come here, 99% of them are here strictly for the money (including me.)  It's not like Thailand or China where people go to experience the culture, see the sights and meet the people, it's all about investment plans and retirement funds. 
7. The summers are unbearably hot.
8. Not much chance for me to mix with the locals - different ideas about what to do with free time, likewise it's difficult for me to develop any relationships here.
9. Cigarettes are cheap and you can smoke anywhere - quite difficult to quit.
10. Totally a car culture.  There's no public transportation to speak of, though they are building rail lines in both Abu Dhabi and Dubai.

I'm tagging Rachel to come up with the same list.