We could get a death sentence.

These 2 days in a hostel, for what we called a work-holiday, opened my eyes.
I was properly aware that being gay in many countries around the world is actually illegal.. but I had never thought about how that would have affected my travels with Angie outside of Italy.

Everything began when we sat on our flight to Abu Dhabi.. we refrained from any kind of pda (personal display of affection). Then in Dubai we were asked multiple times if we were sisters.. and we had to lie saying that we were friends. And we were prepared for that.. we knew how to act.. “we are friends.”
But then the unexpected.

Since we have been staying in a hostel for the last few days, obviously there were other guests around.. and when they saw us editing they started asking.

Well, we were not prepared for that.
They asked us.. are you vloggers? What’s your channel? What’s you IG?

And I was the first one being asked.. and I panicked.

Here in the UAE it’s illegal to be gay.

I’m the worst at telling lies.. so I just said the truth or kind of.. I gave them our actual profiles and then they asked if we were sisters.. I said friends.. and then they started watching our Reels, vlogs and stories in front of us..

And one of this guys was like.. “you are not friends.. you’re girlfriends!” And I was like “ehm 😅 yeah actually yes”

Nobody said anything.. but still I got scared.. I was worried some of them may call the police and let’s say call us out. It was a surreal scenario for our Italian minds but maybe not if you’re living in the UAE.

What was also fueling my fears were the many comments we received online as we started posting content in the UAE.. people telling us we were gonna go to jail if travelling here or commenting we would loose our right to speak. Things I never thought I would hear.

But this is the actual truth.
Nothing happened.. maybe we were just lucky, maybe we met the right people, maybe we were discreet.. just bear in mind that when you read that there are still 64 countries where homosexuality is illegal.. it is true.

We could get a death sentence for being a homosexual couple.