We had been out of California and the United States for nearly two years, and we weren’t sure what we would find when we came back.

We became Old World-based tourists of our native state, and we did a lot of looking and rediscovering … and comparing and contrasting.

We leave with a confused sense of the economic conditions here. We know the dollar is soft, and the stock market is volatile (and trending down), and the housing market in California is still flat on its back. We know unemployment is very high, perhaps 20 percent, and it seems particularly dire for people in the upper (age) end of the work force, and for anyone in our chosen professions, journalism.

We saw instances of empty storefronts and decaying real estate, particularly in the Inland Empire, and high prices for the basics of life. Gas up to $4 a gallon, and grocery prices that seemed steep compared to Abu Dhabi and the UAE.

Yet we also saw numerous instances of thriving businesses, particularly restaurants, and we saw people accepting long waits to pay $100 for dinner. We saw presumably middle class and blue-collar people sitting with their kids in $25 seats at Dodger Stadium and paying inflated prices for concessions there.

It seems, then, like an economy that is trashing maybe one-fourth of the population, including anyone involved in traditional journalism, and one that has left the under class no worse off than before and the upper tiers of earners seemingly untouched.

I am not clear on what people are doing to make money, to pay for $100 resto meals on weekdays, and pay $40 for tickets to a baseball game, and $4 for a gallon of gas. The assembly line and production jobs that propped up the state’s economy for most of the last century (from aerospace to defense contracts and even auto plants) are gone. What is left? Government jobs, entrepreneurs, the service industry. Can that fuel a state economy? Not sure about that.

We do know this: Coastal California, from San Francisco to Newport Beach (areas we saw ourselves), remain highly desirable places to visit or live.

We saw hundreds of European tourists driving down Highway 1. California remains a tourist destination. And why not? Temperate, fertile, scenic, California has hundreds of miles of amazing scenery and property. Who can afford to live in it? Not us, at this point in history.

We certainly saw depressed parts of the state, and it’s hard even to envision how or when those come back. We chatted with distressed small-business owners who talked about “things not getting better in my lifetime.” We saw and felt a despair. And we didn’t really see the hard parts of Los Angeles, or the rough spots of the East Bay or the suffering cities in the Central Valley.

We talked to a dozen people in their 20s who continue to go to school, in part because they like it, in part because they feel as if a second or third degree will land them desirable jobs, in part because they sense the market place is not ready to absorb them and offer them something in their areas of expertise.

California needs to invest in infrastructure. LAX is a mess, and Southern California’s freeways seem to run over the same concrete and the same bridges they did 40 years ago. Time for some major spending.

California compares unfavorably with the UAE in several ways.

We had gotten out of the habit of worrying about crime or danger. Locking doors, watching strangers warily … we don’t do that in the UAE. Californians do, though.

Graffiti, tattoos, loud and angry pop culture … none of that in the UAE, either.

Income taxes, sales taxes … we don’t have those in Abu Dhabi. I was surprised and almost offended when that $5 purchase cost $5.40, or whatever, at the cash register.

We talked to several people here who had no health insurance. None. If they get sick, they have to go to the emergency room. In Abu Dhabi, every person in the emirate, even the humblest construction worker, has government-paid basic health care.

On a more esoteric plain, we found that the level of public discourse in the state seems even lower than when we left. Local television news is even dumber and more frothy. Political vitriol is even darker and more personal. Several times, people expressed fairly violent political views in our presence, in a mixed crowd, not bothering to take into account the views of those who were with them. It’s as if no one inhabits the center of the political spectrum.  Partisanship is overwhelming, and someone is always running for election. It is a negative and clearly unhealthy environment that serves as a background noise to all civic life here. It is wearying and dispiriting and we don’t at all mind being far removed from it for the past two years.

I suppose we have MSNBC, Fox and never-ending campaign seasons to thank for that.

Still and all, we would rather be in California. We can safely say that. The climate, the familiarity, the beaches and mountains … and it’s home.

But Abu Dhabi and the UAE, and places like it, are where the jobs are. And we will continue to be happy for the chance to work in such a place.