Pocket Full of Dirhams…….

…..and dollars and pounds and euros.  On the heels of my post-case-competition-lost luggage adventure, I arrived in Abu Dhabi. I would soon join sixteen of my classmates and friends for a Spring Break trip that would turn out to be, in a word, epic. My trip, in fact everyone’s trip, started months earlier when we were more concerned with the thick heat emanating from the Barcelona sidewalks, let alone Spring Break.

Meet Ebrahim (there is no need for anonymity, for this man should bask in the glory about what would transpire). Anyone from Section B will tell you, Ebrahim is from the Emirates and he also is from the oil industry – this we have known from Day 1. The guy is impressive. He nods his head yes more than a bobblehead on a dashboard, instantly luring you into agreement with his opinion. He also has a portfolio of mannerisms that include agile wrist twists and poorly timed air quotes. He is the most active listener and animated story teller at ESADE (sorry Italians). So this Ebrahim had an idea that he proposed very early into our time served here at ESADE. He wanted to get a group of students to go on a high end Spring Break trip to the UAE – so sans alcohol, bikinis and beach time and sans charming backing packing adventures through Europe. Hmmmmm.

Undeterred by anyone’s opinion and driven by a sincere and extraordinarily selfless desire to show ‘us’ what it’s like in ‘his’ world, Ebrahim spent months putting together eight days of escapades. The pitch sounded great when he presented it to a group of club Presidents – but the price tag seemed a bit high. 2,800 Euros on top of tuition and costs of merely existing for the term of an MBA program - he got  a few murmurs before adding in the caveat that he had arranged a sponsor that would end up footing a good portion of the bill. And so the uptake was a little stronger and seventeen of us embarked on his adventure for our maiden voyage to the UAE as ambassadors of ESADE.

The group spent the first day at Masdar City hopping around in tiny cars that drove themselves and eating a spread with a Sheikh. Stilts lined up her Plan B as one of the sister wives of said Sheikh and tried to shake her nickname. Still without luggage, I joined them at dinner after a swift attempt to put together a makeshift wardrobe in ten minutes at the Abu Dhabi mall – I had enough time to order a frilly drink with a title related to pirates and parrots – enter Petey the Porcelain Parrot who adorned my drink. 

Petey spent the next day with me while I made attempt number two in the mall – still no luggage. The group headed off to ADIA for a ‘colorful’ session at the world’s largest sovereign fund’s headquarters. A safari was on the docket for the evening so we headed for the Souk to buy ‘authentic’ outfits for event. The divas, excuse me…..the men….took about 45 minutes to pick out a white dishdash while the women fumbled through stacks of colorful traditional Bedouin dress – in 10 minutes…..I’m just pointing that out. After an hour trip towards the isolated desert we hurled ourselves up and down the expansive sand dunes at angles that tested the integrity of our Toyota’s manufacturing. We rode camels, got henna tattoos and belly danced like a robot would.

The next few days followed suit in both in terms of colorful presentations and exhilarating nighttime adventures. Petey had a few accidents along the way, cracked his face and got kidnapped, but that is a story for another day. We were warmly greeted on the executive floor of NGSCO and learned all about natural gas shipping (and pirates!). With the acting CEO by our side, we threw our best questions at the presenters to dive more into the business and their culture. I will never be in that board room again and likely neither will some of the guys that presented to us. What stood out the most from that visit was the pride and grace that their CEO showed towards his employees – with a noted smile of pride towards our fearless leader Ebrahim.

And so it would continue with visits to Etisalat and then a full day of eating with ADCO at both their headquarters and out at an oil field. There was a game of hide and seek with Petey in the Grand Mosque, rides at Ferrari World, securing lost luggage and more and more and more food. We travelled out to Dubai and stopped by GE before Emirates Airlines. They fed us and then took us to the engineering facilities for a tour of the site as well as one of their fully equipped A380s – first class cabins come with a door, a bar and a shower…..for two (redefining the rules of the Mile High Club).

With amazing days filled with board rooms, CEO’s and corporate presentations behind us, we headed out for sushi dinner, sake bombs and dancing at the Atlantis out on Palm Island in Dubai. Some of us headed home at 12, others at 3 and the daring stumbled in after 6. It was our one night of ‘spring break’ and we figured we were on the home stretch. Or final day in the UAE was not to be taken lightly and was – with the intent of being redundant – epic.

Without obligation, we were invited into the home of one of Ebrahim’s sisters for lunch. We knew this was going to be special, but we did not anticipate the magnitude of the experience – an experience I cannot do justice to even with my professional vicarious story telling details skills. In traditional manner, the women were received in one part of the home and the men in another. After a few glasses of juice and far too many bites of chocolate, around thirty women and children filed in to greet us. Conversation was slow at first as we tiptoed into the newfound cultural environment, but the opportunity to see behind the abaya was the first of many special moments. We moved into another section of the house to eat. My new fascination with the word ‘YES’ got me in trouble as his family offered up more and more food of which I was unable to discern ingredients or anticipate taste. I think I tried everything…..sample size was uniformly five spoonful’s. We muttered under our breath to each other our workout regimens when we got back to Barcelona. After a 32 course meal from the floor, we untwisted ourselves without an ounce of grace and began our goodbyes. A quick tour through the living quarters showed us what can only be described as the results of Extreme Home Makeover UAE Edition! Eventually, we begrudgingly reunited with the men and were presented gifts by the children and family. Off we headed for the airport.

For 14 days I was in the US, UK, Spain and UAE – with the local currency from each place burning holes in my pockets, but now it was the end of this journey.

Ebrahim’s every other word on the trip was ‘very’ and his message and desire were that we leave with a positive impression of his homeland. We knew before every getting onto a flight out to Abu Dhabi we were in for a treat and that we would see great things. What we didn’t know was that epic and special perhaps do not do justice to the trip. The man behind it all showed us something to be cherished for a lifetime and we will forever be ‘very, very, veeeeeery’ grateful that this one time we ditched bikinis, backpacks and boats for dishdashes, abayas and camels.

But now, what the hell am I going to do with all these dirhams, pounds and dollars!

A Date and Two and a Half Bags

Noted. I’ve lost followers due to my lapse in blogging. C’est la Vie. I’ll blame it on my recent affinity for the word ‘Yes’ that has recently been combined with the words ‘Case Competition’. I have competed in two in the past two months, both of which have required about three weeks of work. Not yet learning my lesson, I am again on the brink of competition number three and considering more – if my good fortune continues, I just may enter more (note: good fortune not limited to actually winning the cases).

The first competition was in London with the Hult Global Case Challenge. This year they teamed up with Clinton Global Initiative and water.org (hello Matt Damon!) to penetrate the bottom of the pyramid with a search for feasible, scalable and sustainable business models aiming to increase water and sanitation access in peri-urban slums. The team included a few classmates which made the process quite entertaining – 1 English gentleman, 1 Portuguese and Italian speaking American from Brazil, 1 time-keeping, brain-mapping, diligent Indian, 1 Umbrella drink Texan and me. The competition itself was great - we did well, learned a ton about water and ‘open defecation,’ but of course it was all the moments in between that were priceless. We taught one of the gentlemen how to properly iron his pants even though the celebration was short lived as he then used his spit to try to clear the stain on his pants – two hours before the events commenced. We sipped English brews, ate nutella balls and recalled tales of the international support we received along the way – perhaps the most colorful being our dear friends at the World Toilet Organization and WaterSHED Asia. They provided unparalleled anecdotes with the trials and tribulations of defecation and dirty water. Through humor they really inspired us to the seriousness of the issue at hand.

After the stress of presentation, the exhausting networking and the suspense of judge’s deliberation we walked away without a trophy, but with a pocketful of memories and headed for the bar. After having spent countless hours locked in small rooms throughout Edificio 3, I had……..wait for it………gotten tired of talking. With a disclaimer that this was merely fatigue stemming from speaking of water with the same four people and they had perhaps exhausted their patience for listening to me long before I reached my tipping point. In my effort to replenish my speaking quota for the evening I dramatically broke from the circle we had formed in the center of the post-party bar and walked towards the closest human only to find myself walking straight into the corner of the bar – I whipped around and grabbed the first person I saw and forced him to talk to me. A taller gentleman with a funny sounding accent later identified as Scandinavian -- nice guy that was able to withstand my prolific communication who ended up being good for a dinner date rendezvous in Dublin a few weeks later. How international of me, right?

So, no trophy, but a date….these case competition things may be fun. As soon as I got back, I had perched myself up at the cash machine at school and waited for the technology to scour through my bank accounts for remnants of cash somewhere……I could have been there all day. While I waited a classmate came by looking for a female to join his upcoming case competition team. I was so exhausted from the last three weeks of work that I only heard the list of requirements he had for my suggestion and they sounded like words I would love someone to use to describe me one day – so I said ‘How about me?’ without really checking off where I did and did not fit the bill.

71 hours of fun filled action waited for us – did anyone tell the judges that we lost an hour due to European daylights saving time? And did anyone tell the rest of the world to adjust their clocks all at the same time – surely this is a step towards real globalization. Anyway, we churned out a 6 page report after discussing the strategic implications of moving a Chinese Solar PV manufacturer to the USA. There would be a lot of waiting before we had to do anything else and the ESADE competition was steep so I spent more time refining my Spring Break plans to Abu Dhabi than contemplating the finals in NYC that would cause a few hurdles for me in the event that we advanced to the top 5 teams globally. And out of more than 250 teams worldwide, we made it to NYC. First thought – the $20,000 1^st prize…..nope, returning to the city I love…..nope. Getting my haircut…..yep! Come on….it had been 9 months and sans language skills, I wasn’t ready to take the plunge for a trim here in Barcelona.

Moving on – the boys (American, Catalan and Finn this time) and I arrived in New York for the Aspen Institute Business and Society Case Competition Finals. We spent the morning digesting a proper American breakfast (eggs with a side of grease and two slices of grease with your choice of a stroke or a heart attack for free) and practicing our speech – We had a problem getting 71 hours of banter stuffed into 6 pages and now we had 10 minutes to talk about it – this would be tough. The five teams presented and while the judges deliberated we chatted with various representatives and members of the Aspen Institute – I dropped words like ‘internship’ and ‘summer projects’ as often as possible. I even ran into the organizers of the aforementioned Hult Competition. We took home third place and a check for $5,000 - before Uncle Sam gets ahold of it. The boys went out to celebrate while I headed out for dinner to my favorite NYC spot (Sofia Wine Bar) with longtime friend and my parents that dropped down to see me for a few hours.

As soon as I landed it was time to go again and nothing is better than flying out of Newark Airport at 630am. I successfully battled with the taxi driver trying to dupe me on a fare type, checked in my bag and headed to security on my flight to London with hopes of eventually getting to Abu Dhabi. I love airports. They make me laugh; I challenge you to really find a better place to people watch. Airports can make or break couples, push patient parents to the verge of child abuse and the make the kindest of business men swear when things don’t go their way. It’s too funny to me, so fortunately, I tend to be in a good mood regardless of the events – and the worse they get the more I am entertained. This would be a good one.

Stay with me here. I was on a United flight from Newark to Dulles to London for a night before I headed to Abu Dhabi to meet up with 15 friends for a week. The security line was backed up; even with my early arrival to the airport I would be pressed for time with this line so I quietly asked to slide through the fast track line. Accomplished. The fast track line split from time to time and I just barreled forward, only to reach the end where the slowest of workers existed. I even jumped in front of a family of four with a kind smile and headed to the gate. Problem #1. They bumped me for standby passengers – 5 minutes before they should have – they kindly offered vouchers to anyone willing to take the next flight. No takers. Perk #1. I ended up on a first class flight direct to London on Continental. Perk #2. For my ‘troubles’ in rescheduling I was given $400 cash. Perk #3. My flight was leaving 2.5 hours later so I got breakfast money (which later negated the benefits of the 9 course first class in flight dining service).  Perk #3. I arrived in London earlier than previously scheduled which would allow for more sleep than anticipated. Problem #2. My bags were nowhere to be found. Problem #3. I flew into Terminal 4 with Continental and my baggage information was housed in the archaic IT systems at United in Terminal 1. Problem #4. I flew out the next morning from Terminal 5 of Heathrow. If you have ever flown from Heathrow or taken MIS at ESADE, you understand that this was Problem #4 of what was about to be several more.

Don’t worry, I only had a week of meetings and I was on day two of the one outfit I had packed into my carry-on luggage. But I kept a smile on. I trekked through the various terminals of Heathrow with my carryon, my laptop bad and a small hotel laundry bag that held the shampoo, toothbrush comb that the hotel donated to my cause. In the airport I had just enough time to grab a small bottle of perfume. Key purchase I tell you. Just me and my two and a half bags. I was so disheveled looking by the time I arrived in Abu Dhabi, I am surprised I didn’t get flagged for extra screening, perhaps they felt that bad for me and my barely held together half bag of toiletries.

And so my week moved on and under the advice of the United Airlines Employees, I purchased a few new outfits (Perks #4-10) to get me through the first few days of Abu Dhabi. My luggage showed up two days before vacation ended, but I figure between the money won in the competition, the $400 cash and the pending reimbursement from United, I did pretty good for a ten day vacation.

I think I am technically still on top with these two case competitions. Where to next?