My only experience in the Middle East had previously been in 2014. I was heading to Europe for a vacation, and had stopped over in Qatar. There, I saw the sun – a flaming ball of red – rising over an endless desert. The locals breezed by in long, flowing robe-like attires that are mostly in hues of white or black. A kaleidoscope of accents greeted me as I entered shops and restaurants, indicating that a huge number of foreigners worked there as well.

• Read more about Finding “Gold” in INSEAD’s Abu Dhabi Campus Exchange

When you hear, “Chateau party with 500 of your closest friends!”, do you wince a little inside? Would you rather enjoy wine with one close friend instead of hitting Glasgow? Do you retreat to quiet corners of campus during breaks? If you answered “Yes”, you just might be a fellow introvert. “But I’m not anti-social,” you may protest. Well, that association stems from a myth. Introversion has nothing to do with shyness; it refers to where you get energy from and how you recharge.

• Read more about An Introvert’s Guide to INSEAD 

A good Egyptian friend once told me, if you want to learn how to build cities from scratch, go to the UAE. Having spent the last two months in the Abu Dhabi campus, I couldn’t agree more. Geographically, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) might be as far as possible from Peru and I had previously never set foot in the MENA region (Middle East and Northern Africa). The possibility of spending a period there (January and February) seemed like the right opportunity to explore. Cultural Understanding

• Read more about Like Rain in the Desert

Today is Sunday, February 3rd. It's the first work day in February in Abu Dhabi. The official first work day of our second half of the INSEAD MBA programme. The 40+ of us in Abu Dhabi just spent an entire eight hours in a Crack the Case session with David Ohrvall, and about 1/5 of the class was filled with GEMBA students. Because we are a much smaller class than on the other two campuses, David said he could give us one more session hence bring us to a next level of cracking case interviews.

• Read more about Halfway Through the World - P3 in Abu Dhabi

Before the campus exchange to Abu Dhabi, I had little knowledge about the UAE. The impression was limited to desert, oil, shopping mall, hot summer and religion. Although I sometimes saw my friends showing their excited selfies with the exotic backgrounds in Abu Dhabi or Dubai, I never thought about taking two months to explore. However, my curiosity arose rapidly when hearing more and more classmates describing their moments living in this region.

• Read more about More than Oil and Shopping Malls

After 10 days of travelling through the relative wilderness of East Africa, my Etihad flight made a smooth landing at Abu Dhabi’s International Airport. My journey to a brand new continent had just ended, but another, entirely different adventure was about to begin. Aside from the sprawling lights from buildings and cars, I was greeted by a vast number of tower cranes erecting the new terminal expansion of the Abu Dhabi Airport - probably three times the number used to construct the new Vikings stadium in Minneapolis.

• Read more about The INSEAD MBA Experience Arrives in Abu Dhabi!