I start with an early breakfast so I can take my time before we head out. I'm trying to cut down so it's cereal and orange juice for me. OK, I will leave the cutting down for tomorrow. French toast, eggs, and beans, too.

Once I'm done it's time to leave for the client, laptops and team piled into a car ready for action. Then we've arrived; everyone finds their spot and we're off for the day.

Check e-mail and reply to the ones that came in overnight. Head out with Richie to find Nitin, our client's finance guy. We need to go through some numbers that we pulled from the database last night to make sure everything adds up. He's all smiles when he sees us, and we settle at a desk in the finance department and spend the next hour together. Once that’s done we get some tea and coffee before continuing the numbers analysis.

Somebody in the team room gets hungry, everybody else agrees that it's time for lunch. Lunch is always an adventure. We head down not knowing exactly where we will be going today. Outside it's a bit hot, but we're too hungry and too busy trying to find a place to eat to notice. Marco suggests a hole in the wall shawarma place, but we need something different today. First we see the sign, and then we see the door. Burger King. Over lunch we talk about weekend plans. I'm going for the second part of my PADI course, which will be a sea dive. Ritchie is going carting. Elies will be at the pool. Marco will be flying back home to Singapore.

Once lunch is over, we get into another meeting with finance to get the numbers on their operations.

When we get back, Elies, Marco, and Alberto are in deep discussion about a workshop that we will be running in two weeks—lots of planning to do beforehand.

After some more analysis, we need clarification on the output we have and head to finance once more. We work together with Masood for the next two hours. We brainstorm over ways to present our findings and prepare an outline story to be shared with the team later. We feel we're onto something good. Leave work to find a taxi back to the hotel. The street is full of people looking for taxis, and everybody is jostling for the best position, moving from one place to another so they get the first taxi.

I decide to walk instead. As I'm walking into the hotel, I hear beeping outside and look back. It's Rima from another team working in the area. She and her team are going for sushi and ask us if we want to join. Should be a nice change from BK at lunch. We walk over to the Japanese restaurant. Over dinner we talk about work, family and life. Stories about Cambodia, Korea, and French politics. I ask the waitress if she will take a photo. Around the table we are seven people representing eight different countries (if you include passports): Lebanon, Morocco, Algeria, Switzerland, Philippines, France, Belgium, and Canada. It's incredible how one week ago I didn't know half of the people around me, and here we were sitting over sushi, in the UAE, talking about work and life.

Finally, back to the hotel. It was a long dinner, but well worth it. I had planned to start going to the gym ... I will start tomorrow morning...