The conference I attended was a very educational experience for me, and taught me a lot about the business my grandfather, father, aunts, and uncles own -- not to mention it gave me the opportunity to be in the same room as the Crown Prince of Dubai. When I wasn't in conferences, I got to have some pretty unique and spectacular experiences. The Family Business Network, the group running the conference we were attending, hosted a cultural event for all of us attendees every night after the summit concluded for the day. On our first day there, before the conferences began, we went to Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world. In order to get tickets, we had to go to the Dubai Mall, where the entrance to the Burj Khalifa tour is located. There's a gift shop there and massive model of the tower, probably worth several hundred thousand dollars all by itself. Screens around the room display Burj Khalifa photoshopped onto famous landscapes -- towering over Taipei 101, the Eiffel Tower, and the Space Needle. It has 163 floors, plus another 46 maintenance floors in the spire. The observatory is on the 124th floor. The 163rd floor is a private lounge for residents (the building is primarily residential) and the 144th is a private nightclub.
On our third night we came back to Burj Khalifa for the FBN Gala Dinner, which was held outside at the base of the tower. We were greeted by a line of men singing traditional music and women in elaborate traditional garments dusting everyone with incense and perfume. We sat at beautifully decorated tables; Dad and I shared ours with a couple from Britain and a group of cousins from Maine. Every thirty minutes, the fountains in the reflecting pool would do an elaborate dance set to music -- the music alternated between traditional and modern with every other performance.
The food was incredible. We were mostly served European-style fare, since FBN is headquartered in Europe and most of the attendees were European, although there were attendees from 90 countries worldwide. During dinner, there were performances by very talented traditional musicians and a world-renowned sand artist, who told the entire history of Dubai and the one-year-old Gulf Coast branch of FBN International by making pictures out of sand.
The last night of the 25th Annual FBN Summit was the most amazing of all. We all dressed in white, got on a bus, and drove through the city and out into the desert, where they told us we would be getting into off-road vehicles. When we got off the bus, we were welcomed to the waiting line of brand new white Toyota Land Cruisers, which apparently count as off-road vehicles in Dubai. They drove us out into the Dubai Desert Conservation Reserve in these cars, and as we went whipping across the sand dunes we saw a few antelope-type things before we came over the top of a dune to see a whole campsite laid out below us. The desert camp was surrounded by a tall wooden fence, and outside the fence there were men twirling burning batons and tribesmen with their camels waiting to give us camel rides. I rode a camel, and it was terrifying. It made a lot of cute whistling noises though, so I think it liked me. After the short camel ride, we walked past the fire twirlers and down a aisled line by singing men and waiters offering us these really delicious mint lemonades that they seemed to serve everywhere. There was a hookah lounge (in which we did not partake) and other carpeted areas on the sand where you could have your name written in Arabic calligraphy or get a henna tattoo. Dad had his name written in Arabic and had me check that the spelling was right, and I got henna on my arm and hand. Dinner was Arabic food, lots of lamb, fresh vegetables, and the most amazing hummus I've ever had. We sat on pillows at long, low tables and ate dinner with a very pleasant Quwaiti couple and a slightly less pleasant Italian family while belly dancers performed to live music on the stage the tables surrounded. I was interviewed for a video about next-generation participation at the FBN Summit, and I said some stuff about how sand is a symbol for how businesses can run smoothly. I made it all up on the spot and it was not my best work. At the end of the night, we got back in the "off-road vehicles" and took the hour-long bus ride back to our hotel, very exhausted but very glad to have had that incredible night.