All in a day's work!
Julie,
Well right now I’m on my last leg of my flight from Atlanta to Las Vegas. Wow what a trip this has all been. I felt like it has been so long since I’ve been home and I definitely was able to get everything done that I wanted to. This last day was one of the most interesting.
First was the dynamic I mentioned earlier about being finished and having the whole day to wait until my flight flew out. I slept in a little and had my wake up call around 9am. I got up, checked email, got ready, and headed down to breakfast. I knew I would be out all day so I was sure to take my time and have a good breakfast. I sat and talked with a few other Duke students and then I went back to my room to finish packing.
I checked out around 11:30am. The hotel was cool to hold my bags for the day, so David Taylor and I headed out with two tasks on our minds. First, we headed to the Mall of the Emirates to do what everyone HAS to do when you go to Dubai—ski. It is so crazy, you enter the mall and are walking through what is kind of like a food court in the mall and there are some big glass windows looking into a “winter wonderland.”
Inside Look from the Mall to the Ski Slope
We headed into “Ski Dubai.” They give you boots, skis, poles, snow pants, and a coat to use. If you want a beanie or gloves you have to purchase that additionally. We checked in and headed into the slopes. Wow! I was so surprised at how cold it was in there, seriously it was REALLY cold. Skiing was AWESOME! It was just a bunny hill, but it was really fun to 1. Be able to ski and 2. To experience indoor skiing in Dubai. We spent about an hour an half of the 2 hours you get when you pay. Half way through my hands were REALLY cold, but then I must have just gotten use to it cause I don’t remember them being very cold after that. We got some good pictures and videos and then called it a day for skiing… it was time to head to the water park!
Mall entrance to Ski Dubai
Snow Park and entrance to the ski lift
Ski Lift looking back at the Mall
We jumped in a cab and rode over to the man made palm island that Dubai is so famous for. At the very top of that palm is the Atlantis Resort where the water park is located. It is crazy to think while you are out there that everywhere you are walking use to be the middle of the Persian Gulf until someone came up with the idea of making an island. The whole resort is AMAZING and really nice. We got to the water park about 2:45pm which meant we had about 3 hours to experience the water park. That actually ended up being a perfect amount of time. Pat, from my team, ended up joining us so we just went around the entire park trying to experience everything we could before it closed. First we went to the leap of faith slide which is the slide that was featured on “Amazing Race”. It is comparable to the freefall at Seven Peaks and was definitely a fun slide. It wasn’t big enough to give me butterflies, but I did get a rush and had a lot of fun. However, if that lady from Amazing Race knew what it was that scared her out of a million dollars she would be SO MAD at herself.
Atlantis Resort
Anyway, we did Leap of Faith first and then we picked up some tubes and went to the top to go down a tube ride called the Plunge. From there every tube slide feeds into the lazy river (which is HUGE). The other cool thing about the tube slides is that most of them have part of the slide that goes UP, not just down. They will shoot you down the slide and then the slide turns upward and there is a blast of water that propels you up the hill. Not only does it shoot you up, but the blast of water spins your tube so I usually ended up doing the rest of the slide backward, which makes it that much more fun.
Part of the Lazy River
“Leap of Faith”
Kids water park (Mason would love this)
View of some of the “branches” of the palm islands
View of the Dubai skyline
Sunset over the waterpark
When you get to the bottom of the slide the water flows down a small “canyon” and feeds into the lazy river. You then can take offshoots that lead to different conveyer belts that haul you back up to the top of different slides. It was so fun to be able to just float around on the tube and then let it haul us back to the top. If you paddled with your hands a little bit, you literally didn’t even have to get out of your tube :).
After we did all the slides we went to the attached beach that is on the Persian Gulf. That water is SO salty, so salty in fact that it made my face burn where I shave. It was crazy. But the beach was really nice and the water is really warm.
After the beach, we took pictures, and then headed to grab a cab back to our hotel. At the hotel, I was already checked out of my room so I headed back to the gym where they have a shower and a steam room. I showered and changed to get ready for my flight. When I got back out to the lobby there were about 7 or 8 other Duke students there and they wanted to go out for dinner. They took us to a place called “Al Mallah” to have schwarma. It was great! It just a little street vendor with some tables and chairs outside. We ate and chatted and then headed back to the hotel again to get our bags.
Al Mallah street vendor
From there it was time to head to the airport. There were 8 or 9 of us on the same flight so we caught a couple of cabs to the airport. Once we got through security we headed to the gate and still had about 2 hours before the flight left. I ended up getting a blizzard at Dairy Queen (ha ha in Dubai, can you believe that?) and then we sat and that is when I was able to get on the internet for a little bit and email you. From there it was time to board the flight and now 20+ hours later, here I am, dying to get home and see you.
It was quite the day being able to ski, go to the water park, and go to dinner on the streets of Dubai, all in one day.
I love you so much and now that we are through 2 of the 5 international residencies, I want you to know I am so grateful for your support. We knew coming into this that it wasn’t going to be easy. Working, MBA school, plus having a 2 year old and a new baby all at the same time is a lot for our little family to handle, but I knew we would be able to do it because you were so supportive of me and my career goals. You are an amazing woman and I am always amazed at how much you are able to do all by yourself, especially now with two kids. You are so talented and beautiful and could do anything you wanted to professionally. How grateful am I that you choose to be a mother and share all your talents with our boys.
Now here comes the rest of Term 2.
Love ya,
Brock
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