I am my mother.

I have always known that I am a lot like my mom. We have the same voice, we like to walk the dogs, we have similar skin, it is harder for either of us to cry than it is for my dad, we like chick flicks, and we both usually fall asleep somewhere in the middle of them. But at Wild Wadi water park, I realized that I have become my mother. When we lived in Connecticut there were a very few times that my mom took me to Mt. Tom in the summer. It had water slides, and we absolutely loved them. My mom loved them the most. The second her tube started down a slide she giggled the entire time. She laughed until she was submerged and choking on the water in the pool at the end. She would then grab her tube and smile as she walked back up the stairs to the start of the slide. This went on all day long. My friends and I were slightly embarrassed of her, but would laugh and run away to a different slide. My mom could not have been happier.

When Garvey and I went to Wild Wadi, we got into our first tube and the jets sent us flying UP the slide! I started laughing hysterically. We were in one of the really large rafts built for 6 people, but with only two, we were sliding everywhere. I didn't stop laughing. We were then deposited into a lazy river-esque pool and floated to the start of the slide, and I giggled all the way back down. Garvey looked at me like I was crazy. For the rest of the day we rode in separate tubes.

All of the slides in the park are interconnected. You get on a tube in the middle of the lazy river and take a series of up and down slides around the park. The slides are connected by short lazy rivers where lifeguards guide your tube. The entire route takes about 20 minutes and is never quite the same. For those 20 minutes I never stopped laughing. I loved every second of it. So I went again. And again. And again. Garvey soon got bored and went on to bigger and better things. He tried the wave machines, the wave pool and other attractions. I never left my water slides. And the lifeguards knew me. They laughed as my tube shot by, or as they pushed me along to the next slide. One guy loved to high five me every time I went by. This involved him stopping the other tubers so he could jump down from his lookout post, and reach his hand across the slide for mine. As I went around for the tenth time the lifeguards became more comfortable and began to ask me questions. They wanted to know my name, where I was from, how old I was, and why I was always so happy. Khaled seemed to be most interested in me and often kept me hostage wherever he was posted. And let me tell you, it isn't easy for one to escape when being held hostage in a tube!

By the end of the day he had a place for us to meet later that night and had given me his phone number. Yes, I was asked on a date by a Wild Wadi lifeguard. He was very attractive, but Garvey refused to be my chaperone as my parents required, so I had to call him and tell him I couldn't make it. My mom said I had to call him to ensure that the US didn't get a bad name for the American girl that stood up Khaled.

Moral of the story: if you ever happen to be in Dubai, go to Wild Wadi! The water slides are awesome and the lifeguards aren't half bad. And, if you ever go to a water park with me, or my mother, be prepared for a lot of laughing.