דניאל והילי מטיילים בעולם

Welcome to the land of unlimited possibilities.
For most people it sounds appealing. For me - after 7 years of attending classes, writing reports, keeping up with tight schedules, I find my self almost incapable of making my own decisions. We are now already a month here and our main complaint is having to decide all the time... "what should we cook for dinner? Where should we sleep? Van or privet? what do we want to do next?"
When Daniel said to me: "what would you like to do on your birthday? Anything is possible." I wasn't thrilled but rather slightly intimidated. "Well... We are at a certain point at our trip, I said, the logic thing would be to follow the map to our next planned spot". "Forget logic" said Daniel "we can drive anywhere. Don't be narrow minded. Think big and tell me what you want!"
That's the thing about Daniel. He can get so enthusiastic about something that seem so far from the logic thing to do that you get carried away. When I lived in Rehovot he would call me at 23:00 from Jerusalem and say "are you coming to Dixies to eat spear-ribs?". I would hesitate for a minute - the early class tomorrow, the anatomy lab after it, the capoeira practice following would run through my thoughts and I would say: "what the heck, let's go." an hour later the gray golf would stop by my house and we would be on our way to Tel Aviv... 
I thought and I thought and the only sure thing I came up with was - well - I want to eat breakfast outside. Eventually inspired by Daniel's extreme birthday and following his orders "to think big" I decided: if the sky is the limit - sky-diving is the obvious solution.

It sounds cool when you say it to yourself, but I don't think you actually grasp the meaning of these two words - "sky diving" when you go to the reception lady and say: "we'd like to book a sky dive for two. is tomorrow at 14:00 a good time?" she makes the arrangements necessary on the phone and says: "you'll have to be at the airport by 13:45". Airport? I thought. Didn't she mean office? oh right.. Airport, that's where the airplanes are. I started to grasp the tip of these two words.

ON the B-day we got up and went out for breakfast as planned. Everything was calm. Not a clue to the fact that 6 hours from now I'll be speeding toward the ground at 200km/h. A few hours later we were in the car on our way to the airport. Daniel began talking really fast - it's the butterflies in his stomach. I was still in denial, still more interested with the important question - will they give us a free (cool) T-shirt after we jump? Learning from our experiences in the past, he seems to grasp these things earlier. I stay in denial 'till almost the very end. Probably a defense mechanism - I don't enjoy feeling fear.
We got to the airport and found a large multi-arrowed sign at the entrance: "For scenery flights turn left; Acrobatic flights straight ahead; Heli-flights on your left; Tandem Sky dive (that's us) right." We parked the car. Walked into this huge hangar. Little white airplane on the right, cool T-shirts on the left. I was relived. 
This blond girl started talking to us: "Did you book a dive? Would you like a DVD? Pictures? T-shirts? Do you need to pee? Sign here and here and here (yes you can read first, but hurry!). I accept that the DVD might not turn great, I accept that there are no refunds if I chicken out. I recognise that there are some risks involving weather condition, human mistakes, I accept I might feel dizzy, catch a cold, feel nausea, die, but most importantly they say: I must smile.

You sign. You sigh. You pay.

You get your sky-diving suit, a pilot funny looking hat and goggles. You are assigned to your personal guide. He shakes your hand. "hi, I'm going to be your best friend for the evening. stick to me". He helps you wear the harness. You pray to god he hooked it the right way. He sticks a video camera to your face. "How are you feeling?". "Great" you force a smile with your thumbs up. "Already?" he asks. "I think so"...
We approach this tiny airplane. "How the hell are they gonna fit 8 people in this tiny thing?" I wonder. I'll tell you how: Cramped like candies in a Pez Dispenser. One after the other we sit, each leaning on his guide's legs behind him, trying not to touch the parachute of the one in front (don't want to be responsible for any human mistakes).
As we reach 9000 feet the door opens. You blink , you discover two people are missing. You try not to blink, you see the next pair disappearing, sucked out in a second. I'm next. Attached to my guide I can only make little steps toward the exit. What did they say I must do? put my legs over the edge. Well, I think I can do that. I get a last peek at Daniel. Suppress a thought that this might be the last one. I smile at him. "Wave to the camera on the wing" says the guide. I wave to a cloud. "Now hold your harness". Where? "Now put your head back". I obey, What ever you say. A second later I find myself in a cloud.
A foggy really nice cold smell hits me. It's kind of quiet. I hear only wind. "I'm in a cloud" I smile to myself. Suddenly, everything stars to clear up. I can see the ground. It's really far away.
Diving from 9000 feet (2475m) gives you 30 seconds of free-fall. If I compare the two experiences - sky-diving and bungy. At my bungy jump I felt gravity at full power. Pulling me down like a weight. Gaining speed with in splits of seconds. Here I was a feather. Weightless. At such great heights it's not really possible to understand that the ground is getting closer and closer. Somehow you feel like an inseparable part of the scenery. You feel like you can actually touch the view. You are hanging in the sky. Your actual body hangs there. You're not just looking at it from an airplanes window. It's the difference between being a spectator and participating in the act. Like swimming in the freezing water, not just looking at them thinking how cold they might be. Like climbing a mountain, breath taken, aching muscles, not just looking at how high it is from the car as you drive by.
After the 30 seconds are up the parachute opens. You feel gravity again. "But didn't it come from the wrong direction?". You feel like you're pulled up. The wind pulls your skin and wobbles your face like dough. Now that you're going slowly down, with the courtesy of the parachute, you realize that the floating feeling was actually a fast fall. The "quiet wind" was actually so loud you couldn't hear anything. Suddenly you hear a voice from behind you (Oh, I am not alone). My guide sticks the camera in my face again: "So birthday girl, how was it?". "Amazing" I shout. "Amazing! Amazing! Amazing!" Now we are floating slowly, calmly. I look around at the view and it's, well... amazingly beautiful. I look up and see my parachute. How nice. The air is so clear. I wonder where Daniel is.
Then for some reason the guide decides to add some spice to this dreamy experience. He starts pulling the strings and going around in circles. At that point I was reminded of my motion sickness. The feeling that all the world is at my feet changed to another feeling - I am only flesh and blood. Please stop. Maybe I'll close my eyes and breath deep. It doesn't help. I still feel nausea. Finally when I got to the understanding that he isn't doing anything essential for our safe return to the ground. I squeaked to him in a little voice: "I don't like this turning around thing". "O.K" he says. Why didn't I say something earlier?
 From this point forward the scenery was beautiful but unfortunately accompanied with motion sickness. Then comes landing. He tells you to lift up your feet. You look down and see land running underneath you. Then you find yourself sitting on the butt, wondering if you're able to stand. I am standing. Nice to back on the ground. I look up and see Daniel still floating, getting ready for landing. I can see him lifting his legs just like I did a minute ago and he is back on the sacred land. I run to him like it's the first time we see each other in years. We hug and jump around. We did it! We start walking like two american pilots that just came back from their well accomplished mission. I do my best to ignore the nausea I still feel.
It's weird to be after. You experience such a huge thing and it all takes only 15 minutes. You go up you go down. It's over. Did it really happen? My nausea can confirm that.

To conclude I can say: My 30's began in the clouds, but most certainly will continue with two feet safe on the ground.

http://www.skydivenz.com/photos/htdocs/viewpics.php?date=2006-02-23

הסיפור הזה נכתב ביום שישי, 10 למרץ 2006, בשעה 17:10, והוא שייך לנושא כללי. את כל התגובות והטראקבאקים אפשר לקרוא ב-RSS 2.0‏. אפשר להגיב עליו באתר הזה, או לשלוח טראקבאק מאתר אחר;