Wave to me as you are falling

Here's something I never thought I would be blogging about. Yesterday I paid a sizeable amount of money to be strapped out of a stranger and pushed out of a tiny doorless plane at 9,000 feet.

I'm not one of those adrenaline junkies who lives for their next buzz-inducing activity. Up until yesterday I'd never taken part in any kind of extreme sport, and, sad to say, my biggest rush came from finishing my master's thesis. But when Flatmate Jenny started talking about doing a skydive ahead of her upcoming 30th, I started thinking that maybe it'd be a cool thing to do. (I'm convinced that living in Amsterdam instils greater risk-taking, comfort-zone-leaving tendencies in people.) So, yesterday morning, she, Sarah, Angela and I, along with intrepid photographer Julia, headed to an airfield in the middle of the country to get our jump on.

Sarah & I elected to jump first and were promptly kitted out in some very form-fitting flight suits.



















Then it was time for a very thorough briefing, after which we were hauled (literally) on to our tiny plane. Note the lack of a door of any kind in the back - also no seats inside, and there was just about room for us both plus tandem buddies plus cameraman.














After taxiing around a field for about five minutes, it was time for liftoff and the start of our climb to 9,000 feet. At this point I was starting to get pretty shaky, and kept having to remind myself to breathe in and out. Still, up and up we climbed and soon it was time to go.

Sarah was jumping alongside the cameraman so I had to go first. After being strapped firmly on to my jumping buddy, we inched over to the (now completely open) doorway on our arses and I assumed the exit position - hanging out of the plane with my weight completely supported by buddy and plane. He pushed off and that was it... freefall. From what I can remember we dove headlong for about five seconds until he tapped me on the shoulder and we got into freefall position - arms out, legs out, just like you see on those extreme sports programmes. I wasn't sure at this point if I was actually enjoying it - I remember thinking that my mouth had gone really dry (I'd had it wide open in shock) and that I could feel my ears flapping madly in the wind. After the shortest thirty seconds of my life, my buddy pulled the chute and we shot into a sitting position. I remember thinking that a) I was a bit disappointed because I was starting to really enjoy the freefall and b) that it was so so quiet all of a sudden.

Once my buddy had sorted out the chute he started pointing things out to me on the ground. We were over some farmland between Hilversum and Utrecht, so not a whole lot of note to see, but it was nice to look down on the long strips of polder below. After a couple of minutes Sarah dropped by (har, har) with her tandem buddy and our respective buddies manoeuvred the chutes close enough for us to be able to talk/yell to each other (although our conversation was made up of several oh-my-gods and isn't-this-mads). Apparently flying so close together is highly unusual, but it certainly made for a funnier descent. Before I knew it we were at treetop height and bracing for landing in one of the polder fields. My feet touched the ground for a split second before I was pushed onto my knees into a huge rockstar skid through the long grass. And that was it. My buddy unstrapped me and I stood up and at that point started laughing uncontrollably. Sarah was about ten feet away in a similar state - it took us about half an hour to collect ourselves.

We were still buzzing on the bus ride back to the airfield and, in our high spirits, decided to concoct a cunning plan. We would arrive back to the others completely down in the mouth and dejected and regretful of having paid for such an awful experience. Rehearsals did not go well - we kept looking at each other and dissolving back into laughter - but we eventually managed to hone our sad faces, and recruited the cameraman and our jump buddies as additional ammo. So when the girls came to meet us in the hangar, I looked sullen and pretended I'd been ill, and Sarah was loudly apologising to my jump buddy who was berating her for wasting their time. Jenny and Angela's faces were priceless - I think we'd put them off somewhat - and after about five minutes we fessed up. The relief was immense.














Jenny and Angela managed to recover themselves and before long it was their turn to head off.















They returned just as hyper as Sarah and I, Jenny particularly proud of having blown a kiss to camera during freefall. After a couple of celebratory beers we were treated to the gala screening of Sarah and Jenny's videos - it was only then that it really dawned on us what we'd just done. Sarah's featured footage of my jump out of the plane and it was unbelievable to see how quickly I became just a dot in the sky below. I only found out then that I'd fallen 4,000 feet in 30 seconds. And my ears were fine! I'm never stressing out about plane travel again. I'm a little disappointed that I don't have any "action shots", but the extra 80 euro didn't quite seem justifiable. Next time, perhaps?

So that was that. Jenny crossed another thing off her "Things To Do Before I'm 3o" and "Extreme Experiences" lists and I have decided I might make a couple of lists of my own. Any suggestions?

Words fail me

Check this out.

Oh Johnny, Johnny, what have you done?!

Willoughby, will you not shake my hand?

A sad fact: I can at this stage recite most of the dialogue from Sense And Sensibility. It's on Dutch TV right now and I think I am starting to scare Flatmate Jenny somewhat. It may be the least annoying film Hugh Grant has ever made (although that's probably down to his extremely limited screentime). And now Kate Winslet has lost it completely so I must return my full attention to d'telly!

We're all going on a summer blogiday

Oh. It's been a couple of weeks. I've not given up on this thing - my absence is down to one part laziness, one part utter exhaustion and one part 'haven't found the time to get to the post office to pick up the replacement power cord for my laptop so I can blog from home and post the two memory cards full of photos I have to flickr'. So be prepared for a deluge of pics from a leaving party featuring customised pink t-shirts and edible necklaces, an utterly brilliant Beck concert (with puppets!), and our third booze cruise of the summer which ended up being the best by far, in spite of the lack of sparklers and not nearly enough cold beer.

Oh, and my cable works! And it is brilliant! I have all of the BBC channels (even BBC3 and BBC4) plus a rake of extra MTVs and, most importantly, the E! Channel. Quality hangover viewing at last.