skydivingalright, alright. much love and thanks to xiao for making me sound like a complete pansy on his xanga. well, two can play that game. let me share what REALLY happened on saturday..
so we get to the skydiving place and sign all these forms, basically selling our souls away and giving up any rights we may have had. so we turn our forms in and go up to this lady who works there and tell her we're waiting for the rest of our group to show up. see, we were supposed to jump with the rest of xiao's boeing buddies. but she checked and checked the computer, but she said there was no group with that name. then finally she checked sunday, and, lo and behold, 9 AM appointment. freakin' xiao can't even get the day right.
well lucky us, she gave us the group rate anyways, and told us to go outside to wait for our names to be called for class. while we were waiting, xiao and i took the time to walk over to the field and watch other idiots who decided to skydive too. i wasn't too nervous yet, but i looked over at xiao and saw that his pants were wet. he said in his xanga that it was the rain, but it hadn't even started raining yet..?!
anyways this guy then comes up to us and brings us to this guy with crutches and a cast around his leg and told us that he was our instructor. i seriously thought he was joking around at first, but then no one else started laughing, so xiao and i just shrugged and went to the classroom.
classroom instructions were simple. arch your back, pull the ripcord when the altimeter says 6,000 feet, and lift your legs for the landing. practicing arching while standing up was kinda strange, but i guess it's an important part of the lesson.
after a short video in which we couldn't hear anything the guy was saying, we were taken to our tandem partners, aka the people who would be attached to us when we jumped out of the airplane. so we went down to get our suits and stuff. my guy, joe, just happened to be my height, which was cool. but then he looked like stone cold steve austin and he weighed about 250 pounds. but i followed his instructions and put my suit on, all the while listening to him try to freak me out by telling me he's never jumped before and crazy stuff like that. har har too bad i have the courage of a lion.
so after xiao and i were dressed in all blue and looking like smurfs, we peered outside and noticed a lot of dark, gray clouds. aiya, it better not rain..
after about 20 minutes of anticipation, we finally loaded onto this thing that looked like a huge bus with wings. we crammed about 20 people in there, and then the door was closed shut. xiao was so scared he kept looking back at me with tears in his eyes. i'm glad i was about 3 people behind him or else he woulda asked to hold my hand or something.
so we take off, and i watch the altimeter strapped onto my left wrist as the plane rises and rises. joe leans in and yells into my ear that we jump when the plane gets to 14,000 feet. yipes. it was also at this time that i realized that joe was a smoker, for he had cigarette breath =x
joe says he's gonna start strapping up, so i'm like, cool. apparently there's 4 places that get attached to his suit, 2 up around the shoulders and 2 by the hips. after a couple minutes, he taps me on my left shoulder and says, "okay see, we're attached here." i nod, thinking this a way for me to feel more at ease about my lapse of sanity, and he taps me on my right shoulder. "we're attached here." i nod once again, and then he starts thrusting his hips a little bit and says "and you know we're friends down here."
SIGH, WHAT HAVE I GOTTEN MYSELF INTO. at that point, i wasn't not sure if i was more scared of him or of jumping out of an airplane at 14,000 feet. but whatever, all fun and games. then all of a sudden..
joe: ah sh*t.
me: what?
joe: that's why i hate when we're rushed, i always forget something!
me: what'd you forget?
joe: (pointing to bare wrists) my altimeter, so you make sure you watch yours.
me: ...great.
i look outside, and it is now raining. the plane circles around for about 15-20 minutes, and joe tells me the pilot is looking for a clear place where we can jump because jumping in the rain sucks. i didn't really understand why, but i decided not to ask any questions cuz i was kinda sick of his breath already.
all this time at the end of the plane there's this guy wearing a brazilian flag or something in all yellow yelling all kinds of nonsense. i don't know, maybe it was a yellow strait-jacket. this guy wouldn't stop fidgeting, so either he was really excited about jumping or he really had to pee.
so at last, the back door opens, and the light hits green. mister brazil lets out a yelp and runs off the platform without hesitation. a few more people jump, and then all of a sudden the light turns red again. danget.
so xiao and his partner sit down and me and joe take a rest as well. after a couple more minutes, the light turns green again, and i'm right behind xiao. i watch as he and his russian instructor guy walk to the end of the platform and disappear into the clouds, with xiao yelling the entire time. man, i didn't know he had that much voice in him.
so now it's me and joe's turn. we get to the end of the platform, i take one look down, and i'm like, CRAP. i thought CLIFFdiving was hard, but this is downright impossible. i guess it's a good thing that joe was 250 pounds, because when he thought it was time to go, there was nothing my extremely defined, muscular frame of 140 pounds could have done to stop him. we tumbled out of the plane and somehow a few seconds later end up with our stomachs facing the ground. i arched like a good skydiving boy, but then i started feeling this immense pain in my neck, face, and hands.
IT'S THE FREAKING RAIN!! so i found out firsthand why the rain hurt so bad. apparently we were falling 3029080893290 times faster than the rain, so the sharp ends of the rain droplets were hitting every exposed area of my skin like needles. good thing they gave us goggles or else my eyes would have been gouged out.
in the midst of this insane barrage of angry water droplets, i forgot to check my altimeter, so after about a minute, joe yells for me to check it. it reads 5,500 feet. whoops, so i reach back and pull the ripcord, and woah, i got the super wedgie of a lifetime as the parachute came out. we sailed around in the parachute for a while, doing a few 360s and whatnot. after a couple minutes, it was time to land, so we glided in and i raised my legs like a good skydiver boy as we slid in for the landing. wooo what a rush! =)
alright no more details needed, right? if you wanna know more, ask me or xiao; the stories are always better in person anyways. well, we had a blast, and we already signed up for a second jump, so come join us next time!
