My cousin, Karin was joking when she told me about skydiving. I wasn’t. I yelled: “Yes of course!” And so the planning began. I managed to get another good friend, Aleksi to join my cousin and I, so I booked the tickets to fly to Munich 2 months later due to school and travelling. During the 2 months I forgot about how anxious I feel about skydiving.

We were to start driving at 8am to Colibri Skydiving in  Thalmässing. I didn’t know what to expect out of this actually. So I always thought that it was just flying gracefully like a bird. I was pretty excited to gain an experience like that as my best friend also went for skydiving in Melbourne, Australia a year ago. She didn’t want to spoil the fun for me, so she just briefly told me that it was just like flying.

As we arrived at Thalmässing, I rushed out of the car to see the other people who were already in the air with their pretty colourful parachutes. I couldn’t wait to get to the plane. In the mean time I hear Karin trying to hide her fears and explain how she will survive the ordeal. Once in a while she will get a little angry at me for saying yes to her joking request to skydive. We sat in a corner of the small house to watch a video about safety and professional sky divers doing formations. The 3 of us were thinking what formation to do afterwards. Well, it didn’t happen.

When we were next to experience this awesome free falling, we were putting on our cream coloured jumpsuits and black helmets, and each of our instructors already taking videos of us. The quote of the day was “No smile, no skydive!” The funny thing was that we were rushed to get to the plane as we were behind the schedule. So we were the only batch of sky divers who had to sprint with our tight harnesses and jumpsuits, and it enhanced the adrenaline rush in us. I was getting more and more pumped up to jump, while my Karin started babbling a lot, half the time saying how scared it was and it was all my fault. It was hilarious how the colour of my cousin’s face was turning white, while Aleksi’s face was turning green! I was just smiling all the way for the camera. I had to look good for my video you see!

It was 10000 feet and we were way above the clouds already. It was drop time! Aleksi was the first to jump off the plane, without much emotions, probably was a little too scared already. I was next in line, with my instructor, Johannes tied right behind me. I took one foot out, with the other knee on the plane. As soon as I held my harness, I got to thinking: “Oh my, I’m falling off” Johannes held my head close to him and we took off. I realised my heart was still in the plane as we flew down! I tried to scream but all the air seemed to have taken my entire mouth. I couldn’t control my mouth movements at all. The next thing I knew, Johannes was turning me in 360 deg, in almost every direction! So I saw the plane again, and the sky was below my feet, above my head, even beside me. It was just so crazy and exhilarating! We shot through the clouds like a Bugatti on a road without speed limit. It was at least 10 to 15 seconds of free falling and spinning around before the parachute was opened. The flat lands and little bit of hills looked tiny beneath my feet. Immediately I was thinking when is the next time I was going to skydive again. I steered the parachute for a while and the right turn was faster than a turning corner on a roller coaster. It was something I couldn’t experience anyhow else. I only wished the experience lasted longer. When we were touching down, I had to lift my legs up to 90 deg while Johannes skilfully land on the big field. I couldn’t thank him enough! I want to take sky diving as my hobby from now on.

Xian, June 7, 2010