Guess who went sky diving today?

I quite possibly just had the most amazing experience of my life so far. I know you probably can't believe I actually went skydiving. So check out this link and see a few photos of me preparing to jump 15,000 feet out of dinky little plane.

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/jachawk3/my_photos

Click on the SKY DIVING! album to see the pics. Yes, that little speck in the sky is me floating around.

This is a link to the company's website. There are some pretty cool pictures in the Tandem section of the photo gallery.
http://www.cpvpara.com/inglese//centrale.html

we left at 7 am to go to this skydiving school near treviso. the man leading the tutorial (in italian, translated by alberto) pulled me up front to help with the demonstration, so i felt much better about what i was doing when it came to the real thing (and he looked like an italian version of Matthew McConaughey so i happily helped out...)

Alberto, Brian and Kassie went first. We had trouble keeping tabs of them with the sun blaring in our eyes, but soon enough we saw little specks in the sky and down floated our friends. Dan went next with a random group of other skydivers and Anna, Mary Beth and I went after him.

We had to wear these very attractive one size fits all jumpsuits, goggles and "helmets" (which were more like little caps). Bruno put my harness on me and secured everything. I wasn't that nervous until the plane took off. i had no idea when we piled in that since my instructor bruno had us go last, we would be the first jumping out of the plane. I didn't want to go first, but looks like I didn't have a choice! Somehow 9 of us (3 jumpers, 3 instructors and and 3 camera men) managed to squeeze in the tiny little plane, but we were all squished together.

We spent about 15 minutes cruising to our jumping altitude and Bruno took this time to fasten himself to me and shake me forward to ensure everything was secure. i had a great view of some beautiful mountains and the clouds. before i knew it, my cameraman skydiver opened the door, flung himself onto a little ledge and bruno swung me out. let me explain this...i was dangling out of the plane. mid-air. suspended in the sky. nothing but a few pieces of a metal harness connecting me with bruno who was still sitting in the plane.

the next thing i know, i am face down and falling very, very fast. i didn't even have time to think if i was in the correct position (luckily the arched position came naturally). my friends who'd gone before me said your stomach doesn't drop. umm, they lied. that was by far the scariest part of the entire jump - the initial feeling of going from a stationary position to a free fall. all i could think was "what the (explicative) did i get myself into?"

once i was used to the intensity of the experience, it was a very cool feeling to be soaring in the sky. my facial flesh was moving around in weird positions and it felt funny. i think i was able to close my mouth before any drool could escape (and good thing since all this was captured on film...) my camera man was right across from me waving to get my reactions. i waved back and tried to smile but sometimes i was a little distracted by the fact i could hardly breath. During our preflight lesson, the instructor said if we needed to cover our mouth to breath, we needed to place one hand over our mouth and the other on our stomach to keep the symmetry. I decided I liked the feeling of having my arms extended in the air too much to do this so I just breathed very carefully.

after 60 seconds of free falling in the sky, bruno opened our parachute. i was a little confused about the logistics of skydiving and thought he'd already opened. oh no. as soon as he opened the parachute, i felt an intense jolt (thanks to the harness) and an uncomfortable tug the remainder of our flight. i neglected to think that all my weight rested in these few pieces of metal crossing me like underwear. and they don't have it cushioned or anything for your comfort so it was digging into legs.

once i adjusted to the odd harness, i looked up and saw our pretty parachute billowing in the air. bruno twirled us around the sky and we saw the cute little towns. it was such a light, carefree feeling to be floating daintily above Italy. it seemed like we did this for quite awhile before we returned to the landing pad.

i didn't quite stick my landing, and i think bruno yelled at me in italian because we fell over, but i was just happy to make it down without any injuries. Even though I was back on the ground at 11 am, it took until dinner time for my ears to finally return to normal. During my fall, I could feel them popping. And for all the time in between, I could barely hear myself or others talk...like I had cotton stuffed in my ears. Thankfully it finally went away, but I my head felt very odd for quite awhile.

I have a roll of film I need to get developed. Hopefully they can put it on a CD and I can post them. Those should be amazing because they'll be close ups of me in the sky. I also have a VHS of the crazy experience (Anna watched it and said it was great, but I have yet to get my hands on it.)