SKYDIVING!!

Finally the weather was clear enough to go skydiving!  I got to NZone that's about a minute walk from X Base and filled some paperwork out that basically signed my life away, then watched a video of people jumping.  After about half an hour, all of us jumpers piled into a van and took off to a location about 15 minutes outside of Queenstown, towards Milford Sound.  The jump zone is directly above the Remarkables, which is amazing.  Once there, we stood around watching other people in front of us land, one by one, which really helped with any nerves that may have started to build up.  I had a muesli bar (thanks Chantelle and James!) and a cup of tea, then decided that I was being dumb for only jumping at 12,000ft; I'm here in one of the only countries that allows jumps at 15,000ft, and I'm choosing to jump at the mediocre 12,000ft?  I immediately went inside and asked to jump at 15,000ft, and they said it wouldn't be a problem at all.  Yay!  After waiting for about an hour and a half, it was finally our turn to jump!  We suited up in this silly jumper thing, then into the harness, completed with a silly crazy-person hat, goggles, and gloves.  After meeting our diving masters (the people we're strapped on to go tandem with) and photographers, we made our way towards our plane, which was this tiny little one-prop thing.  I was definitely expecting it to be a bit bigger inside; we've all seen videos where the divers are waiting on benches that are lined up against the plane's wall.  This plane was NOTHING like that.  I walk up to get in, and it was LITERALLY (and when I say literally, I really do mean literally) three and a half, four feet wide (maybe), and about 10, 12 feet long for nine people to fit into (three divers, three masters, three photographers) the main compartment.  It was absolutely insane.  The plane took off, and we were soon climbing over the gorgeous Remarkables; the view was breathtaking.  I didn't freak out at all, though I definitely made sure that I was attached to my master (I was like, we're not gonna die, right?  I'm attached to you, right? haha).  Finally we reach our altitude, and my master goes, alright, you're all hooked up, let's go!  So the door is opened, my photographer jumps out and clings onto the side of the plane so he can capture me exiting, and my master sits at the edge of the plane with my entire body dangling over the edge.  I was so totally stoked and not scared at all, it was nuts.  So my master basically swings to the count of three, and on the third swing just propels us out of the plane into a headfirst dive, then a flip, then finally to a belly-towards-the-ground position.  Exiting the plane was absolutely my favorite part about the entire thing; that feeling right as you leave cannot be imitated by anything.  It's like you're falling, but you aren't scared about hitting the ground because it's so far away, almost like you're falling in water, and you look around and see the beautiful landscape and mountains all around you meeting the sky and clouds; irreplaceable.  After the exit I freefell for the next entire minute, which was awesome.  My face was sooooo cold, which kinda sucked, and it was hard to breathe (think trying to breathe during a five mile run outside in the dead of winter), but it was absolutely incredible; seeing the ground like you see it in google maps (haha), the feeling of the wind rushing past your face, oh man, I'm in love!!  Towards the end of the freefall my master set us into spins, which was soooo fun, haha.  Then he counted down from three on his fingers and released the parachute, and we went flying upwards in an amazing rush (definitely my second favorite part).  After that we just flew around and did some G-force spins and talked about how cold it was and how beautiful everything is.  It was amazing.  After about five minutes of that, we came down for our landing; I lifted my legs up and we basically slid to the ground.  It was the most amazing experience I've ever been through and am SOOOO glad I did it, I totally want to do it again!  I have a $50 off coupon for my next jump-- who knows?  haha.  But it's totally the kind of thing that I could become addicted to and just take classes and whatnot.  I had no clue I would like it so much, but seriously, oh my god.  Words can't describe what it was like.  EVERYONE should do it, seriously.  It's not scary at all (and this is coming from the kid that held up the water slide for like 10 minutes at summer camp when I was little while I cried and said no no no!).  It was amazing.  I don't know what else to say.

here's a link to the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpwK0vPUDU8