After the jump

So jumping out of a plane was probably the most expensive, and exhilarating 7 minutes of my life. It wasn´t until the tiny Cessna barely containing the 6 of us took off and started climbing towards the sky that I actually started getting nervous. The peaks of the freshly snow-capped mountains looked almost close enough to touch, and we climbed higher still. All of a sudden, the doors of the plane were thrown open and everything was chaos. Emelie was the first to go. Before she could even finish screaming "No I don´t want to.." she had already been tossed out of the plane. Phil, my tandem guide, yelled "Ready?!" And before I knew it, we were airborne and bombing headfirst towards the ground, the flipping head over heels. After a few seconds, I realized I was actually skydiving, and even then even the air ripping past me at 200 km/hr couldn´t wipe the grin off my face. Then, too soon, the parachute chord was pulled, and we slowed our descent. My instructor showed me how to control the parachute by yanking the right and left chords up and down, and we spent the rest of the ride twisting back and forth while admiring the scenery of the Remarkables mountain ranges. After 5 minutes of this, the ground rushed up towards me, and after a totally ungraceful landing, the dive was over. I´ll be back though. After all, New Zealand is the only place in the world that allows a 15,000 ft jump, which is now on my to-do list.