Day 17: Two words- SKY. DIVING.

So we woke up, carefully picked what to eat for breakfast, and waited for the van to take us Sky Diving. Made a few phone calls just in case I died. 16,500 feet is a long way. 75 seconds of free fall. Definitely intimidating. So we got in the van and drove to "The Sky Dive Zone" which was in Kerikeri, a town not far from Paihia which was where we were staying.

Fun Fact #14: New Zealand drivers are crazy. No joke, actually cray cray. They fly around the insane turns and twists of the roads like its a straight freeway. Seriously, these people are worse than Vermonters on dirt roads in winter. They think they can go as fast as they want, and that their cars can take it! I'll admit it, I'm a pretty cocky driver in the snow... But these people ain't got no trucks or subarus, they're driving little 2 wheel drives that'll cop out in 5 years with how they treat them. My Dad always told me if I took care of my car, the car would take care of me. But in the States, cars are expensive. Here, they can trade hands with the exchange of a thirty rack of beer and twenty dollar bill. Fo' real. That happens.

So back to the story- this van ride was pretty hardcore. I was thinking, "If I can survive this ride, I can do Sky Diving no problem." And I did.

We got to the Sky Dive Zone, and immediately set about the task of signing our lives away. While I signed, the girl behind the desk was swearing into her cellphone.

"Yeah, screw this place. Yeah, I'm done. No, Like seriously, I'm printing my resignation right now. I'm so done with this crap."

My friend Emma and I looked at each other, like what the hell are we doing here. This chick is peaceing out and bad mouthing the owner right in front of us, what kind of place is this? But it didn't really matter at that point, we had paid, the deed was done.

Emma was the most terrified of all of us. I mean, this girl is afraid to jump 10 feet into water. And who gets pulled out of the group to be the first one to go up with some other people? Emma. Of course. She goes off with the flirty Spanish man with the funny hat, and we go get briefed in the lounge.

The video essentially consisted of "Make your body shaped like a banana. You get in the plane, the only way out is jumping. Don't fight us, we WILL hit you." Well that was informative, thanks guys.

After the speech, we suited up and put on our harnesses. Emma made it down, we congratulated her and got in our own plane. Lizzy, Sara and I climbed into our dinky little rickety airplane with each of our instructors. I got lucky with my instructor: his name was Andrew and he was very very normal. Lizzy and Brett's, on the other hand, was called "Cookie" because his name was German and it sounded similar to that. He was a pretty sketchy dude who didn't speak English all that well. Gave off a serious creeper vibe. Sara's guy just looked like he had a few too many the night before. Can you say Vom dot com?? Doesn't exactly inspire a lot of confidence in his abilities when your scared he's going to throw up on you mid flight. Emma and Amy's was a Spanish man who was flirting with them the entire time. It's just a little bit weird to get hit on while you sit in this man's lap for 25 minutes with no means of escape...

Anyways, we hopped in, they yanked down the garage door opening, stuffed a towel in the top to stop the wind from getting in too much, and we took off.

Suited up!

In the plane. Door about to close. No turning back now.

We flew around the Bay of Islands for about 20 minutes. This was the view. Absolutely incredible.

At 8,000 feet, they made us put on oxygen masks. 

This was me (straight ahead), Lizzy (blonde) and Sara (hat) sitting on the laps of our instructors as we fly over the Bay of Islands. At 5 minutes till the jump, they strap you in. At one minute, they take off your oxygen mask, put your hat and goggles on, and butt scoot you to the garage door on the left side of this picture.

I was the first to go. One thing that I can say was that I did NOT fight him. Or pee my pants.

Okay, maybe a little pee. 

Just kidding. But I did drool like crazy!

Sayin' hi to the Brohan.

And the parental unit.

When he pulled the chute, I was thinking, "Oh man! I wanted to go more, why'd you do that?" Then I realized, "Oh wait, it actually worked. I'M ALIVE!!!!!"

My instructor let me spin us in circles for a little bit. Kind of made me dizzy, I didn't do that for too long.

Enjoying the view down.

Landed! Now to call my family and let them know I survived. Phew.

We hung around for our other friends Brett and Amy to jump. It was a beautiful day for it, we had a nice time sitting out in the sun waiting for them. My ears were all weird though from dropping so fast, it took me a while to get them back to normal. After, we got in the car with the crazy receptionist who was quitting. She actually ended up being really nice and because she was resigning, she decided not to charge us for our van ride. Yay for saving money!!!!

She told us to go to a restaurant next door to our hostel called "Tito's". We waltzed in with our Heinz ketchup like such bad asses. 

"Hey guys, guess what? We jumped out of a plane today."