Living an Experience (Stay in France Part IV)

Now technically im supposed to first sit and write about the  Sunday after that Saturday I spoke about which btw was also very interesting and I will tell you about it later but today I had one of those days which you remember in detail for the rest of your life, those days when you live an experience so I’m going to tell you about it right now while I can still feel it and tell you about that Sunday in the next one.

Today being Friday was a holiday for no reason I can think of, ya the French do that, and the company I’m working for they like doing such things, Thursday was a holiday because the French people don’t work on this day of the year so my company decided to make it a long weekend and give Friday off as well. Now there is this gentle man by the name of Mr. Laurent who is a friend of my fathers and works for the same company stays in Bordeaux has a wife a little child, now his wife’s company was not as benevolent. So long story short he was free on Friday and decided that he could spend it with me show me around. So a couple days back we were sitting in office discussing the weekend, and after a long drawn discussion I decided that on Saturday and Sunday I’ll go to this French town by the name of Tours and Thursday I’ll do something near by and on Friday he’ll take me some place. 

So today afternoon he came and picked me up in his nice Audi A3 and off we headed to Biscarrosse Plage which is a little further than Arcachaon which is near the Dune.

This place had a park called Aventure Parc where they had these adventure games. The unique and interesting thing about this park was they had built on the trees a whole maze of paths consisting of different arboreal tasks like climbing over a cable using the support of another or walking over suspended logs of wood that would swing with every step or using a pulley to slide down a cable or swing on a rope like tarzan and crash into a mesh of rope that you catch hold of and then move on. Basically lots of fun… good physical activity for the afternoon something new never done before.

 

The expected reaction to the afore said is probably along the lines of yeah that sounds interesting might like to try it sometime but what is the bug deal. But that’s not all Aventure parc has.

 

You know there are these certain things that change a person turn the person from one who has not done it into a person who has, things that differentiate the have dones and haven’t dones, things that you do once changes something un explicable inside you, the things they say that have a virginity. Today I did one of those things, and it was amazing. I jumped off a tower by the support of nothing but a very strong rubber band. Yes. I bungee jumped.

 

I after the arboreal exercise I decided ‘lets jump’ so I went to the tower they had built for the purpose where one of the instructors strapped me into this funny harness and then put some more belts on my feet and then asked me to climb a ladder up the tower. It was supposed to be just 20 meters and I thought that a jump that low may not actually be that great and for the last few days I was actually thinking if it was worth it or not, but that ladder cleared all my doubts it was high, for those who know it was higher than the bungee swing in Singapore, so I kept climbing up the ladder and it just dint seem to get over then I understood why they had even harnessed me to a cable on my way up the ladder. Finally I got to the top and it was high. There was this instructor who was a French guy who spoke English but the typical French English so he checked my harness checked the belt on my feet and said it was ok. Then he told me how I was supposed to look at the trees look at the houses and jump, how if I jumped quickly it’d be easier. How I should hold my arms wide open because that would be better. I listened intently and then I asked him if I could retie my shoe laces cos they felt a little loose, and he looked at me amused and said that I could but it wouldn’t affect the jump. Then he attached the big rubber band to me one piece to my harness and another thing to the belt on my feet, and I was all set, harness in place shoes tied rubber band attached. I was standing there on top of the tower and I could hear his voice at the back asking me to look at the trees, all I could see in front of me was a blur of green maybe because I wasn’t wearing my glasses maybe it was just the moment, I looked down once saw it was far away thought to my self that if I look for too long I might start thinking and before I could realize it I jumped, arms wide open I just jumped into the abyss I could swear it must have been a couple of seconds and I realized that I was falling right down and then there was this HUGE pull on my feet and I was flying upwards the earth and trees spinning around me my head towards the ground my heart was beating so fast I could practically hear it. And then I remembered to shout, and while I was swinging from one side to the other I went WEEEE HAAWWWWW. A few moments later I was just hanging there suspended from a stretched rubber band between the tower and the ground. The instructor on the ground said something but I couldn’t understand he asked me to do something with the rope and from what I understood me meant release the rope and I yelled back “NO”, and then the guy at the top shouted something along the same lines and I was thinking I’m not releasing anything slowly they brought me down and later explained that what they meant was they wanted me to catch hold of the rope so that I would be in an upright position while descending but I think I liked my way more.

Heart still beating fast adrenalin rushing through my veins I came back to the ground having done something new and absolutely, totally, and most awesomely breathtaking.

 

Next one about that Sunday btw I’m headed to Tours tomorrow and I wont be carrying my computer so I wont check my mail until I get back until then ciao.