Yes the grass is that green (on the other side) in Austria…see? And the parachute thingy is that colourful too, see?

Paragliding!

So this song was 100% my theme song for the paragliding day. I was sitting on the coach, terrified of what I’d signed up for, listening to my iPod in an attempt to calm down. What started playing? None other than “Let’s go fly a kite” from the one and only Mary Poppins. With that musical interlude down I was washed clean of fear and rearing to go.

Now I know I know, I wasn’t flying a kite as such. But it’s all the same deal (apart from keeping your feet on the ground).

Luckily, this paragliding endeavour didn’t leave me hanging out there by myself, no. I got teamed up with an instructor for a tandem jump. Only thing is, I got the oldest, most frail looking instructor of the lot, Tom. Now I wasn’t feeling to confident about this again (and I hummed myself the aforementioned tune) but none the less it had to be done.

We had to take a cable car up to the jump spot, which honestly, sparked my fear of heights enough. When asked if he was nervous, Tom responded “I’m always nervous doing jumps with beautiful girls” Then I was given a form to sign my life away, which after the fact, he insisted was a marraige certificate and I had just agreed to live there in Austria with him forever and fly everyday with him. Well. THAT wasn’t what I intended.

Up at the jump spot he took our first ever ‘honeymoon snaps’ before running me off a cliff, into the sky. And to be honest, after the screaming and swearing subsided, it wasn’t all that bad and the view was really worth it. He even got me back on the ground safely and sold me our ‘wedding album’ for a good price.

Would I do it again? I’m not so sure. But am I happy I did it? Absolutely.