"Cages or wings, which do you prefer?

 ...Ask the birds. Fear of love, baby? Don't say the answer.
Actions speak louder than words." -Jonathan Larson

The mountain we paraglided from!

So what’s life without a little adventure, right? Especially when you’re in Europe for 6 weeks. The first day in Chambéry we got a packet of excursions that were offered through our program, my eyes immediately landed on paragliding. Call me crazy but it just sounded so exciting, not to mention that one day I want to skydive so this seemed like a perfect starting point. It wasn’t until when I literally signed my name to the page that I realized just exactly what I was doing. But I felt that this was one of those “remember when” moments that only come a few times in your life. How many people get to say that they paraglided in the Alps?

Erin, Myself, and Kyle getting ready
to head up the mountain!

Another thing that really propelled me to do this was the fact that I feel like I’m always talking about living without regrets and just throwing caution into the wind. How would I be able to face myself if I didn’t take advantage of this insanely amazing opportunity? I am a firm believer that people need to take leaps of faith every now and again to live fully. I can’t think of a better way than literally running and jumping off of a mountain. Also, my infinite love of all things Band of Brothers and the history of what the Screaming Eagles did in Europe helped my nerves on this one. If they could parachute into Normandy on D-Day while being fired upon, surely paragliding would be a breeze (major pun intended).

The launch pad off the mountain

Let me start off by saying that paragliding has probably been my favorite experience from this trip so far and I’m not sure what could beat it at this point. There were 12 of us on the excursion today, and we had to go up to the mountain in groups of three. Erin, Kyle and myself were one group and we were the last to go. Most people would think that waiting around for a few hours to jump off a mountain would be nerve racking but really it wasn’t. My nerves didn’t kick in until the van ride to the top of the mountain. The mountain that didn’t look super high until it was time to take the thirty minute ride to the top. Now don’t let me sound like I did this on my own, we were with professionals in all honesty we just kinda sat there. But the thing was you literally had to get a running start before the wind would pick up and take you off the side of the mountain. This was the worst part but it literally was easier than it even sounds. The guy that was with me, Gael, was really nice and trying to make me feel better. I was asking him for the fiftieth time that I just run and then jump, and he responded with ‘No, you just run and then fly.’ No big deal, ya know?

One of three pictures I got before my
camera became tempermental

So Gael got the parachute ready as I stood there with shaking legs looking over the edge of a mountain. As soon as he gave the go ahead I started towards the edge and off we went. The second I was airborne I realized that all the nerves were for nothing. It was the most comfortable thing in the world and the view was breathtaking. Everything was so calm and so serene. We were about two minutes off the cliff when my camera decided to stop working – I’m blaming it on altitude sickness. But being that high in the air I realized that there are some things that you can’t really capture on a camera and this was one of those things. I’m literally sitting here at the computer at a loss for words to try and describe this experience other than absolutely amazing. It was everything I wanted it to be and even more and I honestly would have gone and done it again and again. 

Leaps of faith <3

I now completely understand why people jump out of airplanes. I am also completely jealous of birds because the views I got to experience today are so breathtaking. This was probably the best 60 Euros I could have spent on this trip. Italy and biking through a vineyard this weekend! I hope everyone has a nice 4^th of July and know that I’ll be celebrating here in France! I can’t believe that this trip is almost over already!

Miss & love you guys!