Finally Flying!

Thursday was a day of highs and lows, physically and emotionally. Leah and I had been trying for about a week to go paragliding. Throughout the year, when we looked out the window we saw 20 or 30 paragliders off the mountain. The four different times we try to go? Too much wind each time. Thursday was our last chance. We called that morning, and thankfully, we were good to go! So about 2:00, they came and picked us up and we made the windy trek up the mountain in their van. We got to the launch pad and it finally started to sink in; we were about to jump off this 4,600 foot mountain! We got strapped in and were going to take pictures of each other taking off. But, as we were waiting for the right wind and I was getting my camera settings right, I looked and the next thing I knew Leah was gone! But a second later, the wind wasn’t as good, so I couldn’t chase after her. A few minutes later, my guide says to me in French, alright, start running, let’s go! And we were off! Don’t get me wrong, it was great and I loved it, but it was more relaxing than exciting. You just kind of sat back and enjoyed the view of the Alps, Geneva, the Lake, and the fields. He even let me pilot it for a while; as seen in the video!




He would show me how to lean and how to pull the cords, and then direct me and say, let’s head towards the train station. And off we went. Towards the end we spun in circles really fast, which was fun. Our landing was beautiful and quite nice, whereas Leah’s, I learned, was not as graceful. They had been coming in, and the wind suddenly cut out and they ended up in the bushes : ) All is all though, quite lovely. So there was my high. But then I came back and went to our goodbye dinner with all our classmates and teachers, and that was SO hard. I cried when I said goodbye to Pierre. We had seen these teachers everyday for nine months. They had travelled with us on long day trips as well as weeklong road trips in the bus for hours. We’ve learned so much from them and I’m going to miss them greatly. After shedding a few tears, it was time for another happy moment; I left the dinner a bit early to go pick up my cousin at the airport! She was arriving to spend a week travelling Italy with me! Unfortunately, due to the unpredictability of Dallas weather, she had been forced to reroute her entire flight, thus… long story short… her bags were not with her. I went with her to try to explain in French what had happened to the luggage people, and we crossed our fingers that they would arrive before we left for Italy Saturday morning.