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Published: September 14th 2009
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All geared up
Standing next to the tiny plane that would take us up to skydive. For some, the thought of celebrating a birthday (my 21st on August 31st) while studying in a foreign country may seem like putting the cherry on top of the ice cream. For me, the thought of being away from my family and close friends for the first birthday ever gave me a bit of an ice cream headache instead. But, as in any situation, you make the best of it, and do what you can to make it great.
So, I decided to follow three simple steps.
1. Do something you’ve never done. = Skydiving. Freefalling for 6,000 feet and then trusting a seemingly thin fabric circle to carry you safely down for the last 3,000 feet seems a bit, well, insane, but I promise that it was surprisingly not scary.
I did the tandem skydive, which means someone who works there is connected to you. It was actually really nice because there was no pressure to mess anything up. All I had to do was put my limbs in the right positions, and he did the rest. We started off by scrambling into a tiny plane; I guessed that it would hold two to three people,
View from 9,000 ft
The coastline looked so beautiful as we climbed. and we fit six (needless to say, there was an awkward closeness involved… I don’t think you can work at a skydiving place and have a problem with personal space). The view became more amazing as we climbed. Above the mountains around me, looking over the wine region to one side and city of Cape Town bordered by the turquoise-blue water of Table Bay to the other. The guy kept asking me if I was nervous, but I was strangely calm.
I don’t think it hit me that it’s a little bit crazy to jump out of a plane until I saw the first jumper (he was more experienced and going by himself) disappear the instant he leaned out of the plane. But, no time to doubt, we scooted over to the edge and tumbled out of the plane. I think the tumbling was the most intense; my stomach turned a little bit (but in the good, adrenaline way). But then in about two-three seconds, with the stabilizer up, I felt like I was flying. I felt like I was lying on a bed of air, looking at such a beautiful place. After about twenty-thirty more seconds, which seemed
Self portrait in flight
Right after he opened the parachute, I opened my camera. too soon, he put the parachute up. I could really enjoy the view then, drifting peacefully toward the landing site. I got to “drive” the parachute for a while (meaning he put his hands above mine and let me think I was controlling it), and we did some fun whirl-y/spin-y things before a peaceful landing.
It was definitely one of the coolest things I’ve done.
2. Go somewhere you’ve never been. This one was planned for me; there was an international student trip to Cape Point the next day.
We started at Boulder Beach, where we saw lots of little African penguins! Oh dear, there was a lot of “aww-ing” and “oh, so cute!”s involved. That’s not to say that extensive coo-ing was not deserved; they were pretty adorable, waddling around and diving and playing in the ocean. It looked like a scene from a Disney/Pixar movie—as if the penguins had personalities and were just taking a nice beach vacation before they headed back to Antarctica. It was crazy to think that this is their natural environment. If I were a Dutchman discovering South Africa, I would think, “What is this strange land? Penguins where
The parachute
Please ignore the nostril shots. it’s not cold?!”
We then went to Cape Point (the very southwest tip of Africa splits into two parts at the edge—Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope; they are right next to each other). We started off with a surprisingly not-too-overpriced and actually very tasty meal at the restaurant with arguably one of the best views in South Africa. We started to walk up the path toward the lighthouse but were impeded by something much more important: more cute animals. I must preface this. Everyone warns you about the vicious baboons around the Cape: “they are very strong and dangerous,” “they will steal your things,” “do NOT feed them,” “take them seriously and stay away from them.” Well, en route to the lighthouse, we saw that people were gathered in an area taking pictures of a baboon. “Oh yay, a baboon,” we thought. Then we noticed the kicker: not just a baboon, oh no, but BABY baboons, too. Our calm walk immediately turned into a sprint up the path toward the vicious baboons to take a photo before they moved on. It turned out that there were eight or nine baboons there, probably around three with babies
"Driving" the parachute
Yeah, right. It was still cool, though. and a few other stragglers, which we were probably dangerously close to, but they didn’t show any reaction. This upped the ante on the amount of coo-ing we could possibly do in a day, and we probably all have at least ten pictures too many of the mommy baboons with the baby baboons (oh, but they were so CUTE! Dang it, here I go again). I got to the lighthouse (another amazing view), but unfortunately didn’t have time to go all the way to Cape Point for lack of time.
We also took a short stop at the Cape of Good Hope. It was gloomy and chilly by that point, and with the crashing waves, we could definitely see why one explorer named it “Cape of Storms.” It was pretty cool to think about my unimpeded view to Antarctica; although, as you might guess, I couldn’t see all the way there.
We ended the night by going to a really fun concert of a South African band we’d never heard—Desmond and the Tutus—who turned out to be a dance-y, rock-y type of music that everyone really had fun with.
3. Blow out all the candles. Mission accomplished.
And still in one piece. Because a birthday isn’t a birthday without cake, right?
A bunch of us went out to dinner Sunday night (Monday was my actual birthday), and I got a dessert entitled “Death by Chocolate,” (Mom, you would have loved it). Then, on Monday, some of my friends surprised me by putting arrows all around my building leading me on a hunt that eventually ended up at my room, decorated and with friends and cake waiting for another celebration. I do have some great friends here, too.
And that is how I celebrated my twenty-first birthday in South Africa.
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