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Published: September 14th 2012
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8/09/2012
Freaking another emotionally mixed day. I may have a rugged, partially groomed kiwi male exterior (or maybe not..), but I was all messed up when it came time to pack up all my stuff my the Winandy’s, and move to my new host families house, the Roberts. I’d met them numerous times before, shared a few laughs and generally got acquainted with them so I wasn’t exactly thrown in the deep end by any stretch of the imagination. I also had no doubts of their sincerity and generosity. It was just the fact that after 4 months of getting really close, sharing stories, creating memories, and many good-humoured name calling sessions, I felt really really at home with the Winandy’s. But, such is life, and out I went to find my new house in Jalhay.
Mark and Nathalie have a really nice house just out of the town center of Jalhay, the only negative of moving here being the atrociously infrequent bus schedule. I’m not even kidding when I say there are THREE busses of Sunday. 6:30, 12:30, 8:30. And for me, (coming to be known by my host families as king of public transport here), this meant
a great loss of independence, and the need to call on my family to get me after parties and nights out. Wasn’t too excited about that, but quelle a faire.
9/09/2012
Today was FINALLY the day I got to redeem my birthday present I received whist I was touring around Spain with our oldies, something I’d waited a long time for. We set off after a great BBQ at the Winandy’s, to ‘K2 bungee’, one of the sole companies of this type that exist here in Belgium. After getting there, I started to get suited up and talking to one of the guides there. Turns out he worked in some of NZ’s best bungee spots over 15 years ago, and yes, he knew the haka (plus ou moins…). After a quick briefing, up Clara and I were with 5 other to hear the rules and step out on the platform. To judge the amount of rope needed per jump, everyone was weighed and shamelessly had their weights roughly scrawled on their hands with semi-permanent marker. The girls weren’t too impressed by this, needless to say…
Once I approached the time to do the jump, the guides started
doing some kind of a haka imitation, so I decided to guide them through the haka, words and all before the jump. They loved it, and as I learnt afterwards, I was the FIRST EVER KIWI to do the k2 bungee in Liege. A title I’ll carry with me for life. I had to wait for the wind to die down before I jumped, and when the time came to, my heart was absolutely racing. I’d never been so anxious in my life.
“trois, deux, un, aller !”.......
......And that was it, I was in free fall, face-first, accelerating towards the bank of the pool at what seemed like breakneck speeds. The corners of my vision blurred, and before I began to close my eyes, I felt the wonder of elastic energy haul my two feet back up, up to almost the level of the platform again. And that was it, and it was fucking amazing. Never have I felt the rush of adrenaline, the feeling of possible death (except maybe dad’s farm tours…), and that sensation of having just done something that awesome before. It really was one of the best experiences
of my life. On the way down, felling a little uneasy (90% of the blood in my body felt like it was in my brain..), the guy at the bottom fished me out of the air, and toward the landing spot, where usually you’re set to rest and lie a little. Not today. He decided to unexpectedly dunk me – full body – into the pool beside the landing spot. Further investigations would show that despite all my families seemingly honestly saying they hadn’t asked him to do it in any way, they were all innocent. It was after he found out I was a kiwi, that I did a haka on the platform, and that I had quite a few people here watching that he decided himself to give me a dunk. I did however receive a free team tee-shirt, and a piece of a real bungee cord from the owner as free gifts, which was just so nice. After this, I was still pretty dizzy, so refusing a beer (?!?), I jumped back in the car and we headed back home.
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