By Fiona Ferguson
As my mom covered her face with her hands and let out a groan, shaking her head, and my dad sighed deeply—I realized that I had royally screwed up by telling them. Over FaceTime, I’d just dropped the bomb of my plans to go paragliding in Switzerland—basically, hurling myself off a mountain with nothing but a glorified bed sheet to break my fall. I reminded dad he had gone skydiving at my age, to which he replied; “At least I had the sense not to tell my mother until I was back on the ground!” Touché.
Two hundred bucks is what it costs to tempt fate in Interlaken, Switzerland. Despite my parent’s lamentations, I had already paid for and mentally committed to doing this. What better place? It was so picturesque; every street corner was like a different month in a commemorative ‘Swiss Alps’ calendar. My friend Rainey and I had decided that Copenhagen just wasn’t cold enough for us in late November, so here we were spending a weekend in the Alps, watching tourists with red and yellow parachutes land morning and afternoon in the center of town. This would soon be us, I realized, finding solace in the fact that none of them (that we saw) had to be carted away on a stretcher. We went through the days eating cheese and chocolate, and I tried desperately not to think of what I was in for.
I’m no daredevil. I enjoy the occasional rollercoaster ride and spontaneous night out, but overall stick to the safeties of my routine and meticulously planned Google calendar. Rainey, a greater adrenaline junkie than I had previously assumed, had to do quite a bit of convincing for me to agree (she had even looked at skydiving, but I assured her she’d find herself alone in that death wish).
The night before, I lay awake imagining the various ways this could go spectacularly wrong. I could flat on my face into a cliffside of rocks, lose a leg tangled up in parachute strings, break an ankle while landing or somehow plummet to the ground at terminal velocity due to some technological failure. I’m sure my mother was losing her mind halfway around the world. The next morning was even worse, and I picked at breakfast with a pit in my stomach. We rode the bus into town, found ourselves at the paragliding company’s building, and quickly went to the bathroom so we wouldn’t have an accident mid-flight.
A troupe of men in jumpsuits led by a mustached Englishman herded us into a van decorated with pictures of paragliders. They loaded the back with their enormous backpacks and we buckled our seatbelts—there was no backing out of this now. As the van started up and we began our ascent to one of the tiny Swiss towns dotting the green hillsides, I realized that I was completely and utterly unprepared. I asked the Englishman how many people had wet their pants during their flight (to make myself feel better if such a thing occurred): “None,” he answered.
A small coincidence eased my anxieties; it was my assigned jumping instructor’s birthday. Reto wouldn’t make a life-ending mistake on his birthday, right? That would just be poor cosmic timing.
We reached the summit, and I watched as one by one, the other jumpers and Rainey strapped in and ran down the steep rocky hill, lifting up at the end and floating directly into passing clouds. Of course, Reto and I were the last. I looked down at my shaking hands and realized the van had abandoned us, meaning the only way down was through the air. Strapped together like a 3-legged race, we ran down the hill awkwardly until my feet lifted off the ground.
Switzerland instantly transformed from postcard to a 3D IMAX experience. I looked towards the mountains at eye-level, soaking in the sunshine now that I had escaped their shadow. Sometimes, being reminded of your own mortality can be a good thing. Like a movie scene, I thought about every decision that had led up to being here—going abroad, choosing Denmark, visiting Switzerland, even about the way Rainey and I ended up being friends. I had been terrified to go abroad, arguably more terrified than the prospect of jumping off a mountain, but both were insanely cool experiences.
Did this experience turn me into an adrenaline junkie? Hell no. But I didn’t wet myself either, which I think counts as a win. Sometimes you need to do something truly terrifying to realize how easy you have it on the daily. As I texted my family “I LIVED” I felt relief that I had made the commitment and actually followed through. Plus, the photos make me look way cooler than I actually am—and aren't the photo ops (not the life-changing lessons) what travel’s really about?
About Fiona Ferguson
Fiona Ferguson is studying literature and journalism at Emory University. She blogs about food and travel, including topics from her recent semester abroad in Copenhagen, Denmark.
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