Today we were
desperate for clear weather as Gavin had generously provided us with an early
Xmas present.… a paragliding experience over St Christina. Erin, Will, Carri,
Gavin and myself were all lined up for our latest adventure. Julie was also
coming along, though Julie doesn’t “do” adventure stuff, but is always happy to
be the “bag lady” while we go off to risk life and limb. After a couple of
decades of fun parks in Australia and the USA, Paragliding and Jet skiing in
Bali, Bungy Jumping in New Zealand etc…Julie has been happy to sit and watch
over our bags…what a champion!
Anyway after several
calls our paragliding pilot David decided that the weather should be ok. He
could take some of us up first and then a colleague would join later in the
morning so that we could also go in pairs.
David turned out to be
an interesting character. He started by bringing out his home made grappa to
share, I guess to settle the nerves. He said that before becoming a paragliding
pilot he worked in a grappa factory. Apparently the grappa keeps him warm going
up and down the mountain. Our thoughts however were more about ‘do they have
breathalysers for paragliding pilots?...and who wants to go last!
It was determined that
either Erin or Carri should go first as they had a snowboarding lesson to get
back to. Grappa man mentioned, in
his halting English, that the first one would be a bit of a ‘test’ fight to check the
conditions. “Grappa...Test”….not words that inspire a lot of early confidence.
You should have seen the relief on Erin’s face when Carrie stepped forward to
volunteer to go first …. though on the balance…”grappa” vs “test” …perhaps she
was being smart going first.
So it was Carri that
was set up with Gav’s snowboarding helmet and Go Hero video camera attached to
hit the chairlift to the top of the mountain with grappa man. Apparently he
also shared grappa shots with other fellow passengers on the way up.
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| Carri landing safely with Grappa Man |
Carri is fairly new to
us…having only partnered up with Gav this year. We could only be impressed by
her willingness to sacrifice herself for the good of her only recently acquired
extended family. Julie and Carri had already started bonding through shared
“toy boy” experiences. One of the good things about being born Asian is that
you look younger than you really are. Until fairly recently, whenever Julie and
I visited an Asian country the waiters or waitresses invariably would present
Julie with the bill…much to her chagrin and my delight! Of course they would
die with embarrassment when the bill was angrily pushed toward me (I’d be
laughing of course!). Apparently
Carri has experienced the same thing in recent trips to Bali with Gavin. Gavin
and Carrie are both 28 now…but still managed to pass for 16 in Austria when
buying lift tickets…..so its not that Carrie looks like a cougar!
Will decided to follow
them up the mountain to do a snow board run and view the inaugural launch,
while we waited on Carrie’s fate below. After what seemed to take a long time
Will returned to advise as that there had been a slight hiccough on the first
attempted launch.
Carrie and grappa man
did eventually make it down safely. We took lots of shots from the ground and
Carrie arrived smiling and not at all traumatised by her crash dummy experience.
By now David’s colleague Emanuel had arrived (no grappa though) so we could now
go in pairs. Will and Erin were next up and we watched eagerly as they passed
each other in flight and landed safely, delighted by their experiences.
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| Will and Erin ... |
So finally it was Gav
and I. With Gav having a freshly charged Go Hero camera I was relieved to not
need to bring out my secret video sunglasses. Now its normal for parents to
make sacrifices for their children but in this case it was Gavin who got grappa
man for his third and final flight….don’t really know what happened there. Learning
from Carri’s experience we ‘ran faster’ and the experienced the delight of
floating down over the valley with the best vantage point in the world! The
short period of panic and adrenalin quickly disappears as you relax into the
experience…unlike bungy jumping when you only start to relax on the third
rebound!
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| ...looks like south pole explorer |
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| Mission Leader |
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| Bolzano Xmas Markets |
The afternoon was
relatively eventless. Julie and I ventured into the Bolzano Christmas markets
for a kransky hit!...not really…the xmas decorations were stunning, its just
that the kranskys are still repeating on us… The back to our favourite Pizzeria for a 'light' dinner.
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| Dessert was obviously a flaming success for Julie and Lyn. |
Social Network Update
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| New connections |
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