Annelise White Photography: a leap of faith..

Last weekend, my friends and I took a journey to Virginia to go skydiving. Senior year, we'd all been planning on doing something crazy like this before we went off to college. We were supposed to go down to Miami to meet a friend but that didn't work out. Instead, we drove a couple hours up to Suffolk, Virginia. We also hung out in Norfolk, Chesapeake and Virginia Beach (since there was basically nothing to do in Suffolk).

Our first day there, we wandered around Norfolk and then headed over to the Virginia Zoo. We were able to get a cool background tour of the zoo. In this tour, we fed the giraffes, elephants and kangaroos. We also got to see the animals up close and learn more about them and the zoo.

cool butterfly/elephant outside the zoo

my friend showing off.. his pants were soaked after this, it was quite funny

petting the emu

staring contest

kangaroos are kinda scary

she loved eating oranges

another orange :)

she had some problems eating the sticks

she ate in the funniest way

debating whether or not to eat it..

look at that tongue action!!

I love the silly look on my face

Next we headed over to Virginia Beach. I'd never been there before and it's quite different from any of the beaches I've been to. The beach is crawling with people! The main street by the beach is filled with shops and restaurants. They had the funniest signs (see below). I didn't bring any camera with me so I only snapped a picture of this one sign on my cell phone.

That night we had to run to Walmart (I forgot a toothbrush) and almost got ourselves kicked out. If you haven't ever done that, you should give it a try. It's quite fun.

Regardless of the fact that we had to get up early the next morning, we stayed up until the wee hours of the morning.

Our skydiving appointment was at ten the next morning but we didn't actually jump until after one. There were endless waivers to sign away our lives to them. We got all suited up, which is an uncomfortable experience. There is no such thing as personal space with your instructor.

Finally it was our turn to jump. We boarded the plane with our instructors. The plane ride took the longest, but finally we were high enough. For some reason, I visualized our jumping altitude as much lower. Regardless of the fact, there was nothing I could do. My instructor pulled me into his lap, strapped me to him and then we were hanging on the edge of the plane. This really was the scariest part, your legs hanging out of the plane that is thousands of miles up in the air. Also, an unexpected, but logical part, was how cold it was! We all wore shorts, not thinking about how cold it would get that high.

Then we were flying through the air. You're supposed to wrap your legs around your instructor, and of course, I did it the wrong way. We free fall for a few seconds and then after we passed the clouds, my instructor pulls the parachute. It started to get slightly warmer. For the next few minutes, we slowly drifted to the ground. This was the most exhilarating part of the jump. You feel suspended, as if you're just floating through the air.

And then it hit me. My breakfast had never settled well with me that day. I have a weak stomach and so I took motion sickness medicine in preparation for the jump. Right before landing, I was overcome with a wave of nausea and threw up all over myself. It was pretty funny. Sadly, this tainted my experience. Next time (and there will be a next time) I'm not going to throw up :)

Reyvin coming down

that's me.. it's funny, if you zoom in real close in the pictures of me, you can tell I'm getting sick

Clarissa coming down

taking off :)

this is how he gets girls

in case you can't tell, I'm really excited about skydiving

this guy was absolutely crazy (in case you can't tell from the pants). My friend (on the right) was strapped to him. I almost wanted to switch with her.