Adventure and Apple Pie - Part I

A friend of mine on a second date with her new man went hot air ballooning recently.


“What for?” I asked incredulous that that was the way this bloke was trying to woo her. “He’s dumped for sure, isn’t he? Idiot.” I said scoffing.


“No, it was great.”


“Uh huh. What?”


What is that about? Ten million feet above terra firma in a basket held up by the most flammable fabric on the planet with intermittent bursts of fire shooting up through the middle of it. Hmmm, there’s a great idea.


“It was, what’s the word?”


“Dim-witted”


“No, invigorating.”


The thesaurus will tell you that daring means bold, brave, courageous, audacious and heroic. A crossword puzzle will tell you it’s nerve. In my dictionary it’s stupidity.


“It was romantic and we had champagne after,” she told me. I would have had a jeroboam of the stuff and three Valium prior to climbing in that small picnic basket I can assure you.


“Celebrate living did you? Celebrate not dropping like a stone from 5,000 feet?”


She thought it was wonderful.


I have the same trouble understanding people who like extreme adventure sports like jumping out of a plane with a parachute. I grill people about this so I can come to some sort of understanding about why this is a good idea. It’s just not natural jumping out of a plane. And for some reason they believe that a tandem jump reduces the risk factor by a thousand percent. It just doesn’t. It is still jumping out of a plane with a big hanky over your head that may or may not open and that you hope will unfurl at the right moment if it does unwrap. It is hard enough to get through life in one piece without injury and death let alone inviting it into your life.


“It’s okay I’m jumping with someone else,” they say.


“Oh goody fucking gumdrops sister. Two dead bodies.”


And the other thing, they pay huge dollars to do it. I would rather pay the same money and get on and off a plane in two different cities, or countries for that matter. There should be nothing in between except airline muffins and coffee.


It’s also not an attractive thing to do and they video it. People think it is great having footage of their faces flopping around in mid air.


“And I got a video of the whole thing,” they say overjoyed.


“Yay, you can relive it whenever you want.”


“I’m going to do it again.”


“Jesus, why?” I shout. “What’s wrong with you? Watch the freakin’ video.”


But people do the most amazing things. They climb very high cliffs and mountains with narrow ropes and little hooks. I don’t get this at all because not only is it dangerous and really mindless but it’s tiring. It is actual work and exercise and it is so very,very high. I get vertigo on a small ladder. I can barely watch TV shows of people climbing up these cliff faces without shuddering uncontrollably. It’s spooky.


The other daring adventure people indulge in that I don’t appreciate or comprehend at all is swimming with sharks. Sharks kill people just to snack. That’s why we have lifeguards; shark planes that circle over the sea when a shark is spotted, and alarms at major beaches. Didn’t people see Jaws? I’m from Adelaide and I know sharks can eat boats and surfboards and people.


“Sharks are my friends,” someone said on the Discovery channel. Who wants to see this dude’s enemies? My definition of a friend is a little different. It’s a buddy and companion, an ally. Not someone who wants to devour you at will while you bleed to death. I mean it’s a fish with very sharp fucking teeth.


Base-jumping is one more bizarre sport to me and seems that it can get a bit reckless and dangerous for others when people dive off of buildings or tall objects in major cities. I just don’t see the thrill in it when doing it from anywhere though. But I am a chicken in anything to do with heights so I’m possibly really biased. I know it’s all about the adrenalin and cheating death but it’s just such a long way down. The zipper at the show freaks me out. Stuff the zipper, looking down from an upper storey shopping centre paralyses me with fear.


While I’m not keen on risky adventure sports I don’t mind doing things of risky nature when I travel, like flying into New York with American Airlines on the 11th of February, sitting in row 11. That’s a risk I don’t mind taking. You see apparently the number 11 has been linked to mystery and power since the earliest of times. All forms of number research and studies, including numerology, the ancient science of Gematria, and the secret wisdom of Kabbalah, all give momentous significance to 11, and 11 derivatives, for example - 22, 33, 44, 55, 66, 77, 88, and 99.


The 11th number is considered a master number according to some, an example is, the first Great War, World War 1 which, ended on the 11th hour, of the 11th day, of the 11th month. In Tolkein's, The Lord of the Rings, the number 11 is depicted as an inquisitive number, and getting to your 111th birthday is a huge event, it’s also a bloody miracle. Apparently the USA missed series of numbers on the Apollo moon missions to make certain it was Apollo 11 that landed on the moon. In Egypt, King Tutankhamen's tomb had combinations of 11 in the jewellery he wore, and he had 11 oars placed on the floor surrounding his tomb.


So there you go. I did a risky thing when I flew into New York on that day and that is as far as I will go.


I love travelling and have been to lots of places. Now that I have a partner I love to bits, I want to go back to all the places I’ve ever been and see it through their eyes as well as my own again, let’s be fair. So recently in February we went to the US of A. America, home of the free. I don’t think America is necessarily free any longer as much as they declare and remind themselves that they are.


I have been there three times and have discovered that that is still not enough. I have seen about 10 of the 50 states and no more than that because on my second and third go, I could not get past New York City. I am obsessed and completely fixated on New York. I have always been passionate about it, even before I went. I love everything about it. The architecture, the energy, the size, the bagels, the hot dog stands, central park, the buildings and the vigour of the place is indescribable. I have been there in the middle of summer and the middle of winter and loved both equally. I love it so much that I have applied for a green card in a lottery so that we can live there for a year or two if we want to.

Americans are an odd yet also lovely race in my opinion. Loud, over patriotic (so much so I think that they lose sight of reality), friendly, ignorant, (does Australia have wind, what state is Australia in?, you Australians are from England aren’t you?) and they can seem rude at times yet I am not sure whether that is really their intent or whether they simply come across as being bad-mannered. I wonder these days too if it really and honestly has something to do with 9/11. The day that changed the world most definitely changed America most of all and I think it seeps out of the people there in atypical ways. 

Go Adventure!

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