Wednesday, April 30, 2008

its been topped.

i said it several posts before that i love weekends? well, i had no idea what i was in for. last weekend, J took me to Newport, Rhode Island for his school's annual Spring Gala event. It was held at the Rosecliff Mansion - a historically preserved mansion, one of many in Newport.

Newport is little New England seaside town, about 45mins from Providence and 1.5hours from
Boston. Its a resort area, filled with summer homes and little restaurants & bars. I knew nothing about it, until I did my research. We booked our stay at Hotel Viking - another historic site in Newport. We got an awesome deal but our room had a great view, the hotel parking lot. Hahaha, that's what you get for priceline.com I guess.

We arrived on Friday night and ate our hearts out after a long bus ride. We found a cute little joint that had yummy specials in front - we ordered ourselves a fea
st: a pound of fresh shrimp cocktail, J had a fresh cold lobster, I had fish & chips and we also got stuffed calms as well and a round of beers. Man, did we overorder. But we rolled out satisfied and went to bed happy.

The next morning, I was in for a big surprise. I was unaware of any of J's plans. I got woken up before 9am - groggily i asked where we'd be going and if it involved animals, he chirped "Yes" and I skipped out of bed to get ready.

When we got into the taxi, at the mention of "Newport State Airport" I was wondering why there'd be animals there. Puzzled, I waited as J gleefully smiled. We arriv at the airport and step into the office and I suppose the look on my face was classic. I discovered, we were going sky diving.

Horrified, excited, happy, scared, anxious - I felt all these emotions at
one time. J was having the time of his life with this surprise. As i anxiously waited my turn to suit up and listened to the instructor's instructions, my hands were sweating, butterflies were in my stomach and J stood next to me as we saw his peers descend from the sky in a rainbow parachute and ecstatic smiles on their faces.

We suited up and got into the smallest plane I've ever been into. It sat one - the pilot and 2 of us with 2 of our tandem instructors crammed into the back on the floor. E
very safety precaution had been taken, suits were checked, goggles were cleaned, chutes were checked and we took off, up to 10,000 feet to prepare for our jump.

I can only say, it was the most amazing experience I've had and the best surprise I've had ever. It was both scary and awesome at the same time. And yes, of course I was nervous but it was very much worth it. After the fear and tension surpasses, you're met with such a wonderful, awe-inspiring feeling.


I for one, never thought I'd be able to jump out of a perfectly good plane. But I did. And I would never have done it, if not for J and his very cool surprise. He's jumped several times before and I'm only glad, we got to do it together.


That afternoon, we strolled the streets of Newport and the dock and went home for a nap before dolling up for the Spring Gala.

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