If you haven’t read yesterday’s jounral entry, please do so now, because otherwise, you might be lost…
I sure am glad that I went to the Thanksgiving banquet at the church.
They were having a huge American festival. Complete with turkey, mashed
potato(e?)s, gravy…the whole kit and kaboodle. Since I came in late and
most every seat was taken except for the volunteers, I volunteered to stay
and help clean up afterwards. Something I was more than happy to do so that
I could enjoy the atmosphere as long as possible.
The dinner was good and the people were friendly. I had no problem making
myself at home with second servings of dark meat and mashed potatoes. I
make a few more friends including one Indonesian girl who experienced Thanksgiving
for the very first time. I later found out how hard she had to work to persuade
her father to allow her to come to Europe to study since women over there
VERY rarely move away from home at such an early age. (I’m beginning to
see how interesting other cultures are and how differently they work than
Americans. We are quite free.) One of the other girls, German, who I had
met before, was quite “open” and had no problem putting her fingers on my
plate to remove some of the strings from the cooked turkey as I was eating.
My thoughts went from shock to amusement as I repeated my mantra which has
kept me sane these past weeks: “That’s just how they do things.” This journey
in Europe has been very interesting as I continue to see life and other people’s
reality as just that…another person’s reality. For her, it’s ok to put
fingers in another person’s plate. Funny, eh?
I got home and packed up for this weekend, still not sure of where I will go, but backing warm.
To finish off about last weekend, the next day I got ready to go paragliding
again and luckily, we took a different route so I was able to see some different,
beautiful scenery, including a city that’s in the Guiness book of World Records for being the longest city in the world (7km). Nervous, I walked behind a house, made some yellow snow and then syched myself up for flying in nothing but a parachute. (Tandem, of course). Giglo strapped oursevles to the parachute, told me to run off a cliff and then…
We were off!!! I’m flying! I’m really flying!!! Everything below me looked so small. The view of the lakes was mystical…A few minutes into the flight, I hear the question, “You like tricks?” “Sure!” “WE GO LEFT!!!!”
Little did I know that “tricks” meant barrelling down towards the earth
while listening to the altimeter beep off the number of meters we had left
before we hit the ground. I truly had the experience of being in a plane,
which was spinning on an axis right before a crash. I was so horrified and
excitied that I couldn’t move. However, I knew that I was in the hands of
a professional and was really enjoying myself. When we stopped circling
around, my heart and breath caught up with me and I felt the adrenaline rush
finally hit my head. Whoo!!! And to imagine I’m thinking of going back
for skydiving or canyon jumping! 🙂 Then, all to shortly, we landed.
We both thanked each other for the experience and he dropped me back off
at Balmers. I then rested for a while and read some of Anne Frank’s Diary
and talked to some of the people that just came back from skydiving and canyon
jumping. One of the guys had a smile on hit face that you could scrape off.
“That was the wildest thing I’ve ever done!”, he exclaimed.
After the rush wore off, I went touring around town and
had a LOT of fun at this restaurant called Bebbie’s. Where the waiters sing
along with the radio and are extremely cheerful and friendly. They also
ring cow bells for children. Oh, one thing about Europe which amazes me
is how they allow their pets to come into the restaurants with them. It’s just commonplace.
Finally, my journey was over and it was time for me to head back to Paris.
I vowed, tho to come back and spend another weekend in Switzerland, most
likely in Interlaken, because I am amazed by it’s pure beauty and naturality. Oh yeah, and the chocolate’s good too. 🙂