Nick’s 30th is fast approaching and I feel like our list is just treading water. We haven’t crossed anything off in a few months now. We had snowboarding lessons and a helicopter ride booked for our trip to Queenstown in June… but as many of you know, we never got on that flight and long story short, that was the very start of the reason why we are now living in London! Thankfully we have until late March to complete everything!
So to make myself feel a little more productive, I’m going to post a take two of #9 – Walking over the Brooklyn Bridge.
In transition to London, Nick and I met in NYC for 10 days. Would you believe that the first time we crossed the Brooklyn Bridge together, we didn’t actually get a photo of the two of us. This time we crossed the bridge during the day and it was a beautiful 30 degrees – maybe a little too hot for Nick!
When people ask you what it feels like to jump out of a plane and plummet towards earth at 200kms/h… you can’t really describe the feeling. You can’t find the words. Most people assume it’s like being on a descending roller-coaster for 60 seconds. It isn’t. At all. Imagine yourself floating over a large industrial size fan. You don’t feel gravity… all you feel is the wind on your face and the pressure in your ears. You have no concept of falling apart from the terrifying fact that the ground appears to be getting closer. Your screams are hardly heard and your whole life rests in the hands of someone who is strapped onto your back. Its absolutely exhilarating!
When answering the first asked questions “So, what was it like? Was it scary?”, my honest answer is that the plane ride is scarier than jumping out. You’re in a tiny tin plane with nine or so others and you’re all sitting on the floor being deafened by the single engine struggling to get you all up to 14,000ft… and gusts of wind are not this plane’s friend!
The relief when you feel when that parachute pulls you to a more civilized speed makes you want to kiss the ground. How ironic! You’ve still got a long way to go. Thankfully the rest of the descent is a peaceful and scenic float back down to earth.
It is truly the most surreal thing that you will do in your life. We would recommend this to anyone that is open to doing it. It is worth every single dollar that you pay… and as you can see, you MUST get the photos and DVD.
Hey, if my Mum could do it at 50, you can too!
We organised our jump through Skydive the Beach in Wollongong, NSW, Australia.
This post doesn’t really need much of a description (but I do want to point out that we were in London and its WASN’T raining!). We just thought it would be an interesting challenge to walk over different iconic bridges in different cities. Not because its difficult to walk over them… because its not easy to get to all of these places in such a short amount of time. So far we’ve crossed the Golden Gate Bridge, Brooklyn Bridge, Sydney Harbour Bridge and now Tower Bridge. Having this blog is great because it makes us commit to activities that we may otherwise skip over!
Who wouldn’t want to be in the city of love with the one that you love! It’s so sad to think that we were there only a week ago. Paris, je t’aime!
Climbing the Eiffel Tower is a must for anyone visiting Paris. We pre-booked online for a city bus tour and ‘skip the line’ Eiffel Tower tickets. This will cost you a bit more than just turning up and waiting in line (€40 instead of €5), however, a 15 minute wait time in comparison to a three hour wait time is well worth it! Plus, you get a 90 minute bus tour of Paris where they drive you past all of the major city icons. Oh, and you won’t have to climb the 1665 stairs like everyone else. You get to take a 30 second cable car right up to the second level (that’s worth the extra €35 right there!).
The view from the second level on the Eiffel Tower. We were lucky enough to be up there as the sun was setting.
We had both been to London a few times independently but neither of us had been on the London Eye, so it was nice to experience this with each other during our first trip to London together.
It takes 30 minutes for the London Eye to make the full circle, giving you plenty of time to take in the fantastic views and admire the great span of the city from above. Typically, it was raining, but visibility was still quite clear.
The capsules are equipped with interactive screens which are extremely useful for information on what buildings you are looking at and their history as you move around the journey.
Like any tourist attraction, there is an opportunity for a souvenir photo at the end of the journey. You are told to stand in a marked area and pose for the photo. Would you believe that when this photo was taken (below) we thought it had been taken about a minute beforehand. This wasn’t our intended pose for the photo!
An absolutely amazing souvenir photo! Even the sales assistants in the shop were laughing at it. Probably the best £10 we have ever spent!
Thirty Under Thirty List 