i wanna swoop babay

for the first time in awhile, i actually traveled somewhere with another human being.  you were probably starting to wonder whether the whole "i like traveling on my own" thing was similar to most girls saying "i don't need a boyfriend."

i actually have a distant cousin who lives in NZ named fabienne or fabi.  she's a relative through my mom's side of the family and lives in hamilton, which is only about an hour and a half drive from rotorua.  luckily, i was able to flex my persuasive email writing skills and convinced her to come along with me so i had a partner in crime. or tourism?

anyway, when we arrived, we headed straight to the tourist information center to make sure we booked the activity i promised i would do in NZ (yes, i'm still going to be vague about that one) and anything else that we were interested in.  originally, fabi planned on being my personal photographer just watching, but when we were looking into activities she found something called "the swoop" that was of interest.

we decided to go ahead and do it. why not? you only live once! now's as good a time as any. all's fair in love and war.  ok, that last one didn't make sense, but i needed to make sure you knew i was going on a cliche-a-thon.

simply put, "the swoop" means two crazy looking kiwi guys wrap you and a friend in a sleeping bag type contraption, then they hoist you up 40 some odd meters in the air (as high up as the rotorua bungee jump) and tell you to pull a cord which effectively releases the sleeping bag from the cord and you go "swooping" through the air.  sounds less scary than it is, especially when you're afraid of heights. and you're the one pulling the cord...

understand now why it was so compelling? yeah, me neither.

mildly suffering from the last condition.

fabi and i in our "sleeping bags."

the initial fall - apparently i need to work on my scared face.

all hair.

if you couldn't feel enough fear in our faces from those last two photos, that's not all - the photo package that we bought also came with a video. totally wish there was music to drown out the nervous conversation topics and my lame cousin it joke, but i've embarrassed myself before, i'll do it again...