On my train trip down to France, I decided to stop by Copenhagen to visit my friend Tim who I met on my exchange in California. I arrived at the central station at 4 p.m. on a Saturday. After hauling my surf bag to a confused luggage storage clerk and getting my fair share of stares along the way, me and Tim decided to take a bike ride to Refshaleøen.
Surrounded by chic locals sipping Aperol Spritz, me and Tim were snacking on some parmesan fries for dinner when I noticed in the corner of my eye in the distance what looked like some ragdoll being thrown down from a crane. For a moment, it looked to me like someone was disposing of some human-shaped garbage in a peculiar way. But, after putting our heads together, me and Tim figured out that people were bungie jumping.
Everyone on the pier was watching as the next person flung themselves towards the water from a rickety looking platform suspended unreasonably far up by the crane. I was feeling slow after the grueling 4 and a half hour trainride from Stockholm (read: I need to learn to sit still), and I knew that bungie jumping was on my bucket list. In an attempt to live more in the moment, I decided that we’d walk over and see what all the fuss was about.
Once we got there, a tall young guy who looked exactly what you think a bungie jumping instructor would look like greated us with some cheeky banter and sly comments about our masculinity. I guess that’s what’s to be expected from an adrenaline junkie who sells adrenaline, it sure worked for me. He told me that I could be ready to go in 5 seconds, and after the stroke of a pen and the tap of my Mastercard, I was stepping into the gear. The dude gave Tim some final slack for not wanting to jump, and after we watched a video on his phone of him doing a backflip, it was go time.
Tim had told me that he was scared shitless when he went jumping, so I was ready to be shivering with fear as I was hoisted over the windy Copenhagen waterfront. But honestly, it happend so quickly that I really didn’t have time to be scared. I just went up, spread my arms, leaned forward, and back down to earth I came:
The feeling after was amazing, and exactly what I needed to kick off my trip after a quite uneventful past week. Life is so full, and plummeting towards the earth in a freefall is a great way to remind ourselves that we’re alive.