My trip to Avignon, France

Bounjour France. Everyone goes to France to tourist around and eat. I went to France to skydive and drink. Almost the same, right ?! 😅
Not that I didn’t want to do all that, I would love to tour and eat too, but my wallet doesn’t like me, so, I traveled just around Avignon. And my dear friend, I loved every day.

Let’s start by saying the famous expression that the best part is the company. The best part of France was the friendships I made, one person more special than the other. Even before arriving there. For example, I heard about the dropzone through my beautiful friend Sylvain that I meet in Seville’s dropzone, in Spain. He spoke so well about the place that I decided to pay a visit.

The city is small and in the middle of nature, with several small and super charming villages around, with rivers, bridges, and walls everywhere.

The skydive dropzone is great, it has dormitories, a restaurant, packing and instruction area, and a huge landing area entitled with wool carpet to provide a landing with maximum comfort. France is another level! 😘

Let me explain it to you. Look, the landing area is huge and yet, with all my ability, I was almost always landing outside. Do not judge me ok, I said ALMOST always landing outside. To this day, as I write to you, I have never made a landing outside the area.
UUUu golden trophy for me! Throw me roses, please!

Continuing, in one of my jumps I was on my way, invariably, to land far away, all planned, of course, because I have a huge pleasure in long walks carrying a heavy parachute under the hot sun. It’s the most beautiful moment of my day. And that’s why, and just for that, I land far. It has nothing to do with my ability to navigate, okay ?! But whatever, it was me, landing IN the area, when I decided to land on some sand that was in the corner of the field, it will be more comfortable, right? I thought with my neurons.

Was everything all right with my aim, when I realized that my target was in movement. Whaaat? Near the ground, I realized that the “sand” was actually sheep. Well, I was too close to the floor to change my route, so I decided to make it worthwhile. I looked at one, put my foot up, and was all Jackie Chan kick style, ready to bring dinner to my friend Mario cook.

Perfect plan, except for the fact that the misery of sheep ran away. I had to land on the same grass as always, it’s petulance without a measure of these animals wanting to survive an air attack. 😤
Outrageous, but I was amusing myself. The shepherd probably hated me tho, the sheep ran all directions. And I am positively sure that what he told me in French was a thank-you for the future exercise to be done by reassigning the herd. That’s great! People, that’s the perfect plan for a sunny afternoon, is all about enjoying the beautiful day. 😁

But wait, I want us to go back to the beginning. My first day there started with me getting out of the car at 5 am and entering a super full dropzone. Look what a beautiful thing, a skydiving area full of people on a Saturday at 5 am. They must have a lot of jumps here, I’m thinking as I’m going to the reception, the airplane must go up all the time, introducing myself to the reception, there should be thousands of skydivers, talking to the receptionist, must have … Whaaaat? There won’t be any jump? All morning?

But, but, what do you mean? It’s full of people here, they’re even with their parachute already! Whata f*** brow, what about me? Let me jump off the airplane dude!
Why you don’t like me? 😭

While I was there, lost in my thoughts, not understanding anything that was happening, indignant because I couldn’t jump, a guy came to talk to me, and introduced himself in a way that looked like it should mean something to me.
I was… ok

I asked him if he was going to jump, and I was surprised when he said yes. How? They just told me that the area is closed!
Yes, but I am Blablabla!

… 😒…

So? AND I AM IVE GAYA !!!!!

He, looking disappointed with my lack of recognition, asked me full of pompous: Aaah, you’re not from here, are you?
Oóó my god, we have a Sherlock here, don’t we?

No, I’m from Brazil.

So he told me he was a TV show host, and they were there to shoot a special episode with him skydiving. So that was why the dropzone was closed, but that would be just for the morning.
He also told me that he was from Paris and wanted to know if I was going to visit the city. When I said that I still didn’t know, he told me that I needed to go, he gave me his number and told me to call him because he would love to sleep with a Brazilian.

F*** dude! This guy comes to jump, occupy the whole airplane, for all the airplane takeoffs, for all the f****** morning! And still does not want to make any flirting effort? Are you kidding me? So insolent.

Whateveeeeeer, I decided to use this time to put all my documentation in order. So while I was talking with the instructor in charge, I discover that my beautiful B license, fresh from the oven, bright and new, was not well accepted there. And that I would have to make a jump with an instructor to make it official.

You see, I’m complaining, just for the pleasure of complaining, because in the end, I think that was great. One because that’s how I met my dear friend Mario, two because with that I was able to jump with everybody around. I also believe that France was the place I learned the most about Skydive. These guys jump a lot, it’s no wonder why they are world champions almost every year.

Still about my skydive jumps, after having my license RE approved, I had the opportunity to do several “first” jumps. First jump sity fly and first jump with a large group. My loves, when I say big group, you read 6 people 😅

It wasn’t really the first time, my last jump in Brazil was with 5 people, no, let me say in a better way, it was with 5 Gods, that is, all instructor, so, my little buddy, no matter if you fly inadequately, they make look like it is easy and it’s all alright. Now here in France, the guys are very good too but not so keen on making me feel like a super flyer. So you can imagine, in the jump, my little buddy, I was A-MA-ZING. Amazingly bad.

I could not even get close to the group, and when I get a little bit near them, I flew over one of the girls. It was so ugly. But I’ve learned my lesson, now I’m more aware of my skydive level, the other levels, and especially the number of people in the jump. Now I can say with pride, I’m a less stinky little shit in our blue sky 😝

And that’s how I spent my happy days in Avignon, jumping every other day, working every other day, touristing around sometimes, watching movies every night, playing with Jack (the wonderful marvelous dog of Mario) and eating. Eat, eat, eat, eating! Food that my dearest friend Mario cooked, of course, that’s why it was delicious if it was my cooking, it would be a disgrace, but whatever, Mario cook and I do the dishes, and it was a happy arrangement.

And better, several times the people that lived in the dropzone joined to eat together, after all, Mario is an amazing cook. At one of those dinners, like in any other day, I cleaned the plate, ate it all without a blink. Too innocent, too fast, too overconfident, too oblivious to the looks of the people in my direction.

As soon as I finished they asked me if I liked it. Then I already knew. Even the dinner being super delicious, I started to think about what could be strange. What the hell could I have eaten? I imagined the weirdest things, so I was almost relieved when I discovered it was just horse meat.

You see, at that point, I had some very confusing synapses in my cerebellum. I grew up going to my grandpa farm, and on my grandpa’s farm, there are three beautiful horses named Baio, Branco, and Vermelhão. And I love them. But, still, I was there, eating one of their buddies, without even feeling heavily guilty, or light! But you need to understand. It would help a lot in the matter of feeling guilty if the dinner wouldn’t be super delicious. 😝 What could I do?!

Horses aside, I also had lots of beer, lots of straw cigarettes, barbecues where I learned to play beer pong (yes, because it is a very difficult thing to learn the art of throwing the ping pong ball in a glass when you’re already drunk ), and I visited the cities around, which has as main sights the city’s bridges.

My time here was so cool that it even had a police reprimand.
Touristing in Avignon, a city that is surrounded by walls, Mario and I began to wonder how the city would look like from the top of the walls. And because curiosity is something that NEEDS to be killed, as a matter of health, of course, we kind of decided to go up to look, even that being against the pre-established norms of society. That’s a beautiful way to say it’s illegal. I’m from the underworld now, ok?!

Make a tour of the city and its best sights: Click here

As we climbed up, we were able to enjoy the view for less than a minute until two police officers came and told us to come down.
My pretty friends, at that moment all the videos of police power abuse passed in my head! My lord, now I will be arrested and deported! And it will be because of climbing a wall, what a shit reason to be deported! Dude, I have not even eaten brioche yet! Do they give brioche in prison? I do not know, it’s France, maybe they give us brioche and croissant. 😂
But relax Mom, nothing happened. We only had a light lecture and a polite request to not do that again. 😎

So, since we are not allowed to climb any more walls, we went to the city’s famous bridge. The Avignon bridge. There you can learn a little more about the city history with an audio player they give you.

Another tourist point we went to was the Gard Bridge, which is located a little further from the city, and it is definitely my favorite one. Yes, now I have a favorite bridge, one because it is in the middle of nature and not in the city, another because you can do a little walking around and find some really nice places, Ah, and also because you can take Jack and even let him swim in the lake.

I spent about a month there. And among lots of beer, skydive, and bridges, my favorite part of this place was the friendships I made. With all my heart: Thank you, you are all such beautiful people and friends!


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2 Replies to “My trip to Avignon, France”

  1. what a wonderful time! but she says a lie about her level of flight, which is better than she thinks … plus she has a smile in free fall and on earth that eclipses the sun!
    a month that will remain engraved for life in my head and my heart.

    1. Marioooo!! I miss you so much!!!
      I’m waiting for you to visit me!! I learned how to do an amazing omelet and pasta with ketchup! So it will be my turn to cook for you 🙂 <3

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