taking the jump

as you all know maybe we have a landmark in belgium: the atomium. the remains of the Expo 58 , and now 50 years later there is a big party ongoing.

It is by far a nice structure to go and watch and who ever would come to the idea to make an atomium to the scale of this.

The whole construction is over a 100 meters high and could remind people of the Eifel tower. Although i always say: at least we took a form and shape that meant something :-). for more info look at http://www.atomium.be/

so that was 1958, but today the world needs more thrills .. and we got them. Riens and myself went to visit the Atomium just for fun as we do on a regular occassion, but now we really needed to get our minds of everything that surrounded us and went for a motorbike to brussels.

Arrived there we saw ropes hanging from the highest sphere of the atomium for a death ride. At first we hesitated and decided it was too stupid to fall for such a thing ... but time worked on us and did its best: de decided to take the jump.

Step 1: climbing up the Atomium is very nice. The elevator takes you quickly to the highest sphere, but we still had to climb through stairs and ladders to the highest point. You put your head out of the round opening in the highest ball and you go : wwwwaaaaaaauuuuuuww, this is high and also the feeling: why am i doing this :-)

Step 2: climbing out: ok: i admit i was scared and asked rapidly to get hooked up to the secured. You can i guess see on my face that i was not really confident in the operation;

Step 3: getting ready. Now securely fastened to the life ropes; Riens was the first to be ready, i followed and got next to him to take the leap of faith.

Step 4: here you go. As you can see the top sphere was just like a giant slide. The first 5 to 10 meters you just slide of the top sphere and suddenly you loose contact with the sphere and dive to the end point. Fear one: passing the sphere in front of us, felt like i was going to crash into it (maybe a warning that i have to loose weight). Fear two : once passed the second sphere it is still a long way down and everything looks so small ...

Step 5: arrive and start shaking on your legs and telling yourself: you really need to grow up now you are almost turning 40. but ont he other hand tell yourself: how many people can say that they did a death ride with their son from the Atomium.

Happy travels

Toon