ZERO-G: Our first weightless experience!

As many of you know, a few weeks ago, both of us had an opportunity to float in zero gravity courtesy of ZERO-G. Both of us are employed as coaches by the company, which is the only company in the US to offer customers that chance to experience weightlessness via parabolic flight, the same method used to train astronauts and to film zero gravity scenes for movies, et cetera.

As coaches, we'll fly with the paying passengers, helping them get the most of out their experience by showing them fun tricks and by making sure everyone is comfortable. To complete our training, we had to do a 'shadow flight'--where we flew as something between clients and employees, able to enjoy the experience but also trying to get a feel for what it's like being on board in a customer service capacity. Each flight gives passengers about six or seven minutes of reduced gravity--starting with Martian G (about 40% of what you are used to), then Lunar G (about 17%), then zero g.

We just got copies of the videos of our flights, which are posted below for your viewing pleasure! Will's flight and Diana's flight are in separate posts just below this. Because the video embedded system is not working very well for me at the moment, here are direct links to the two videos--you may want to click these to make sure you are watching the right video: Diana and Will

Both of us had an absolute blast on the flights, and would recommend that you check it out. Neither of us is an official spokesperson for the company, but if you have questions, let us know!

ZERO-G: Diana's First Flight

If this is the right video, it will begin with people doing push-ups in Martian G. If it starts instead with a camera flash at around the two second mark, you're watching Will's video. Blame the terrible Fliqz video embedding process, and click here to view Diana's video for real.

ZERO-G: Will's First Flight

(Yes, I did eventually catch that M&M I missed right as that video closes).

If this is the right video, it will begin with a camera flash at around the two second mark. If it starts instead with people doing push-ups in Martian G, you're watching Diana's video. Blame the terrible Fliqz video embedding process, then click here to see Will's video for real.

Purchasing Airfare to Colombia

As promised, we've been checking into the possibility of getting some kind of group discount for airfares for guests who will join us in Colombia this December. After some searching, it turns out good group rates only kick in if we get at least 16 people on the same flight--and even then, the discounts aren't that large.

However, we've also been monitoring flights online, and prices are indeed starting to climb. We recommend that you seriously consider purchasing your tickets now. As mentioned previously, you should probably consider flying through Miami--that's the only city in the US that has direct flights to Cali, Colombia. Other flight options may work better for you in terms of schedule or price, but would require you to connect through another city in Colombia or Panama.

Specifically, we'd recommend the following flights:

• Avianca Airlines, Flight number 39, leaving Miami (MIA) at 4:30pm on Sunday, December 27th. Returning on Flight number 38, leaving Cali, Colombia (CLO) at 10:15am on Wednesday, December 30th.

This round trip ticket is currently available for $464 through a variety of websites (Orbitz, Cheaptickets, Priceline, Vayama, Expedia, and Avianca itself all have the same price, plus or minus $10). The same set of flights on the surrounding days have quite similar prices, until you get to returns on or after January 1, when the prices go up.

Again, we recommend that you consider purchasing your tickets right away--the prices are much more likely to go up in the future than they are to go down or stay the same.

Note: We also updated our Wedding FAQ with this information, as well as a few new answers about currency, attire, and transportation to and from the airport.