Triple Axle

So this Winter break, Rachel invited some of her friends from back in Tucson to Madrid, some of which have been staying at my house. Many, many awesome things have transpired as a result, one of which was John, Rachel, Chris, Maeve and I's trip to the free skating rink Madrid set up on account of it being Christmas and everything. Being the type who is always willing to try something new, I decided to test my skating legs. At first we couldn't go out, because they had to smooth out the ice again; since they didn't have Zambonis so they did it by hand using really wide plows like on the front of a dump truck.

Learning to skate consisted of a lot of little baby steps for me. Mainly those steps were very very awkward, as the majority of the time I did my best impressions of Thriller trying to keep my balance, much to everyone's amusement, myself included. Making things more difficult were the constantly falling children, who would sprawl out on the ice and flail their limbs around in an apparently intentional attempt to brings anyone around them down with them, turning the rink into a veritable obstacle course. Still, I managed to not crush any of them, though I did end up grabbing this one dude's girlfriend when I as about to take a dive, for which I earned a dirty look from the boyfriend and shy smiles from her (it was evident she hadn't skated before either).

My roommate John and I have what can best be termed a love-hate relationship, and unbeknown to me, he played Hockey for about six years. So when I went out there with no skating experience, he was waiting pretty much the whole time, like a shark that smells blood in the water, to see if I would bruise my ass or ego. I managed to do the first, with some hilarious spills reminiscent of the Flinstones run or that Russian kicking dance, but by he end of the day I was getting more aggressive, and really didn't want to leave, despite the occasional flurry of skate-by snowballings John and Chris decided to hurl at me. I got my revenge, though, returning fire in slow motion when they weren't paying attention.

The day definitely made me appreciate hockey more, in which people manage to shoot pieces of rubber into nets while gliding along at high speeds while trying not to get brutally clobbered by other mischievous ice-devils.

Below is a video of me skating for the first time. You can't really tell, but I definitely felt more confident on the ice by the end of the day. I really want to go back and try it again!