Roller Queen

I've loved roller skating ever since my little sister Mishka brought me roller skates from heaven when she was born. (Thanks mom and dad, you're right, I don't hate the new baby now!) I lived across from Arlington National Cemetery as a kid, and I spent hours and hours skating along all those paths. I can't walk worth beans, I sorta fall over for no reason, but on skates? I am Kira in Xanadu, even without the awesome knee high boot skates.

So during the recent weekend of shenanigans, when we found out their small town had a skating rink, of course we had to try it out. It was like nothing I've experienced before. (Shocking, I know!) First of all, they give you two plastic bags to wear over your feet.  Do skating rinks in America care this much about foot hygiene? No, they don't. Here's a picture of me putting on my foot bag:

The rink itself was fully lit, which discouraged any sort of skating rink romance, so disappointing!, but this I could overlook. The problem was, it was also super tiny, so your hip got sore quickly because you were constantly turning. And the skates hadn't ever been oiled, so not only could you hear every turn of the ball bearings, but it added about 20lbs of tension. A good work out, but not so much fun. I lasted about 15 minutes and was done. But now I can say I've been roller skating in the Chinese countryside, and really, how many people can say that?  (And it was Friday night and we were the only ones skating, so I don't think even a lot of Chinese people can say that.) Here's a shot of the rink:

John, in the middle, wasn't skating, but he came out so we could do tricks with him. P.S. I haven't written a lot about the weekend of shenanigans, and it is not an oversight.  Not all things belong on public blogs. ;)