Ice skating

 When I was in my teens and lived in Budapest, I loved to go ice skating. Budapest was not known for its very cold temperatures and there were not too many natural ice places there. But there was and still is an outdoor ice skating rink where they made artificial ice. Remember back then over there it was a big thing.

This rink was not far from where I lived so naturally, I started to go there. I had (still have) a very good childhood friend who also loved skating and lived very close to me. So, every afternoon, after finishing our homeworks we met up and went out to skate. At first, we bought daily tickets, then weekly passes eventually graduated to season passes. We also rented lockers and this way there was no need to lug our skates on the street. We were so cool!

The Bryant Park skating ring is 17,000 square feet while the one in Budapest is 108,500. Slightly larger. They used to have hockey games there and we still had room to skate around.

This was a very normal and healthy way to spend our time.  We usually stayed for hours many time until closing. Then we took the Old Metro home, and the day was done. No smoking, no drinking just fresh and healthy way to spend our time.

The only preoccupation we had was to meet girls. We were convinced that if we bumped into a cute girl, knocked her over she would immediately fall in love with one of us. I don't understand what was wrong with those girls because this never ever happened. We always went home solo. But aside from that we always had a good time.

Now why am I writing this? There is a park called Bryan Park in the heart of Manhattan where every winter they turn the center grass to a large ice skating rink using artificial ice, naturally! This skating ring can be found on You Tube and it is on live. I just love to watch people going around and around. So I sit front of the tv and watch this for ever. While in Budapest we were able to skate for hours, here the time is limited to one hour only and reservations are necessary.

This way no overcrowding and also every hour they refresh the ice by resurfacing it. That never happened in my time. They only did it during the night after closing. By watching it I am daydreaming, thinking back the old days. And how long ago that was.

I know this might be a boring reading, but I am sure that there is that one person out there who will understand me! And he knows who that is, right?