Ice Skating (каток)

As it happens, yesterday was not a total loss for me. Someone had
mentioned ice skating a few days ago. For some reason this sounded
like a Capitol idea. The plan was, to go two days ago, but I was
enjoying the sitting and talking so much, it never came to fruition.

Yesterday at about 5PM I got it in my head that I must go! Valya and
I were chilling at Anya's place and it took me a while to rouse her
interest. I found out later about her reluctance. We called Polina and
invited her to join us as well. There was an indor каток just one
metro stop down. So off we went into the wild blue yonder.

This was an indoor rink and funny enough it was much warmer on the
ice, in the rink than it was outside walking to it. Polina had her own
skates but Valya and I had to rent. It did not take long, less than 3
minutes, for me to get in trouble :-). I had decided to play a game of
tag with Polina.

I'm not great on skates but I can hold my own on the ice. We raced
around the rink several times. I was enjoying the encouragement from
the woman working in the rink. Finally Valya was able to flag me down
from her stationary position held tightly against the wall. She
explained that the woman was not actually yelling encouragments to me.
I was shocked (but not reallly) to find out she was bellowing for us
to stop playing around, and "don't you understad me!! I said stop".
And "someone make them stop doing that". Hehe, I guess this particular
rink was for serious skaters only who liked to run the rat race on ice.

We stopes our horsing around and accompanied Valya around the rink.
She had mentioned earlier she was not very good on the ice. What I
failed to comprehend until just now, was that she had NEVER been ice
skating before. It was amusing to let go of her and watch her come to
a dead stop in the middle of the lane and be unable to propel herself
forward at all.

Polina and I took turns giving lessons and by the end of the night she
was able to maintain a fairly steady progress forward and remain
upright.

It was a good night followed by a visit to a sushi ресторан
(restaurant). A perfect way to spend my last evening in StPb.

As I type this I am all packed with bags in hand. My flight leaves for
Moscow at 6:30PM and it is currently 1PM. Valya is off at school to
talk to her instructor about a paper she wrote. Polina will meet me at
4 to give me a lift to the airport. I am sitting in a bookstore coffee
shop relaxing with a кофе амерокано (american coffee, which really
means espresso with lots of water added). I look forward to making a
cup-o-Joe at home in the new coffee pot Alex bought.

See ya state side soon.

-Dana