The Day-Long Search for Skates, and Then the Skating

Sometimes I forget that things just run out here. And then when I am reminded of it I refuse to accept defeat.  I had been asked by friends and colleagues, and those people who overlap both categories, if I was going to go skating. No, I have always replied. I hate the cold.  I have bad knees. I haven't skated since I was a little girl. But then the call of the wild, zooming around out on the ice, a pasttime that is taken most seriously by the natives of my new homeland, could not be drowned out.

Michael and I psyched ourselves up to go buy skates, watch a "how-to" video on YouTube, and then go hit the solidified ponds in the Vondelpark.

People had been telling us that it was probably too late for us and certainly all the skates have been sold out. It is still hard for me to get used to this concept. I couldn't believe I was too early, and then too late, to buy a swimsuit out of season last spring. And with a level of anxiety a typical American would find perplexing, I have started hording baking supplies when I find them...God knows when I am going to find juniper berries or organic Herb de Provence again.

I did not heed the warning that there would be no ice skates available for purchase in and around Amsterdam. We set out at a reasonable hour last Saturday morning. We decided to outsmart the average center-dwelling consumer and bike out to a retailer called "Waterman Sport"  which boasted online the largest selection of ice skates in the extended Amsterdam metropolitan area. I pictured an enormous retail complex lined floor-to-ceiling with iceskates.  We rode our bikes in the freezing cold for quite a distance to arrive at this place. We came upon some sort of sports complex. Where was the store?  We stood in line so to walk through a turnstile, and then found the store nestled within the complex. It was the size of my living room. And there were no skates available. All sold out save for the super high end ones.  The staff were very courteous and wished us good luck in finding any skates at all in Amsterdam. They asked where we were from. I said "Seattle."  An older gentleman working in the shop replied with an oft-heard response. "Oh...Boeing."  I said "Yes. That's right."

We left feeling really lousy. We weren't going to get our skates that day and would have to buy them online. I stopped by the enormous outdoor gear shop where a friend of mine works. He also said good luck finding anything. We walked across the street to the competitor sporting store...the skating shelves were empty like the Grinch had swept through.   

I was really disappointed. I was so excited to buy skates and try them out..to do something so very quintessentially Nederlands.  On our way out to the outskirts of the city, I saw a store on a main thoroughfare that sold skates but had a line out the door. Being the savvy consumer that I am, I assumed the line was for rentals, not for purchase. Michael and I stopped to thaw out in a neighborhood cafe. As my glass of red wine brought me to my senses, it occurred to me that the place with the line out the door wasn't anywhere near water. There was no way the people waiting in that line were there to rent skates. I asked Michael if he had it in him to brace against the cold one more time.  He did.

We went back to the store. The line was smaller and we made it longer. There was a security guard wearing a bullet-proof vest gate-keeping the front door. One person in, one person out. We made it through the doors after about a 20 minute wait and found ourself in a beehive of skates, purchasers, store staff....it was chaos. I grabbed a guy and asked him to at least point me toward the shelf of reasonably priced skates for a beginner. He sort of nodded in a direction indicating the back. I found a pair of skates my size, tried them on. They fit. The price was right. Done deal. Michael found a pair of skates that were also his size, fretted for several minutes if they were girls' skates, and committed to them after I reassured him that even tall dutch women don't have size 44 feet. We had found our skates.

We waited in the snake-ish line for a very long time, swiped my card at the counter and we were free. We went across the street to a place called "Wok Cuisine"  which is a Chinese restaurant offering a buffet in a luxurious setting (art deco decor and chandeliers).  You pile a plate with raw meats or fish and vegetables, present them to a chef behind a counter, who then prepares your compilation of meats and vegetables in a wok mixed with a sauce of your choosing. I found it to be quite the anecdote to the disappointing and expensive experience we had endured at Kaiko the night before.  A day of biking in the cold, an interlude of fresh and flavorful Chinese food, and an evening of skating to look forward to. This was a good Amsterdam day.

Michael strapped his box of skates to the backof his bike. I put mine in my basket in the front. We biked home. Michael suggested we try our skates out that night. He read my mind. We laced them up and then practiced just standing in them on towels in the living room. That was easy so I figured the actual skating part would be a breeze.

We made the 5 minute walk to the Vondelpark, walked across the frozen water and sat on the banks to put our skates on. I got mine on first and was already creeping across the ice for probably 20 minutes before Michael even got his laced up (he is such a perfectionist). I was remembering my instructions from the YouTube video. Bend your knees. Lean forward. Relax. Rock in motion with the skates. It was awkward. We need to get the blades sharpened. But slowly I was making progress. Every time I really felt like I was mastering the gliding motion and really skating I fell on my ass. Michael did too. We sort of went our own ways just learning to skate per our own distinctly exclusive temperments. Michael, deliberate, methodical, and scientific, taking each stroke of the blade as a step toward compiled progress. Me, a chaotic, blind, unencumbered riot of sliding, slipping, and falling until I finally started to feel the ice underneath me, developing a relationship with it. Neither one of us were really truly skating after our hour out there on the ice. I was surprised how little time had gone by when we came home. We decided to quit after we were getting tired and therefore falling too much. We'll be back out there again tonight.