Skating!

Data, the department's student group, decided to have an ice skating party this evening...

MORE...

All of the roomies decided to go and give it a try - Nik skated many years ago, Syed had never skated before, and I last skated... glup... around 1964, a mere 41 years ago (boy am I dating myself!).

Nik was all gungho and wanted to leave around 6:30 when the skate house is ~10 minutes away and the event was not to start until 7 p.m. I assured her no one would arrive that early and if we got there at 7 p.m. we would be within the first 10 to arrive (in Icelandic time everyone arrives at least 15 minutes late!). We hopped in the car about 6:45, braving the strong winds gusts, for the drive to Skautahöllin. As I predicted, only 3 students were there when we arrived!

We paid our admission and skate rental fee, then attempted to find skates that would fit. My first bit of fun was determining my European shoe size. Luck would have it that the shoes I was wearing had the American and European sizes listed in them. Once the skates were on, it was out on the ice. I was a bit shaky for the first 30 minutes or so (hard to remember all that I had learned about skating so long ago), but it came back pretty quickly. Syed was really struggling until Helgi brought out a chair for support



that helped him get his "ice legs" and pretty soon he was able to get around with just a little help from Nik



One event that made the evening most interesting was everyone (well, almost everyone - I and several others declined) playing ice hockey





Even Nik joined in



It was very amusing to watch it all. Here's several of our "rough and tumble" international students with my roomies after the game.



I think everyone had a really good time and this is an event that will likely happen again!