Roller Skating in Paris

I didn’t realize that Tokyo practically shuts down during the western new year period, I booked my ticket and flew home a couple of days after Christmas. Oh well, I didn’t have other plans, besides, I very much like to bring back my roller skates so that I can join the Tokyo Saturday Skate. I used to be the faithful followers for the London Friday Night Skate (but the very last time I did the skating, I really had problem catching up). However, the scale and excitement level cannot be compared with the Paris one.

I went to the gathering place near Montpaness (spelling) by subway, but still had to skate to the big square where 20 thousands skates meet. Without a proper map, I was only following roller skaters on the street. They all seemed to heading toward the same direction. I finally managed to stop a girl (who dressed like a Tom Boy) and asked her where is the meeting point. She was most friendly, understood what I meant but didn’t seem to have enough English vocabularies. She and her friend took me along and we stick together during the trip.

The Friday night skate route changes every week. Paris is not flat, at certain section, we were flying down the hill (gentle one, not the one from Mont Royal). We were all going in full speed because nothing can stop this massive quantity of skaters, we were the king of the road. We were told to move as a group, if someone falls, we have to raise both of our hands, to signal the skaters behind you to stop or slow down. We didn’t really know where we are going to turn at the next corner, thus, we have to raise our both hands wave toward the direction we are going when turning so that the skaters behind us can follow. Just imagine how it looks like when a couple of hundred people doing it at the same time.

When skating in the not well-lit road going in full speed, what most skaters fear is some little pebble or even holes, the wheels can get stuck and your body is still carrying the momentum. Chances are you can land on your knees or chin the worse case. Wrist guard is strongly recommended because we tend to support ourselves with our hands when hitting the ground.

One of my skating friends tripped, she fell forward. With the strange luck, she rolled on her back and stood on her skate going forward again miraculously.