Sunday, November 29, 2009

Ice Skating!


A few weeks ago I went ice skating with my German roommate and four other Germans. It was a fun adventure. The last time I was ice skating was when Spiff and Mrs. Spiff were courting, which was a looooooong time ago (one 'o' for every year). I was really rusty, but it was a blast! Below are some pics of me at the skating rink.

Well hi there! I'm just trying not to kill myself here!


Look, Ma, I can stand all the way up! 
I'm proud to say I didn't fall once, though I thought I was going to dozens of times.


 Okay, stop taking pictures now.


Notice the gloves. They are required. Why? I was just as confused as the Germans. But we're all slowly learning that the French revel in strange dress code requirements for places like skating rinks and swimming pools.

Swimming pools? Yes, France is probably the only place that forbids too much modesty at the piscine. Okay, Greece probably does too, but you get my drift. I'm not allowed to wear either a shirt or my bermuda shorts while swimming. There are only two male garments allowed: un short, which is like super-tight boxer-briefs, or un slip, which is like a speedo. Oh, and you can wear something to cover your (head) hair if you want. Needless to say, I haven't been to the piscine since I got here...

But I can agree that modesty isn't always the best policy. Paris swimming pools caused a raucous but refused to back down when they banned "burquinnis" last year.

WARNING: PICTURE CONTAINS GRAPHIC ANKLES NUDITY

3 comments:

LivG said...

Hmmm, interesting dress code indeed!

Way to go on the ice skating! I've never been if you can believe it...well, you probably can.

I am sure I'd fall on my tushy, just like I always seemed to do when we went skating in Salina with the homeschoolers back in the day. Ouch!

Serena Smith said...

Hooray!!! You're back to blogging....I just about gave up visiting!!! ;)

Ice skating....fun, but hard work. I went last week for the first time with my sisters in Kentucky and it was ummm...challenging! :)

Edmund de Trois said...

Yeah, I'm back! Thanks for not giving up on me!