France Friday Night Skate

Hey fellow bladers!

Finally made it to Paris, France for the infamous skate of an average of
20,000 + skaters! Each and every Friday night all the Parisians meet in
front of the Opera to head out on a real blade adventure. The police are
even passionate about it and at one point or another on this religious
excursion, they needed to get involved. They actually put on skates
themselves to escort the "mass." Unfortunately, after traveling half
way across the world, the "event" as we would consider it, got rained
out! Yikes! Fortunately for us, we were excited to learn that Friday night
is not the only mass roll. We also skated with them on Sunday, Monday, and
Wednesday. Friday is definitely the thick turnout, but the other 3 nights still
forced Parisian motorists to stop for the traffic blade (200-300 skaters). 

As for the Parisian personality in reference to skating; the police have
tried many times to conform the Friday night skate to just one route . Due
to the amount of skaters involved though, there is no conformity, because they love the idea of an impromptu skate.

The Sunday skate we did was wet as well. The team I went with (LA,
Santa Monica, Bay area)- were doing downhills in the rain without
reference (or control of for that matter) to speed. A couple of us had
some nice "sliding home run falls" on the downhill. I was one of
them. As if the rain gods didn't piss us off already! It was definitely
a fun ride. After I had realized I was going down, I was merely
thinking about just HOW I was going to fall to avoid breakage of bones.
I walked away from it laughing while the Parisians surrounded me to
wonder if I was really OK (it was, after all, the tunnel Princess Di
crashed in). No wonder they were so curious of my condition! 

As you'd might expect, we did find some time to see the sights. We felt
like locals after such intense skating each day. We did look and sound
like tourists blading through the courtyards of the Louvre and Notre
Dame with cameras though I must say.

Its so incredible how passionate the Parisians are about
blading (although they could use some safety features such as helmets
and pads). I'm hopeful to return once again; but with the great luck of
excellent weather conditions!

A Bientot'!

Elisa Marie