Boy, did I have fun during this!
Experiencing my first ice skating was one of the perks of living at the 55 Trumbull St. By December, the Connecticut winter was showing me what it meant to live through the actual winter. My cricket activities were entirely shut down, which was a bummer for me. Also, I didn’t know how to drive, so there was nothing much to do, to socialize, and to explore.
That’s when I saw some activity at the Bushnell Park from my apartment window. I wondered what was going on in the park at the same field where we used to play cricket. This was my first year experiencing the cold North American winter, so every time I had to go out, I had to make sure I am covered from all spots and there are enough layers to protect me from an unexpected gush of wind. This was one of the reasons my walks and trips outside had reduced significantly once it started getting gold.
But, the sort of activities going in Bushnell Park intrigued me and I quickly got layered up to check out what really was going on. I was glad to know the preparations were going on for putting up a ice rink for some ice skating fun. I was tremendously excited for that and was looking forward to when it was about to open.
I didn’t need to wait many days as they could put up a fully function ice rink in just a couple days and it was December 3rd when they opened it for the public. I could grab my roommates, Shlok & Roushan, and Kokila & Prithvi, who were living in the same building. I was happy that there was someone to capture my video trying the ice skating for the first time & failing numerous times.
Here, have fun!
Before this day, I couldn’t imagine myself doing ice skating. Back home, I hadn’t tried skating on the streets, so ice skating was a distant dream for me, and honestly, just close to impossible. I remember when I was going to the Bushnell Park to try this thing, I had many moments of self-doubts, asking myself whether I can do it or not or is it possible for me or not. I told myself, there was only one way to find out answers to all those questions and that was to actually go ahead and try it.
The moment we reached the spot, we were greeted with a huge crowd and some big monkey mascots. I am not sure what they were doing there, but, went ahead anyway and stood there to click a picture. The next thing I had to do was stand in line for the ice skates. I didn’t know what I was going to do when I stood in that line, I just went ahead and got the skates for myself and told myself we will figure out later what to do with those. By this time, I was really accustomed to the North American culture, so I didn’t find it hard to put on those skates, but boy, it was harder to stand in those skates. The one thing that I could have done better was to wear those skates near the rink instead of far away as I wouldn’t need to walk much distance to get to the rink.
I struggled a lot just walking to the rink and as soon as I reached the entrance from where I was supposed to start skating, I knew this was the moment of truth. This moment will tell me how bad I am exactly at ice skating and which body part I would break attempting this. I gave my phone to my roommate and asked him to capture my first time at the rink. Boy, I failed miserable as you saw above.
I failed many times. The video above shows me falling only once or twice but if I recollect it correctly, I fell almost 15 times before I got hold of skating. Skating first time in the ice rink, the only thing I knew was to face my fears and accomplish them. Same principle which I have applied to almost everything that I had done in my life to get to the US. If I wouldn’t have gone ahead with the ice skating, I am not sure the next time I would have gotten a chance to try it one more time, so I was happy that I got to do it and enjoy it before heading home.
I think I was at the rink for almost an hour and was sweating profusely due to number of times that I fell attempting the ice skating. You can see in the picture below, it was a hard earned sweat and I celebrated with a cup of tea after going home. Needless to say, my legs and thighs were hurting a lot, but I went to bed with a smile, realizing my ice skating experience!
Next trip are some of the special ones!
stochasticity 
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