Ice Fright

Couple weeks ago, the Ice Rink at Rockefeller Center officially opened for the season. We were so excited and went on its opening weekend. But when we got there, much to my dismay, it seemed half the world also went there. And not to skate. Tourists surrounded the rink just staring and taking photos of the handful of skaters. I completely got ice rink fright and refused to go on the ice. I said to myself, "I suck." It didn't help that the few ice skaters looked like they were training for the winter Olympics; even the little tots were twirling and whirling like the first time they crawled was on ice. Later I found out that they also supposedly hire professional ice skaters to skate among the crowd (thank you to the genius that thought it a good idea to hire a decoy professional skater to make the rest of us normal humans feel like crap).

I think I'll muster the courage to go back there once the beautiful Christmas tree at Rockefeller goes up. The beautiful sight will be motivation enough and hopefully the tourists will be paying more attention to the humongous tree than the likes of me painfully falling down.

In the meantime, I think our first ice skating experience in New York City will be at the outdoor Wollman rink at Central Park. I am so glad I was told about this place. Apparently the Wollman is THE place to go ice skating and it's supposed to be so beautiful during this time of year to skate with the Fall's vivid trees as a backdrop.

Bryant Park also has an ice rink called The Pond at Bryant Park open for the season (from Oct 27 to Jan 25) and it's NYC's only free admission ice skating rink. But since it's free I was warned that it's crowded beyond belief.

Check back on our adventures in ice skating in NYC.