Denni and I went to NYC this weekend for a quasi-organized saturday night skate with the Union Square Crew. I’d say it was the best group skate I’ve been on so far. First, Dominique and Marie from France showed up, which was a pleasant surprise. This gave us a good balance of slalom and non-slalom skaters. So, Denni and I took turns learning slalom tricks from our french guests, and non-slalom tricks from our new york friends.

The skate consisted of just the right ratio of skating through new york traffic, and then hanging out at good locations to do tricks or relax. And we did lots of relaxing, because it was still hot even at night.

I think a bunch of us are going to visit Dominique and Marie in france some time next summer.

We learned our first 50cm trick too! I guess its called the windshield wiper, or the “X” not sure which.

So, we went up to Boston on the 4th, as planned. Brodie and everyone we met were very friendly, and open minded enough to try out our “Euro” style slalom. Then when it rained everyone came over to the bridge we had set up under, and skated with us for a few hours, while the 6ft spaced large american cones got rained on.

All in all it was very fun, and we’ll be going back next year, i’m sure. Head over to the videos page to check out videos of all the people we met.

I’m heading to Chicopee, MA^[1] today to meet Denni, and we’re going to Boston tomorrow for the annual slalom setup they apparently do there. We’ll report back here after the weekend and let you know if it was worth the trip.

[1] Why do i always go to MA, and Denni never comes to PA…