Activities between Christmas holidays and New Year
Inhalt/Content
Ice skating in Ilmenau
In addition to skiing on Monday, there should be another major sporting activity in the form of ice skating. This fell on Thursday. Normally we almost always went ice skating in Greiz because this is of course in my home country and therefore obvious. At the same time, the number of ice rinks in Thuringia is rather manageable. An alternative would be the annual ice rink on the Theaterplatz in Weimar, which is always overrun by children and is small. Actually, there is also an ice rink in Erfurt, but this was closed for a long time due to Corona. I found out from a work colleague that there is said to be a very good track in Ilmenau – so we wanted to test it out. For this we first had to take the train to Erfurt and change there to the train to Ilmenau. By calling the ice rink the day before, we were told that the best time to skate would probably be around 2pm because the first 1.5 hours are over when most people are on the rink and the ice is straight is renewed. We were there around 1:30 p.m. and got our tickets first. That wasn’t a problem because the time only starts running when you push the ticket into the machine. We then walked around the city a bit until 2 p.m. and looked at a few university buildings from the outside. We were back at the ice rink on time and it was good to have already bought tickets, because in the meantime there was a queue to get out of the building. We would have had to wait another half hour here, but we were able to go in straight away.
Nathalie already had her own skates, bought a few years ago, while I had to borrow some as usual. In Greiz there were only ice skates that you had to lace up completely from bottom to top. This had the advantage that they are very comfortable, but at the same time they quickly became loose again and therefore did not ensure stable walking. In Ilmenau, on the other hand, there were only ice skates that were closed with buckles from bottom to top. This makes them very stable as they fit snugly on the foot, so that the runners are literally like extended limbs on the foot, but at the same time they are so firm that they constrict the foot, which is why the feet hurt a lot after a few minutes (depending on the nature of the situation, of course). foot shape). So it was much easier for me right from the start (of course also with previous experience) to stay on the ice without falling over or losing control. However, I had to take a break after every fifteen minutes to rest my feet.
The experience with ice skates in terms of laces and buckles led me to want to buy some for myself. Lace-only skates are too loose, but buckle-only skates are too tight – so it has to be a combination of the two, just like Nathalie’s have had for a while. She had bought her ice skates at the discount store when they were on sale there. You can get them relatively cheap here, but unfortunately they are never available in my size. So I went to the sports shop and bought real brand name ice skates in my size. Although these are 2-3 times as expensive as in the supermarket, they fit very well and have also shown during a later skating in Erfurt that they are perfect: comfortable with simple cords on the lower foot and still stable hold with buckles on the ankle/leg .
After skating we took the train back, but made a small stop in Erfurt. There we visited the Jen Ramen restaurant because we thought it would be a good way to end the day. There might also be a guest on the train with a dog who left it unattended in the opposite seat while he got on and off the train. Later he led the dog around or let himself be led around. Apparently this was assistance dog training. The dog had to learn how to behave appropriately in different situations.
Friday was New Year’s Eve and Saturday was New Year’s Day. In fact, there isn’t much to report as “activity” here, so I’ll keep it short. On Friday evening we went to a friend’s house, where we played board games and then walked a bit through the city center at midnight. Due to the ban on fireworks, there wasn’t much to see in the sky either, but you heard and saw some firecrackers. Since we were up until about 2-3 a.m., we were just exhausted and lazy the next day. Maybe that was a good thing, because on the next and last day of this report, we did something bigger…
