munich, part 3: blade night. (7/5/11)

Then came the fun part of my Munich experience: Blade Night. So all I knew about it (from reading a blurb about it on my hostel map) was that it happened every Monday night during the summer, involved rollerblading (not knives, haha), and was free. Sounds cool, right? That's what I thought, too, so I headed over around 7:30 p.m. Now, realize that I haven't rollerbladed since the good old days at Mark 6 when all of the kids skated around the complex, purely recreationally. I also hadn't seen many people rollerblading around Munich--mostly just cyclists. So what I didn't expect is exactly what I saw when I got there: tons of people just hanging out or skating around, apparently waiting for something.
It turns out that Blade Night is basically a ton of people (mostly from Munich or Germany, I'm guessing) getting together to rollerblade a certain route around the city. It's kind of a race, but not really. It's pretty intense--they block off all the streets for two hours and have a ton of "safety skaters" (that's what I call them) who skate at the back, followed by an ambulance-type vehicle. Naturally, I got pretty excited, waiting in line to rent skates...until I put them on. It was harder than I remembered to balance and move around on them (and stop, too!), so that was a bit of a surprise. I made the smart decision to also rent all of the safety equipment offered (helmet, wrist, elbows, and knee guards), which I had actually never worn, other than the helmet. I actually put on the wrist guards backwards at first, haha. I eventually got all suited up, and all that was left was to wait until 9 p.m., when the race started. I was too scared to skate at the front or the middle, so I waited until pretty much the last group to start skating. Not gonna lie, it was a little scary starting off. It didn't help that I was essentially with all the security skaters, who kept telling me to skate faster, though I tried to explain that it had been quite a while. It got a little better as I continued to skate, although I pretty much stayed near the back the entire race.
I realized that I really didn't like two things: people skating in front of me relatively close, and going downhill. In both cases, I didn't really know how to brake well, so it was a little freaky. I fell a little way into the race on one of the slight downhills, but it wasn't too bad. The route actually took us through most of northern Munich, and it was pretty cool because the sun was setting, and sometimes people who were waiting for us in their cars would honk and cheer as we passed by. :) However, I probably would have been able to enjoy the race a bit more if I hadn't been so focused on staying alive--no joke. Everyone around me seemed so smooth on their skates--people were on their phones, smoking, or even eating gelato! I felt like the noob I was, but I just wanted to finish. Most of the race went pretty well, as sweaty and thirsty and scared as I was, haha...until the end. We were actually pretty close to the finish line when we hit a downhill point, and I lost control once more. My first fall, on my butt again, wasn't too bad, but as I got up and tried to regain balance, I ran into the sidewalk and fell again, this time forward. Unfortunately, my water bottle in my purse knocked the wind out of me as I went down, so I just lay there for a few minutes, breathing deeply. The security skaters helped me back up, and two of them helped bring me down the rest of the slope, which helped enormously. After that, it was a short stretch of flat ground, and then we were done. I made it! PtL, for real.
A lot of people were still skating around, so I just sat and recovered for a bit before returning all my equipment. I decided to buy a wristband that they were selling to commemorate the night. You could exchange them for a drink, but a liter of Munich beer, which was probably high quality but not tasty to me, or a souvenir of an unforgettable night of skating with hundreds of Germans? I say the latter. :) What a great night--I felt like a champion. Now, onward to Berlin!