Ice Skating at the Rathaus

In front of the Rathaus all December long there is a Christmas market, after Christmas, they put a huge ice skating rink in the front for 2 months. So we took Elora to go skating for the first time.The Rathaus is too big for our wee-lil’ point and shoot digicam and we didn’t lug the beast along with us. Chris guessed his skate size in European standards was a 44, but that was about 3 sizes too small, so it was rather uncomfortable wearing them. It worked out ok though because Karen got to try them out too.They sell food and drinks, including Gluhwein, a hot wine because there’s nothing Wieners love to do more than stand around in the cold and get sloshed. Chris of course is drinking Kinderpunsch instead (momma always said, “never do drinking and skating”). The tasty Tirolean potatoes Chris is eating reminded us of Glendale potatoes. Quite possibly even better. Tirol is the “hill billy” section of Austria on the border of Switzerland.They had nice double bladed strap on skates for kids. Elora still didn’t like it too much, but we learned from skiing that we just need to gently keep trying until she warms up to the idea. As you can see she wasn’t willing to put any weight on her feet at first once she noticed ice was in fact slippery and not very fun.
But they also had these penguins on skis that kids could push around. We had to wait for one of the kids to give his up, and Karen snatched it up right away and fended off a pack of angry mothers until Elora could skate back around to pick it up. Elora enjoyed it a lot more, but still was a little unsure. We also discovered we didn’t need to spend the 20euros on entrance cards, and skate rental for me, because the kids section is free, and parents can just walk next to their kids holding their hands. So next time it will be a lot cheaper! This post is an equal opportunity Ollie post, who didn’t get to enjoy the ice skating and was not too thrilled with sitting in the stroller the whole time. As you can see he loves Oranges (and cameras).