Ice, ice, maybe?

You wouldn’t think that a Northern English city that’s mad for football with a mild climate and a penchant for Tetley beer would naturally take to ice and ice-related activities; but, oddly, that’s exactly what’s happened over the past few years here in Leeds.

Leeds rather proudly builds the largest outdoor skating rink in the UK every year, and predictably, this year’s turned out to be a massive success. Johanna and I got to try out the facilities on Monday afternoon, being the rabid hockey lovers we are, and it was quite interesting.


(I didn't take this picture, but you get the gist... incidentally, it's called the Ice Cube. Because it's square, and in the Town Square. You are now one trivia anecdote richer.)

Now, we make no bones about it-- we’ve played the game for years. And coming from Canada, we have an innate snarkiness about our national pastime: evaluating the rink’s blue plastic rental “skates” and reminiscing about that time we went to provincials in Grade 11 are part of the conceit. To put it bluntly, we didn’t expect much of the British way of ice skating, and frankly, didn’t appreciate that we had to call it “ice skating” either. The English on ice? Pleeeaassssse.

Well, the Loiners proved us wrong, as could be expected. They were pretty darn good, and our under-the-breath comments about the soft ice and short boards went unnoticed. Thank goodness too: after half an hour we’d gotten over our despicable Canadian uppitiness and had a great time with the other skaters, who were all gleefully gliding around us and trying out new moves. It just felt amazing to be back on skates, especially in such a different environment. A taste of home in a strange city.

The week’s been busy as we’ve started seminars in addition to lectures, but Tuesday night I headed to The Eldon pub for international student night with some newly arrived friends from Canada, the States, Australia, and New Zealand. The Eldon’s always good fun, so we had a great time with all the second semester-ers.

Wednesday I had lunch in the city centre with Donna from Toronto and Jenny and Emily from Chicago, who were all delighted to discover how much shopping Leeds has. I left them to it to go to a film screening for my Shakespeare on Film class… I know not everyone likes Kenneth Branagh but I happen to love him. So the prospect of seeing (and discussing) his films all semester frankly delights me. Henry V this week, and Hamlet very soon…love it.

On Friday Jean and I went to see a much-promoted student production of the play Mnemonic at Stage@Leeds, which was very well-done. Despite a technical hiccup, the actors pulled the show off. It was all about memory, and dealt with the idea by using parallel storylines and symbolism. Interesting!

After the play we went to Fruity and had a great time, and so far this weekend I’ve been recovering and reading, pretty much. We’re looking forward to Amsterdam on the 14th and perhaps Wales the next.

So, onto next week, which promises to be just as packed! Have a good one!

p.s. here’s my latest article :). It's page 6.