An Introduction to Steve

Hi. I’m Steve. This blog is mine. I’m 44, and I’ve been skating for half of my life. Until 2 years ago, I only skated in parks, and almost always alone. Then I heard about the Houston Inline Marathon and decided I wanted to give it a try. I decided to try to find some skaters to train with, and I found Inline Swine. I met them for the first time in around July of 2008, and that night was a revelation. It was all about fun and comaraderie, and nothing like any skating I’d ever done before. It was a little terrifying, too! After years of skating in broad daylight on smooth park paths, I was skating in the dark over potholes and railroad tracks, fighting cars for the road. But what fun!

The second night I skated with IS we pulled up to a bar. I was a little scandalized, so I waited outside. By the third or fourth week, I went in and had a soda. About the sixth week we rolled into a real dive, with pool tables and working class patrons unwinding after a hard day. I announced to Laurie that I was going to have half a beer, and she offered to buy it for me. (Right from the start I found myself always next to Laurie, and we were ‘kissing’ all night long. Don’t worry about Brock—in skating, ‘kissing’ is when you are skating next to someone and you accidentally clip skates. And it’s not cool. I was really worried that she was going to get pissed at me, but if she did, she never let on.) Well, after my half a beer, I rolled out of the bar and thought I would be eating the pavement in 23 seconds, but I found that I could skate just fine, and thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the evening. Beer has been one of my favorite parts of skating ever since. Thanks for corrupting me, Laurie!

A year ago, a small group of us decided we wanted another skate night each week, and we wanted to push ourselves. So we started skating on Thursday nights, and we do 20 miles pretty hard. I didn’t know the city well, so I decided to organize the courses using mapmyrun.com. At that point I brought a map and a list of each street with me each time and prayed that I didn’t get us all lost. We explored some really interesting places, and we’ve managed to get together every Thursday that it didn’t rain for over a year. We’ve had as few at 3 people and as many as 12, but 6 to 8 is the norm. Laurie and I have been core members from the beginning, Mar joined us a few months in, and Brad and Natalie have been coming lately, seeing it as great preparation for our trip. I still map the course out beforehand (we don’t want to push hard and expect 20 miles and find out it’s really going to be 22!), but now I know the city so much better, and I’m able to keep it all in my head.

In my non-skating life, I’m a new realtor, and I’ve found that my knowledge of the city from skating it has really served me well. Whenever I talk to someone looking for a house in a particular neighborhood, or someone who wants to sell their home, I’m able to say, “Oh, sure. I know that area. I skate there all the time.” I’m loving my new career, and I’ve helped one skater find a home and am currently working with another to find her dream home.

I have a 2 ½ year old, 100 pound Rhodesian Ridgeback, Minga. I don’t know how I’m going to make it 2 weeks without seeing her, and I’m very worried that she won’t eat while I’m gone. I love her dearly, and don’t know how I lived 42 years without a dog in my life!

I love to read (especially contemporary literature and history), I always have a couple of TV shows that I watch religiously (Lost!, HIMYM, Glee), and I’m very into my genealogy (my first trip to Germany was to meet the family of my great grandfather, who emigrated in 1880).

I’ve been looking forward to this trip for two years, and I can’t believe it’s actually close enough to count down to it in days. If the trip is 1/10 of the experience I think it is going to be, it will be a trip to remember for a lifetime. I’m so glad you’re going to live through it with us!

Meet Laurie!

Hi, I’m Laurie (aka Blondie) and I’m a middle aged, ex-suburban housewife gone wild and loving every minute of it!

My introduction into the Houston skate scene came about rather interestingly around 4 years ago. About a year after the end of my 22-year marriage, I decided on a lark to put a profile on “match.com”. Along with a bunch of creepy dudes, I kept getting emails from this nice looking guy inviting me to join him on a “bar-hopping skate” in downtown Houston. The emails continued for a few weeks before I became brave enough to try it out. Scared to death to even drive downtown, I couldn’t imagine skating through the streets (especially as I didn’t know how to use my brake)! After arriving, looking around the bar & noticing all the black clothing, tattoos & piercings, I thought, “What the heck is this shy little white bread girl doing here amongst this group?” I soon learned that beneath the sometimes scary exteriors are some wonderfully interesting people. I had the best time. I was hooked!

The match.com guy kind of disappeared but through my new acquaintances I found the Tues night Inline Swine skate group. I have skated with this group for about 3 years now and have developed many new friendships. I even dragged my best bud Mark into the street skating world. At 63 he is one cranky guy but everyone loves having him around and even though he may protest, he loves it too. I am also the official “Watermelon Lady” of the Tues night skate.

So between the Tues night IS skate, the Thursday night killer speed skate (Thanks to Steve), and various weekly bar hopping skates, I am one heck of a busy girl. I never thought I’d see myself dressed up as a Lusty Barmaid Wench skating in a St. Patty’s day parade, a skating Genie in the Art Car Parade or a Zombie Bride for the Halloween skate. So out of my comfort zone! So much fun!

I was having such a great time that I left the suburbs behind and moved to a cute little place near downtown. Now I can skate or bike directly from my house to most places. Pretty convenient after some of the beer drinking skates.

I have a 22-year-old son Daniel, who I am sure thinks I am nuts after hearing of my crazy adventures. He even came to rescue our Thurs night group during a mid skate rainstorm. No need for a taxi when you’ve got a son handy. Just load up Mom & 5 or 6 sweaty guys into the SUV. Isn’t that normal?

By the way, this story continues on a happy note. The match.com guy that got me into skating is now my boyfriend of 20 months. Brock & I met up again on an “After Hurricane Ike Skate” and have been dating ever since. We are looking forward to sharing a wonderful European skate adventure with our old friends & meeting some new friends along the way. Thanks Steve for putting this all together. It will be a trip of a lifetime!

Cast of Characters

Over the next posts, I want to introduce you to the people coming on the trip. I’m hoping I can get them to write these posts themselves! Our players in their own words, their own voices. Here’s a brief introduction, in alphabetical order.
Aaron—from Philadelphia. Tracie’s boyfriend. None of us know him yet!

[update: Blossom—a friend of Aaron and Tracie.  They made the trip sound so amazing at Philly Free Skate that she asked if she could be added at the last minute, and she could!]

Brad—skates with Inline Swine and on the Thursday night fitness skate. Natalie’s boyfriend.

Brock—a quad skater from way back when. Rarely seen on anything but bar skates and theme skates. Laurie’s beau.

Céline—from Montreal (looking forward to having a French speaker on the trip!) No one knows her, either. Søren’s long-distance love.

Dana 1—she’s Dana 1 because she signed up first. Skates and bikes. Paul’s squeeze.

Dana 2—the last person to sign up, and the hardest to get to commit! Sherron’s the only one who knows her well, and she’ll be biking. [update: Dana has to have wrist surgery, and was forced to pull out at the last minute]

Lara—I’ve met her once or twice on Tuesday nights, but she skates mainly outside of the inner loop, training for fitness (I think!)

Laurie—known for bringing watermelon to the Tuesday night skates. ALWAYS there on Tuesday. ALWAYS there on Thursday. She puts up with Brock on a daily basis.

Mar—skates with us on Tuesdays sometimes, but prefers Thursdays, because she doesn’t like the bar stops. We’re going to get her over that in Germany!

Natalie—a veterinarian and sometime Tuesday night skater, now a regular on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Brad’s girl.

Paul—also known as Bode. (Why? I don’t know.) Skating through his days with Dana 1.

Søren—a Dane currently wishing he was in Montreal with Céline, but generally in DC without her. We’re looking forward to meeting him (and hoping he knows some German!)

Tracie—another Philadelphian and Aaron’s number one girl. Looking forward to making her one of us (run now, Tracie…run!)

Sherron—came on a skate a few months ago and I talked about the great trip we were planning. Within a short while she’d decided she was going. Woo hoo!

Steve—your blogger. Regular on Tuesdays, organizer of Thursdays. The only one on the trip in a single.

The Plan

Thursday, August 5: leave Houston (or other points of departure)

Friday: arrive Paris; lunch; nap; great dinner; then the Paris Night Skate—meet with 10,000 or so other skaters at 9:00PM and skate 18 miles through the city!

Saturday: Free day in Paris

Sunday: Free in the morning, then skate again with a slightly smaller group (5000?), about 15 miles through the streets of Paris, but this time in daylight. Then take the train to Thionville, France on the Mosel River.

Monday: Start the downriver trip to our hotel in Remich, Luxembourg—30 miles of paved path on each side of the river.

Tuesday: Leave Luxembourg for Germany and spend the night in Trier, a roman town founded in 4 CE.

Wednesday: On to Neumagen—should be plenty of wineries, biergartens, and castles to tour!

Thursday: Next up is Traben-Trarbach, with lots of Art Nouveau buildings…and lots of wine and beer!

Friday: Skate on to Cochem and finally get ready to NOT skate for a day!

Saturday: Take the train to the next town, then hike up the Eltz River valley to Burg Eltz, a spectacular 12th century castle—we’ll approach it just like travellers would have 800 years ago. Then when we get back , we’ll head up to Cochem Castle for a 4 hour medieval banquet including a falconry demonstration, jesters, lute playing, and BIG JOINTS OF MEAT! And beer.

Sunday: On to Koblenz, where the Mosel and Rhine rivers meet.

Monday: Down the Rhine river, past the Lorelai, and on to Oberwesel, where we’ll be staying in a gorgeously renovated castle--Burghotel auf Schoenburg. The restaurant is closed to the public on Monday nights, so we’ll have the banquet room all to ourselves for a special meal just for the guests.

Tuesday: Further down the Rhine, past Bacharach and Bingen, then on to where the Rhine meets the Main river at Wiesbaden, which has been a spa town for 2000 years. Hot springs and massages anyone?

Wednesday, August 18: A short train trip brings us to Frankfurt and our flights home.

So, what should you expect to see on this blog, and why would you want to follow it?

My friends and family take some pretty amazing vacations and adventures. I love hearing about them afterwards, but it’s just not the same as feeling a vicarious part of what they’re doing while they’re gone—though I think about them a lot and imagine what kinds of trouble they’re getting into! When mom and dad are traveling, they post hundreds of pictures a week of the places they’re exploring and the things they’re doing. My favorite part of these posts is the accompanying descriptions—seeing a picture of mom sitting in a 16th century cell is interesting. Knowing that it’s the jail cell that her 12th grandfather, William Bradford sat in at 17 years of age, before knowing he was ever going to make it to the New World, and that she was moved to tears by the experience…that’s worth knowing.
So, one thing I hope to do with the blog is share the substance and meaning of our adventures while the adrenaline is still coursing through my veins.

Back in 1978, my family took a pretty amazing trip to England at Christmastime. My sister was a little older than I was, and she kept a diary and lots of ticket stubs and other artifacts. Years later we were able to relive the trip, and remember a lot of things we’d forgotten about it.

So another purpose of the blog is to help those of us who go on the trip to remember the details and what an awesome experience we had.

When I was putting this trip together, it was hard to explain to people what the experience would be like, since it’s unlike the kind of vacation that most people take. I put together a ‘brochure’ with pictures I pulled off of the web to let everyone know what the places look like and what kind of hotels we’re staying in. This helped them visualize what they were paying for. I hope we will make more trips like this in the future, and I’m going to want a tool to sell people on it from the start.

So the third purpose of the blog is to sell our friends who aren’t coming with us on getting it in gear and committing to the next one! And if you’ve stumbled on this blog by accident, or are a friend of a friend of a friend, we’d probably welcome your participation, too!

As far as the content goes, I think you’ll be pleased and surprised, assuming I’m able to get all the technology figured out before we go!

I’ll be bringing my Garmin Forerunner 405 GPS watch on the trip. This watch not only keeps track of mileage, but uploads the course on a Google map. So I’m hoping to post each day’s route--including wrong turns and backtracks!

One of our group, Brock, is a professional videographer (not entirely sure that’s the right description, but it’s accurate, anyway.) He’ll be skating / biking (he’s the ‘1/2’ I referred to earlier when I said 2 ½ people were biking the trip) carrying a professional video camera. I’m hoping he’ll be able to piece together a few short clips of our time together each night so I can post them and key them to where they happened on the course map. I’m also assuming that many people will have still cameras, and I’ll post the best of each day’s pictures as well.

And then of course I’ll tell you what we did. It will be one person’s perspective, so I’m sure a lot will be missed! But you’ll get the general feel for what we did each day, with my spin on what it meant to me, or what I saw other people connecting with. Whether it’s the exasperation of being on the wrong side of the river from our destination, the humor of someone falling into a creek, a moving experience with a local kid, or a menu translation that resulted in eating something we did NOT expect to be eating, I’ll try to make these posts interesting and meaningful for anyone reading them.

I hope we’ll have lots of people following us as we prepare, and waiting each day for the new post to find out what went wrong and what went right, and what it meant to us!

Steve

Welcome to the EuroSkate 2010 Blog

A little background on who we are:

For several decades there has been a strong street-skating presence in Houston, TX.  Multiple groups have formed with various levels of interest in fitness, recreation, comaraderie, and beer.  There are presently at least half a dozen skating groups in Houston, including Inline Swine, Skate Hawks, Urban Animals, Roller Derby, and Skate Trash, as well as impromptu groups who get together on a few days' notice for bar skates, theme skates (Blonde Skate, Prom Skate, Luau Skate, Bra Skate) and a strong presence in the Houston Art Car Community.

I joined this skating community a few years ago after 20 years of skating on my own.  Three years ago I took an amazing vacation to Germany with my family, and last year I went to Paris to skate the Paris Night Skate.  I had for some time planned to combine the two and take a Zephyr tour to skate in Germany, and I even had a few friends interested in going with me.  Then Zephyr's 2010 schedule came out, and the Mosel trip wasn't being offered!  Well, my friends and I wept in our beers for an hour, and then decided to recreate the tour on our own.  We quickly realized that, for the same cost as the more organized tour, we could add the Paris Friday Night Skate and a couple of days on the Rhine, as well!  This less formal plan really appealed to us--there's a strong independent streak running through the Houston Skate Community, and we liked the idea of relying more on ourselves than on a tourguide and a sag van--even if it meant no one going on the trip spoke a word of German! Once the expanded itinerary was announced, more people became interested.

I still thought that when it came right down to it, I'd be going alone or close to it.  But then people actually started plunking down money and committing to the trip!  We're using a friend's travel agency to organize the hotels--some of which are the same as the Zephyr tour, several of which I've stayed in before, and at least one of which is a complete shot in the dark.  Each promises ★★★ accommodations and private bathrooms for each room, and each has a restaurant with a reputation for great food.  Except for the three days in Paris, all meals are included in the trip--hearty country breakfasts, packed lunches to take with us, and gourmet dinners where we'll repack on the calories we've burned by skating 30 miles a day!

The group includes 5 couples and 5 singles, 6 men and 9 women, 11 Houstonians, 2 Philadelphians, 1 (okay, what does one call a person from Montreal?), and a Dane currently living in Washington, DC.  Interestingly, there's only one married person going on the trip, and she's going on her own!  Some of us know each other very well, and some don't know another person on the trip other than their boyfriend / girlfriend.  Some are strong skaters, some are going to really be pushing it to handle the miles, and 2 1/2 are doing the trip on bikes. [update: We've added one more person at the last minute, a woman named Blossom from somewhere in New York, I believe.]

We've got a great group of people going with us on our trip, and I look forward to you getting to know each of us a little better through the pre-trip portion of this blog.

Next up, I'll talk a little about what I hope to share with you on this blog, and then some details of the trip itself.

Until next time!
Steve