The winter sport of choice in the Swedish capital is ice-skating. I am accustomed to
vertical ice but not its horizontal counterpart. Hence I felt pretty tense during
my first experience with this sport. Luckily my partners where more experienced than
me and gave me a good introductionary trip. They described the trip as "It doesn't
get better than this". So now I am scared that I will be dissappointed on the next trip.
Launching from the top-secret military island of Muskö, we first skated
towards open sea. Here we could see the ice moving up and down with the swells coming
in from the Baltic sea. Do I have to say I felt uncomfortable with this ? We also
had to watch out for "vindbrunnar". Open portions of the ice created by the wind.
When the ice got too thin we turned around and skated towards the northern part of
Muskö. Smooth blank ice and the wind in our backs made for excellent skating.
However, when we turned around towards our starting point we of course were facing
the wind making for slightly harder skating. After a couple of hours of fun I
stumbled ashore heading for a hot bath.
