Winter in BA: Ice Skating

With lots of water and fairly cold winters (at least before global warming), every Dutch kid learns to skate from an early age and especially in speed skating we liked to think of ourselves as the true and only world experts (at least before Eric Heiden). Winter in BA, where the newschannels start to panic when what they call "arctic winds" make temperatures drop below 10 degrees Centigrade, therefore is always a bit of an anti climax for me.

Luckily this year the city government has decided to follow the example of many large cities around the world and install an open air ice rink for the the winter month of August. Opening this Wednesday the 27th of July and until the 25th of August, every day from noon, you will be able to show your best triple axel to the locals. Entrance is free and temporarily handing over your DNI (Argentine ID) or passport (if you happen upon a friendly official) should even supply you with free rental skates for an hour.

The ice rink is located at Plaza Uruguay in Recoleta at the corners of Tagle and Figueroa Alcorta. This is in front of the Buenos Aires branch of Tiffany's and the Canal 7 television studios, so that Rockefeller Plaza feeling is thrown in for free. Only the tree will be missing.

Should you miss the ice in other months of the year, Buenos Aires actually has a few permanent ice rinks as well, mostly left over from the eighties, when there was a short boom for a few years and there were almost 30. Now it's down to about 5 with My Way (Palermo), Ice Planet (Flores) and Winter (Caballito) the most conveniently located ones.

And if you should really get homesick for Canada or one of the Scandinavian countries, Buenos Aires even has it's own ice hockey league. Finally your well deserved chance to become the Argentinean Wayne Gretzky.