Friday night rollerbladers by BeatChick
During my 2nd trip to Paris, my friend Kristin & I had gone out one Friday night so that Kristin could find a payphone to call her fiancée. We were somewhere in the 7th arrondissement, when all of a sudden policemen on rollerbladers came gliding past, then WHOOSH! a whole BUNCH of roller bladers swept by! We stood there and watched the whole procession; didn't really have a choice since we couldn't cross the street to get back to our hotel. It must've taken about a half hour for the whole group to troop past. And at the end, of course, were more policemen watching the stragglers.And apparently, they do the same thing on Sundays during the day. It's supposed to be a more leisurely roll with families out roller blading & pushing babies & young children in strollers. I had walked past Nôtre Dame, turned right and saw a whole SLEW of rollerbladers. I?d seen the Friday night rollerbladers but wasn?t sure if this was the same so I asked some English ladies and they said they didn't know. We saw some people pushing kids in prams in that crowd and we decided we probably would never do that ? might put the children in danger. Then one of the ladies laughed and said she wouldn't put herself in danger, *period!*, by rollerblading. It was quite an amazing site!
Also, if you're going to do the Friday night rollerblading you need to understand that you must be a very good rollerblader; if you fall behind the police will put you out of the group. But the Sunday rollerbladers are a lot more relaxed so if you're a fairly decent rollerblader than this would be the event for you.
