That park is incredible. Its ginormous, for one thing. And since the city planners figured that Central Park was really going to be the only big park for the entire city, they went all out. Everywhere is green, green, green. We walked through the middle-ish part of the park, so we passed by the little "lake" where people (couples mostly) were rowing in little boats. And we passed by part of the mall, which was completely crowded with people playing ultimate and laying out on blankets. Mostly they were laying out on blankets because it was too hot for much activity. What surprised me most about that was how many girls there were in bikinis just laying out to catch the sun. I know that perhaps Central Park is the only place to really lay out on grass (since backyards are non-existent), but I think I would feel incredibly uncomfortable sprawled out in my bathing suit in such a public place.
We also walked by an open amphitheater, where they have free plays on some evenings. And we passed several fountains, lots of statues (including the one of Balto-- I loved that movie/book when I was younger), and lots of little vendor men who sold hot dogs and popsicles. We bought those chocolate-covered ice cream popsicle things, and tried to eat them before they melted. Which didn't work. So in order to not lose a drop of our delicious sticky mess, we threw all notions of pretty to the wind and managed to get chocolate all over our mouths. It was delicious.
One of my favorite parts of the park was the roller skating. In an section where there was an extra-wide sidewalk, someone had roped off the area and people were skating around to loud disco-70s music. At least, thats what I thought they were doing at first. But as we got closer, I wasn't sure if I was seeing things correctly. They weren't going around in the standard circle... and did I just see a guy shimmy?
Sure enough, it wasn't just a roller skating party... It was a regular dance-off. Bopping up and down around the DJ, showing off their dance skills on roller skates, were at least ten older men (way past their prime) in flashy clothing that belonged to another era. The elderly gentlemen had attracted a pretty decent-sized little group of spectators, who sat in the shade on a small sloping hill nearby, too hot to show much more enthusiasm that an occasional foot tap, although I saw more than one graying head bob unconsciously to the disco beat. We didn't stay long enough to find a place to sit down, but we took our time strolling by, slurping our chocolate and admiring the skaters' fancy footwork. We watched them do the robot, the moon walk, and what I can only guess is something like the grandfather version of the modern-day electric slide (my favorite). Some men were pretty impressive, kicking their legs up, skating backwards, moving their knees and arms around so quickly I was sure they were going to lose their balance (they didn't). Some men were there to learn from the pros. And other guys, usually off in the corner, were just there to enjoy that good old feeling of roller-skate dancing again.
But the best part about the whole entire thing was the feeling of nostalgia you could see plainly written on the faces of all those men.
Because while their audience nowadays enjoys their skating for its humorous, see-that-old-man-dance quality and not for its artistic merit, I'm sure those guys were quite the thing thirty years ago. And as they skate, you see them smile and get the feeling that they are really hundreds of hours away, reliving their old moments of glory.
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