After a long bus ride and walk through the city I arrived at the long stairway to the granite fortress known as Stalin Plaza.  They were filming a movie on one set of stairs and told me it was closed so I had a pretty good panic attack as I went up the other side.   But it was good and I arrived to an empty plaza and sat to calm down for a while, did some warm ups then cruised around and checked it all out.  It was way larger than I had thought.  The lower level was cool too but some annoying kids and rollerblader had shown so after a couple noseslides and slappies I went back to the main area. For about an hour I felt pretty good on my board.  I had a really fun run on the higher pinkish ledges of noseslide to fakie, halfcab noseslide then crooks.  I had posted up and did a few crooks in a row.  It felt great to get a few.  Like it was the whole reason I bought a new board when my luggage went missing.  I also got a couple slow front 50s that took way too long.  Then skated lines for a bit just having fun.  Switch front nose, halfcab flip, crooks, noseslide, bail a treflip.   I didn’t try many flippers though, wanted to take advantage of the granite.  Tried noseslide 270 shove for a while.  Kind of got one somewhat quickly, but couldn’t get a better one.  Some other people showed up so I stopped selfie filming.  My body had also mostly shut down so everything had become a struggle.  I didn’t do much more, enjoyed watching some dudes play some really good games of SKATE.  Then Liz and India showed up, filmed me do one last crooks and we bounced off to the castle.  Felt pretty amazing to skate this spot and made me want to be much better at ledges if somehow that is possible getting into my 50s.  

(setup 8.25 flower, mob grip, venture 5.6 shake junt v-hollows, spitfire 51mm f4 99a classic, new balance numeric 288 b/w no insoles size 11.5)
(pain level 5/10)

The darn rain. Seriously though it had been holding out at our hotel, but on the day we went there it mostly rained. I would get in about an hour of skating total, but didn’t really have time to hit the other nearby spots that seemed almost equally as amazing. I had done a couple of initial noseslides and crooks before the rain picked up. I had a really fun double ride on grinds that were scary slippery. Then I went nearby and skated some curbs for a bit that were fun, but I wasn’t really feeling it. Especially after slamming hard on a nollie back tail attempt. Then the granite dried up and I was able to skate for real for a while. I had a really fun line of noseslide way up top, curve around and ollie a 2.5 stair, ride on grind, noseslide and added backside flip, halfcab flip and almost front 50 on the ledge by the double set. Then I tried kickflip back 50s for a while and was close, but no cigar. I was cut short as it started pouring. Doh! I was pretty unhappy with how bad my setup felt.

(setup 8.25 flower, mob grip, venture 5.6 shake junt v-hollows, spitfire 51mm f4 99a classic, new balance numeric 288 b/w no insoles size 11.5)
(pain level 5/10)

Up kind of early with a slight hang over I went to the nearby diy park Dog Shit. And man did I ever suck it up. I could not get into a rhythm and everything was harder or scarier than it should have been. I struggled with basics like front 50s on the lowest ledge, noseslides, crooks, had ghost pop over the hip. Argh. I had some fun little axle stalls on the bank to curb followed by an ollie on a mound, then wallie a corner. Had some fun little scratch grinds on the granite coping. At the end I made myself get a slow little front 50 on the ledge in the upper left of the photo. Oh yeah a German skater had come too and was doing some shredding marathon lines. Like the same stuff every time.

Then I went up to the bench spot that is basically on the opposite corner of an intersection to be humbled even more. I couldn’t do anything. I could barely noseslide. I may have gotten a crook jib. It’s funny because we had watched people skating it the night before and they made it look pretty easy. nope, they are tall and the ground is also pretty rough.

(setup 8.25 flower, mob grip, venture 5.6 shake junt v-hollows, spitfire 51mm f4 99a classic, new balance numeric 288 b/w no insoles size 11.5)
(pain level 6/10 knees)

Somehow slept really well and after a banging breakfast at our hotel we went out to see some sights. Swiss Air had lost my luggage so one of the first things on the agenda was to get me a new board and shoes because I didn’t want to delay and then not have a board. So we went to the big mall store Titus and I walked out with a an 8.25 of some Flower brand, some hollow ventures and the smallest wheels they had. The family and I were walking nearby at a city park that has a fountain dedicated to the Grimm fairy tales. I did a quick search in maps and it turned out there was a skatepark like 500 feet away so I of course had to go check it out. I had it all to myself so after a couple of laps around and trying to figure out my new setup I kind of just filmed everything. It was quite a fun session surprisingly except how I couldn’t lock into crooks. I thought I’d only have like 5 minutes, but the family ended up being gone for like 40 minutes so I got a decent little session in. Especially considering my complete and shoes were like 1 hour old. The kickflip flyouts were pretty fun as were the back 50s down the steep little escalator qp.

(setup 8.25 flower, mob grip, venture 5.6 shake junt v-hollows, spitfire 51mm f4 99a classic, new balance numeric 288 b/w no insoles size 11.5 (they didn’t have 12s))
(pain level 3/10)