Part Of A Life's Chapter.

Life in Slovakia:

I liked walking from my house in Hrebendova to the mall nearest, which was Aupark; a well sized mall structured mostly out of a fine green icy tinge. In Bratislava, Slovakia, there were two major malls with cinemas and shops of every sort to go to; Aupark was one of them, the other mall is the Polus City Center which everyone used to go to before the Aupark was built.

A lot of my time was spent either doing my homework at home in my bedroom or accompanying my sister while she walked her dog, which everybody did in the whole of Slovakia. The other thing I liked doing the most was going to the back of Aupark where there were ramps set up for skateboarders and roller bladders. That was one of the coolest of things going on around because the kids who skated and bladed could do more than just roll around; they could do really awesome tricks. On the weekend my parents took my siblings and I to Aupark for a movie as well as to browse around and look at the shops.

Well, my youngest brother, Frederick who was seven at that time while I was thirteen, wanted to go out the park behind Aupark to watch the older kids skate boarding, so we went with him to watch. Some music was being played somewhere outside of the mall but not too loud, just loud enough for people in the park to enjoy, the sun was shining and the weather was very pleasant otherwise I would have gone back into the malls air-conditioned shops and besides, a lot of people were outside sitting on the park benches either having lunch or watching their children play or to just watch like Frederick and I.

A lot of the skaters were doing really cool tricks like jumping off their skateboard as they went down the ramp and landing on it in the nick of time or jumping into the air, spin the skate board up to three times then land on it as he hits the floor.
Frederick watched them with his little green eyes, shining with awe and a hunger, probably for the same kind of talent. He never took his eyes off of the boys whizzing up and down the metallic ramps that were covered in professional graffiti; the designs consisting of logos and words like Mountain Dew, 2pac and portraits of artists like DJ Paul Van Dike, Frederick couldnt take his cute face off of the skaters.

Admiration was written all over his face, I understood how he felt because looking at them perform stunning tricks with their skateboards impressed me just as much, if not made me jealous because they made it look so easy. Two of the boys, who looked thirteen to fifteen years old wore pull over caps and had ear length cropped hair sticking out, baggy shirts in khaki and orange with navy blue, baggy pants low enough to show their striped boxers and break-dancing shoes with the laces undone and tucked in to keep them from interfering with their antics.

All of the boys looked pretty much the same except for their height or the color of their hair or eyes; they were all good at skateboarding, they were awesome. Now and then, because they knew they had an audience more than often, they would shout to each other something in Slovak and try different stunts, pretending they didnt care whether people were watching them or not while they kept checking out of the corner of their eyes or taking an occasional glance to see if any girls were interested.

I watched, and as eager as the other girls; all blonde, petite and dressed like Bratz dolls, to catch one of the boys eyes to get their attention. Frederick was more interested in getting one of them to lend him their skateboard so that he could try to do a trick or two. Some of the boys didnt want to lend Frederick their skateboards, claiming in their best English that they were expensive. The boy who wore the orange shirt, black cap and khaki baggy pants was cute with his grayish eyes and pretty face and to my surprise and Fredericks, he came up to Frederick when hed given up asking to try one of the skaters boards and asked him in Slovak if hed want to try, to which Frederick replied, Who? Me? Ano prosim! Yes please! From the little Slovak my siblings and I learnt with our Slovak friends, Fredericks ability to speak a little bit of Slovak, despite it being a little awkward, pleased the skater enough to laugh and hand Khalid the skateboard happily, provided he didnt run off with it.

Frederick wasted no time the minute he got the skateboard in his hands; he rushed off to the ramps and started to roll up and down before trying to jump and land on the board as he went down, failing several times but not giving up. The boy stood next to me for a while, which made me blush a lot, before he started to go to Frederick to show him how to get the trick right I said to him in my best Slovak, Dakujem. Thank you. He smiled and said in an embarrassed English, You velcome. I was touched and as he walked towards Frederick, he seemed much handsomer and more talented to me than the other boys skateboarding in the park.