085: Skating in the 3Bears Snowglobe

A couple of days ago, I had a notification from 3Bears sim, where I live, that they were doing a seasonal installation to celebrate winter-time. Now, I'm always one who likes to find his fun in his own back yard, and I know the 3Bears guys are always thinking of ways to help us enjoy ourselves. So Alex Thaub and I dropped over to find out just what the promised Snowglobe was.

     As you can see from the pictures, it's a huge installation that contains a charming skating rink.  (I've tried to show the scale of it with the first few snapshots I took.) I do skate in real life, but I haven't had a chance to do so for a couple of years; somehow it's just been too much effort to dig out my old hockey kit. So I was delighted to have a chance to skate in Second Life. And you know, it actually

felt real. I spent a lot of winters on the ice when I was a kid, and as I watched myself using the free skating animations, well, you know, it was almost like I could feel the cold of the outdoor pond and my hands getting sweaty in my mittens, and my leg muscles loosening up as I started to remember a few skating tricks ...
     We met one of the principals of 3Bears during our visit, Galileo 

Michalski, who's a pretty good skater himself it seems. There's a full set of ice dancing animations, free ice skates, seasonal decoration, and a really nice winter-time feeling to this installation that you have to experience to get. Why, it was almost like the real thing in rural Canada, where I can look out my back window and see one of my neighbours putting in a back-yard skating pond.

     When you add in the charm of a little seating area around the fire, where Alex and I enjoyed some cold-weather snuggling, it was a very happy hour for me and I think you'll enjoy yourself too.  This SLURL will take you to the teleport disk just outside the snow globe, where you can teleport yourself in.  Skates, skating animations, and snuggly fire are all free to enjoy super photo op if you are

so inclined -- just bring your own hot chocolate for afters!