From May 13-16, 2015 I was in Belgrade, Serbia for the 10th Quadrennial Congress of the European Neuroscience Nurses (EANN). And when i am abroad i always bring my skates with me as a means of transport.

The congres centre is some 4 km away from may hotel. As i like to skate as a means of transport and i also had them with me in Japan in 2013 for the WFNN Congress there I decided to have a go at finding a suitable road to get from my hotel to the congress centre.

So I laced up and off I went. The first thing I noticed that the road went up hill and down hill. I may say that I am an excellent skater up hill isn’t a problem. But going down hill with no brakes on your skates that makes it a challaging. And off I went down hill. I felt like a down hill slalom skier to get my speed under control and while doing that also had to avoid oncomming traffic. After I had that challange done there was the next challange skating on roads that are really terrible to skate on and after 30 minutes I finally reached the congress centre.

Well I thought this is just one road I am taking. So I would try and find a different way to get back to my hotel. And of I went agian, but after just 500 meters of skating I ended up on a bridge I could not cross as a pedestrian and I had to find a different bridge. And after skating on some more terrible (pedestrian) roads I found a bridge I could cross and finally I ended up on a road where i could NOT skate anymore.

Luckely I had brought my shoes along in my backpack and decided to switch to my shoes and start walking agian.

Conclusion of this day was if you have a death wish, go skate in Belgrade and you will certainly end up in a hospital if you aren’t an excellent skater.

So what is your near death experience and how did you coop with it?