Progress on the new skates, but it's slow

I finally found somebody to ice skate with me and she successfully dragged me out me out of my grouchy Sunday den to skate on Lake of the Isles yesterday. It was a lot more fun the first time we did that, to tell the truth. Yesterday was a mediocre skating day at best - helluva north wind, soggy ice. But for some reason it was also more crowded, in particular crowded with hockey players (the plague of figure skaters everywhere). But it did give me another 45 minutes in the new skates. My feet were starting to chafe a little at that point, but I didn't actually get any blisters this time.

Man, this is a painful process. I had the toes stretched out a second time at the shop where I bought them, this time overnight, and it definitely helped. But new leather skate boots are just thick and heavy and take a while to mold to your feet. I'm planning to wear them in class tonight, but I'm a little nervous about it. They are actually much better skates than the old ones, but I'd developed some techniques in the flimsy old skates that I now realize were built around lots of ankle flexibility (i.e., crappy ankle support). Specifically, all of my stopping moves tend to make me fall on my ass when I try them in the new skates. :-(