Italian Stallions

Originally printed in Kingshit Volume 8, Issue 2

Words and Photos by Nathan Ethier-Myette

Every time I’m about to go on a skate trip, it amazes me how people around me get jealous and would want to take my place. It makes me laugh every time because I know they don’t understand what comprises a skate trip.

Obviously there are good sides to those trips and we do have some fun even though it’s hard work. In Italy, you have their famous pizzas, the pasta, the cannolis, the beautiful orange, lemon, and lime fields between every city and village, the booze--it’s cheap, I mean, really cheap—the limoncello, the gelato, the Moretti, I could go on… That seems like it’s enough to convince most people to spend two weeks with a gang of skaters, but that’s where they’d be wrong.

To be honest, all there is to it is a bunch of guys going to the other side of the world to go crazy and lose their minds. Believe me when I say: it’s worse than you can imagine. Basically, it’s eight grown men between 20 and 30 years old – not talking mental age here – addicted to tobacco, weed and alcohol that spend 24 hours a day together. Men that fart, that stink, complain, and do whatever they want.

Every day, half of them want to hit one particular spot, the other half another. We’re never all on the same page, ever. When it’s time to leave in the morning, there’s always someone that has to take a shit at the very last minute, one that decides not to come without telling anyone in the van waiting for him downstairs, and another one that needs to grab some food at the café down the street. To be clear, it’s the same café we spent an hour at earlier in the day to use the slowest wifi and enjoy a nice croissant. Two hours later and we’ve finally left. Thing is, the pain doesn’t stop there: we’re forced to listen to the worst music the whole way while we get lost, run around, and lose more time looking for parking.

Finally, we get to the spot, and then, the same story all over again. One guy has to piss, another one’s left to buy a beer and the third one is rolling a joint. Then somebody’s ready to film, but the filmer’s not ready. Another guy wants to shoot a photo, but I’m drinking a beer and eating pizza and I’m not ready either. We end up spending three hours at this spot doing practically nothing but chill and talk shit. The day is just getting started – and that’s how it is, even worse at times, for two weeks, and it never stops.

So, what do you think of a trip to Italy now? For most people, it would probably be a complete nightmare. However, in our case, it was one of the most memorable skate trips of our lives and we’d go again tomorrow. You might say we're crazy or total idiots, but we don’t mind, this is just what we do.

Unfortunately, I had to leave the café where I was having a good espresso and enjoying a nice peaceful time with the boys because Andrew wanted to shoot this trick. All I wanted was to spend some quality time with my friends. Tell me something Andrew, you can skate P45 everyday in Montreal so what's the point of skating a mini ramp in Italy?

We drove an hour and a half to get to Syracuse. The cliffs and view at this place were amazing as the sun was going down, and perfect golden hour light from the movies meant Jay had to do this trick really quick. It’s a good thing he didn't take too long… too bad we took like six hours to leave the house that day. 

Kevin's the man. He's the only one that didn't lose his mind and looked after all of us making sure we had all we need. From cleaning dishes in the morning, buying coffee, milk and fruit for the morning to planning the next day’s schedule. He's like a babysitter for adults... dirty, selfish and irresponsible adults. This trip would have been a big mess without you Kevin, thanks for everything.

I've never seen Mike so determined to do a trick, and let me tell you, this one was really scary not only for him but for all of us and everyone else at the spot. This was a mental battle but he succeeded as if he was doing this shit everyday. All the locals at the spot went crazy when he landed it. Kind of like that old lady who went crazy when we left the spot as Mike forgot how to drive standard, smashed her bumper, and left right away just like nothing happened.

This spot was really in the middle of nowhere. After driving for 15 minutes on this small road we all though the GPS was losing it again but we finally got to this perfect plaza in the middle of a small beach town. Since it was winter, the town was empty and it just felt like everything was abandoned. I was lying on the floor for a long time waiting for him to finally land this trick when I realized Ryan took a break and had left without telling anyone. I found out that he went swimming in the ocean one block down the street. It's a skate trip, not a fucking family vacation at the beach.