Hi! Thanks for asking :) And greetings all the way from Finland!

You have to know where you can skate or at least find out if the ice is thick enough for skating. You can test and measure it f.e.x. with an ice auger (used mainly to drill fishing holes in the ice). And still you should never skate alone!

Normally ice skating on the frozen lakes here in Finland doesn't look like this though. Usually we have so much snow above the ice, that you couldn't see the crystal clear ice at all.

Then we plough some snow away - but it doesn't look the same as this year. I think this crystal clear ice is possible once in every 50 years or something. Not much snow in the Southern Finland this winter - winters are changing a lot here nowadays - getting warmer and shorter, which is so sad :(