how I spend my days

Okay, so I bit the bullet and joined the health club. Working out in a foreign language has brought a whole new host of challenges. Let me tell you . . . . wait for it. wait for it. I will!

Okay, so I started with a class called cardio pump- which is an aerobics class with weight lifting. My friend, Miller, introduced me to this class a couple of years ago and I thought this would be a pretty easy, no sweat right? * Let's just start by saying that I am wrong on almost every account. I waited outside for the class to start and then when the doors open there was a MAD RUSH into the class. Of course, I wanted to be in the back where there felt like there was less risk. I then followed the crowd over to the weights section and was immediately struck by the fact that all the weights were in the metric system. damn. I searched around- spotted someone and asked if he could help me. To which he responded: "Yes. American?" uh. oui?

He set me up with the weights but as it turned out that my new pal doesn't really speak English. And I don't really speak French. And words in Exerciseland are very different than words in Whereisthecafe?land. Miming does wonders. As does the phrases: I don't understand, please repeat, I don't speak French well, and speak more slowly. All these lines are in the key phrases book for both Exerciseland and Whereisthecafe?land.

The class went ok. So ok that I haven't been able to walk for two days.

Today I went to hip hop. Another adventure. It turns out that there is a new choreographed piece every 4 weeks, and this was week 4. So all the other people had been in there for 3 weeks in a row and were just breezing through it. I would not say that this class was easy. At the point where the 1 handed push ups came in I started laughing. Tomorrow is going to hurt.


*Two points for the pun. I am raking in the points peeps.