The Gym, part 1

I broke down and joined a gym today.

I had been wanting and dreading it at the same time. Wanting because ... well, when you are eating French food for six months, you have to work it off somehow. Dreading because there isn't a gym culture here, and also of course the ordeal of signing up for it in French.

I studied French for five years in high school and college; I read it perfectly well. But it is taking longer than I expected to truly get my ear back. Part of the problem is that, when I don't understand something, I want the person to repeat herself more slowly and clearly. Instead, as soon as it is obvious that I haven't understood something, she switches to English, which is NOT what I need right now.

(Those of you who knew France in the old days would be astonished at the widespread facility with English now.)

Anyway, so it turned out that the staffer at the gym was the exception to what I just wrote: she spoke only French but we were able to understand each other perfectly, once I realized that even though it says "Fitness Club" right there on the sign of the gym, the French actually call it a "salle du sport":


After that, the only thing that stumped me was the word for "padlock" at the very end -- "cadenas," when I had learned it as "serrure."

The gym itself is ... well, the equipment looks superb, but it is tiny, crowded and a bit expensive (550 euros, or $800, for six months). Paris doesn't have many gyms, though, so you take what you can get. This is the only gym in my neighborhood (10 minutes walk from my apartment), which I'm told makes it de facto the gay gym for the city, but it didn't look too too gay this morning.

I'm going to try to beat the crowds by getting there right at the opening at 8 a.m., which will also allow me to get to work by 10, which is about the right time to show up anyway. We shall see. Hopefully the late-rising habits of Parisians will apply even to the gym-goers. Stay tuned.

Oh, and I forgot to mention: everything in Paris seems to be next to a landmark, and the gym is too. Across the street is the Pompidou Centre, the city's modern-art museum and a famous work of contemporary architecture in its own right: