France, Ergs, &c.

Oh hey. Here in Paris, watching Ricky Gervais on youtube with Matt Luchette while Natasha showers. Apparently we have no gas for heat, because none of the little burner things on the stove will light up and the shower is cold as hell. Natasha is periodically screaming obscenities, which I can hear because our apartment is supersmall. (But it's cute. Check out 31 Rue Jean Maridor on gmaps. You can streetview it. It is not exciting... but it is next to a sushi place and a pawn shop.) Lucky for me, I have a gym membership (or not so lucky, considering it cost on the order of 400 euros for the summer), and therefore, access to hot showers. Is it weird that as soon as I found myself in a communal shower again, it felt weirdly comforting and home-like? Also, French women all seem to have tattoos, so as long as I don't open my mouth, I sort of fit in. Although, today, I had to open my mouth, since the strap of my backpack got stuck in someone's locker and I had to go to the front desk and ask them for scissors to cut it out so I could get home already without just chilling in the locker room waiting for whoever's locker it was to show up and undo their padlock.

So, workouts. Mostly gymming it up every day... there's a really nice ClubMed right next to Tour Areva in La Defense, Paris's business district. It is sort of awkward because I sweat buckets and French women like, don't sweat at all. And the ones that do still look superhot when they work out... like, trendy Adidas pants with a sportsbra that matches. This one women runs for like an hour.. and she has straight across, blunt cut bangs, and they dont even get greasy. Not even a little bit. She doesn't even wash her hair when she showers. On the other hand, when I run, I feel like I'm swimming underwater in the Dead Sea with my eyes open. Today, I ran and then switched to biking for a while because I wanted to keep reading Neuromancer (by William Gibson, supergood, read it if you haven't) and I am not one of those talented people who can run and read at the same time... quite the opposite. Today, I almost tripped off the treadmill twice and at one point accidentally blew a pretty epic spit bubble, and I saw the guy next to me give me a look of disgust in the mirror. Whatever, dude.

Hmm. Erging. All the ClubMeds in Paris have really nice, brand new concept-2s. Which is great, but every French person ergs the same way, from what I've seen.

Step-by-step guide to erging like the men at my gym:

(1) Put on gloves.

(2) No, it does not matter that your fastest split is a 2:55. Put on the damn gloves.

(3) The flywheel must be set to 10. (Our flywheels go to 11! Anyone? Anyone?)

(4) Never, ever lean back. Also, legs go last off the catch.

(5) If you hit a 2:40, look like you are in CRAZY amounts of pain.

(6) Bring the handle in on the drive so it's in your lap, then lift it up in a semi-circle arc while you're coming into the catch, so it's up over your knees, then place it back down around the mid-shin level when you're at the catch.

I wouldn't be so bitter if people didn't keep telling me I was erging wrong. I already bitched to Clare about this on the facebooks but this one woman who was erging at a 3:04 split stopped me after I had finished a fairly hard piece...for the last 200 meters I had decided to try and go my goal 2k pace from the spring, so I was really tired by the end. "Stop leaning back," she told me (in French). "You won't get so tired." I tried to explain that getting tired was sort of the point. But then I gave up.

People here are all about the World Cup (mostly the men.. some women are into it but the women aren't nearly as into soccer, on the whole). It's a lot of fun to watch games at Trocadero, across from the Eiffel tower, where there's a huge screen set up; there's also a huge outdoor screen in La Defense. When there's a game being broadcast, there's tons of people in business suits out there, watching soccer instead of working. It's a really fun atmosphere, actually... I hope that France does well, just so I can see what the city is like if that happens.

Also, the food is crazy good... although, if only Paris had a Wegman's...

I miss you all so much. So excited to see everyone and get back to practicing with the team in a few months! (I think Hilda will be visiting me in a few weekends, though... so at least I'll have a little lightweight bonding this summer =) )