Ze gym

This morning I pulled up to the front of the gym and I have been going to, and Ian, one of the trainer who works there was out but his car. He gave me a sheepish grin as he watched me pull in. I, in a somewhat self-conscious way, assumed that this grin had something to do with something I had done and immediately check to make sure I had indeed parked the car correctly, that I had nothing on my face, and that my backpack didn't have my underwear poking out of it or anything. Once I had confirmed that I had indeed done everything correctly, I got out of the car.

"Ne rigoler pas, Eleanor" he said. "Il faut absoluement pas rigoler" ("Don't laugh, you absolutely can't laugh) (Ian calls me Eleanor because I have a rule that I will remind someone to call me Nell once, and if they don't remember I figure it's not worth it to remind them).
Ian was standing by his car, and as I approached I saw that his hands were covered in grease and in one them he had one of those tools that you use to open your car when you have locked your keys in the car. He looked exceedingly sheepish.
"It happens to me all the time", he said "but normally it takes me about five minutes to get the door open and I've been here for about twenty minutes and the keys to the car are in the gym so I can't open the gym"
I couldn't help but giggle a little.
Luckily for him, the owner of the gym didn't live that far away, so I gave him a ride there so that he cold go borrow the keys so that he could open up the gym. He then went back to his car and after about 10 more minutes he managed to get his car open. I know this because he came in to announce to every one in the gym in a cheerful manner.

I wasn't so sure it was a good idea when I decided to sign up for a 3 month membership to a gym because I have always had an exceeding high level of scorn for "working out". A lot of my scorn about the gym has to do with my own personal experiences. To me, a gym has always been place you go to if you want to if you want to see a lot a of douchebags wearing muscle shirts and a lot of girls who seem to care more about their appearance at the gym than they care about working out and if you want to feel alienated and inferior while you are using the machines because other people can probably use them better than you. Yeah, I pretty much avoided the gym as much as I could.

And I'm not sure if its this gym in particular, or if its being in France, or if its the fact that I never gave gyms in the US a chance, but I have actually been really enjoying going to the one here in Mayenne. There are several reasons for this. One is that this gym is a lot smaller than any of the other ones I have ever been to and it is also a lot less crowded than any gym I have been to. This means that you never feel overwhelmed or crowded, which is really nice. Another reason is that the staff here will make you a workout plan and explain to you what the hell you're supposed to be doing, so that you don't feel stupid while you muck around wondering if anyone has noticed that you have no clue what you're doing. Finally, when people come in, they actually go around and say "hi" to everyone in the facility, which is nice, but alarming (the first time this happened to me, I spent quite some time wondering how the hell I knew the guy before I realized that he was saying hi to everyone). This explains Ian coming in and cheerfully announcing to everyone that there was no need to worry, because he had found his keys.
On top of all that, and probably more importantly, it is probably has some of the best people watching I have ever experienced in one place. In general gyms are good people-watching places, but I feel that the vacuum created by the lack of frat-boy meat-head types has allowed for all sorts of other interesting types to appear.
My personal favorite is Mullet-Man (this is what I call him in my head). This man, has quite possibly, one of the most impressive mullets I have ever seen in my life. This is how impressive it is: the first time I saw him, I did not realize he had a mullet, because it is a short crew cut in the front and the back, which is long tumbling brown hair down to his mid back, was tied into a ponytail. This was my train of thought "oh look, there is someone with a normal hair cut" (he turns sideways) "... (the ellipses represent my speechless awe)". I am fascinated by it, and have to try and not stare when he is in the gym.
Another interesting trend is the penchant that the men seem to have to wear tight running short/capris for pretty much any workout. For some reason, this trend is especially popular among the middle aged, slightly nerdy-looking crowd. My personal favorite example of this group is the guy who combines this look with a tiger striped towel, although I think he got the wrong idea when he intercepted my look of silent incredulity the first time I ever saw him and now I have to be very careful not to people-watch him.

I could go on--there are all sorts of wonderful people. Those, however, are my favorite so I think I will stop for now. For the time being, I am enjoying the gym and the new experience of learning how to lift and whatnot. Once the novelty wears off, we'll see how I feel, but for the moment I am entertained.