This afternoon we met up with one of Kaitlyn’s friends and his little brother and Mommy at the town pool. It was our first trip there since we have a pool and since the weather hasn’t been especially conducive to swimming. (neither has the tedious task of removing the dead bugs and lizards from our pool when one does want to take a dip)
I was a little leery of going because I have seen a lot of skinny women walking to and from the pool. (I drive by it basically any time I leave the house) I was also a little leery of going on my own since I am not familiar with French pool etiquette.
First, it cost me nearly 5 Euros to get in. Kaitlyn was free.
Then, there is this little foot pool you are supposed to walk through on your way into the pool. There is one at each break in the fence so you have no choice. Theoretically. Kaitlyn chose to cling to the fence and edge her way along the cement as to avoid getting her feet wet. Given that the whole point of going to a pool is usually to get wet, it seemed funny to me. Of course, I walked through it knowing that I had no intention of actually getting into the pool.
There are actually three pools. Just like they have three levels of kindergarten: petite, moyenne and grande.
There is a baby pool which is what you’d expect. Extremely shallow. Small. Off on its own as to not disturb the others, I suppose.
La piscine moyenne* (*not the official name) is a decent size but only about 4 feet deep at the deepest point. Which makes it just about perfect for the swimmers moyennes. (swimmers Kaitlyn’s size) That’s where she and her friend donned their float devices and dove in.
The big pool I can only guess was pretty deep all around. There is a tall diving platform off which pre-teen after pre-teen jumped.
There is a sign up at the pool entrance letting you know that there is a dress code. No, it said nothing about women keeping their tops on, although everyone appeared to be doing so today. It reminded everyone that traditional swim attire is required for men. Which in English means: lots of old men wearing Speedos. Although now that I think about it… I would swear that the lifeguard had on surfer swim trunks.
If you need to put on your traditional swim attire, you can do so in one of the changing rooms. There is a whole row of them. There is also a coat check room (well, no one is checking a coat at the pool, but that’s basically what it is) where I guess you can leave your purse or man-purse. And unlike most places I go here, there were bathrooms. The mom we were there with said that on one of her first visits she sent her 4 year old to the bathroom… or thought she did. She saw a hole in the ground and knows that a lot of times here that is the facility so she sent her little boy in to tinkle. Then realized once he’d started that she’d just told him to pee in the shower. Hey, at least know I know there are actual toilets. Today, her younger boy decided to relieve himself alongside one of those foot bath things at the entrances. Note to self: use the Kaitlyn avoidance maneuver in future.
Naturally, no French experience would be complete without a snack bar. Because for people who don’t snack they certainly make it easy to, well, snack. And, naturally, the snack bar was complete with American pinball machines, foosball (how do you spell that?) and a cappuccino maker. I didn’t have enough money to get a cafe after buying Kaitlyn some ice cream. I wasn’t going to buy her any and thought I’d get away with it by telling her that there was no Sponge Bob Square Pants ice cream in the cooler. (she likes that one because it is one of the few without chocolate) The woman running the snack bar overheard and happily rushed over to show us that she did, indeed, have that ice cream. Je comprends un peu. Sure she does… she understands just enough to cost me 2 Euros and 10 centimes.
Old men in Speedos. Oh good grief. And bless the diligent woman showing you eavesdropped ice cream, a favorite of persons peddling to youngsters.
You have to remove lizards from your pool??
well, no, technically Bill removes the bugs and lizards.
I am having a flashback to the revolting pool of bleach you were supposed to walk through at the Glendale Keyhole (aka peehole) municipal pool (no fence, but you could spiderman yourself to the wall and avoid putting your feet in) before going to the swimming area.
Very true that France is so full of snacks despite the fact that the natives allegedly don’t eat them.
My local supermarket has Sponge Bob Square Pants peaches. Yup, fresh peaches in a Sponge Bob box that cost double the regular peaches and you don’t get to pick the individual fruit. Inside it’s just a regular peach (I looked).
SpongeBob products represent a licensing fee to our original company, Viacom, thus its nice to see that worldwide people pay ripoff prices to make that license fee possible.