| Oct. 18th, 2009 @ 12:15 pm swimming! |
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After doing a winter at McMurdo your first few nights back in Christchurch, the real world, have to be all about fantasy fulfillment. This is the chance to finally make good on all of those promises to yourself that were hatched during the darkest hours of winter. If you wait too long reality will take over and you’ll start to reevaluate your goals, question the logic of winter mind when compared to RW mind, to the point where you won’t go through with them. It’s been quite funny for me to see what people have done when they first set foot back in the RW.
There have been elaborate tattoos, the designs tweaked and honed during long, slow work days that over the winter months have probably grown too big and would have been sized down a week later. There have been expensive nights out to the strip clubs; I have heard rumors of someone dropping 800 dollars in one night for the pleasures of scantily clad women bouncing on their knee. Although I wouldn’t be surprised if some of that money found its way between the thighs of a local street walker. And, of course, there have been drunken binges, nights in bars that ended as the locals were starting to get up to go to work, hundreds of dollars spent on overpriced (but fresh) alcohol. All in all nothing too out of the ordinary or unexpected from an isolated, predominately, male society.
I had two major fantasies (three if you include my, as of yet unfulfilled, desire for a basket of kittens to be dropped on me) for my arrival back in the RW that I have since managed to fulfill. These were very basic, very mundane fantasies when compared with some of the other outbursts. The first, to eat a juicy rare steak, I knocked off on my first full night in town. It came from a restaurant called Mu, a favorite amongst ice people and was positively delicious. The pictures have been posted, you may have seen them. Moo. My second fantasy was to go swimming (yes, yes, I know, I have pretty boring fantasies) which I managed to knock off yesterday.
I visited the QE2 swimming complex which is about a 20 minute bus ride outside of CHC. Throughout the winter season I would find myself visiting their website, looking at all they had to offer and wondering how it would feel on my body, wondering what it would be like to once again cut through water, my arms propelling me faster and faster through the water. As far as community pools go the QE2 is pretty epic, by far the best pool I have ever visited. It is so much more than your basic pool. There are slides, diving tanks, a wave pool, a lazy river and a spa. Initially I was impressed by the swimming lanes as they are setup to be 50m in length. I had only ever swum in 25m lanes so this was a bit of change. It probably wasn’t the best idea to start my second lap off with the butterfly stroke as I barely made it half way before having to switch to an easier stroke.
There are 5 slides, all indoors, that cost 11 dollars extra (entry to the pool is only 5 dollars) for unlimited usage. I wasn’t terribly impressed by them; they were pretty small and designed for younger kids. What did come as a bit of shock to me was to be surrounded by so many little, screaming children. There were hundreds of them, all in an echoing stairwell, chattering and yelling, paying no mind to any one but themselves or their gaggle of friends. One of them even managed to, accidentally and lightly, punch me in the balls. Their little voices caused me to cringe each time, a thousand nails being drawn across a brittle blackboard. The NZ accent is greatly improved by puberty (I tend to compare the NZ accent with the British accent which I will forever associate with David Attenborough, whom I hold as the standard bearer for all English things vocalized).
The highlight for me was getting to use the diving tanks. They had your standard low and high diving board which I immediately used. I hadn’t been on a high diving board in years since pools in the states started removing them do to insurance concerns. They also had a series of three diving platforms which were opened to the public. I have only ever been to one other pool that had these and they were always closed. I jumped off the 5M and 7M platforms a few times. Each jump was positively terrifying as my legs scrambled to find footing in the air and my mind screamed insults at myself. The moment of leaping does require a bit of faith as the whole thing is quite risky and you need to remind yourself that the water, and not concrete, will receive you at the bottom. Splashing down was almost as thrilling as looking back up and seeing how far I had willingly fallen.
I really enjoyed comparing pool etiquette here to pool etiquette in the States. There seemed to be more disorder at the QE2 than you would find back in the states. The diving boards fed a constant stream of divers into the water with barely a pause for the previous diver to get out of the way. In all the pools I have been to before the rule, enforced by a scowling lifeguard, was to wait for the previous person to get to the ladder. The boarding zone for the water slides wasn’t monitored by a lifeguard. Rather each slide had an illuminated “go, stop” sign to direct traffic. You can imagine out how effective that was, people were going whenever they felt like it, people were going in pairs, people were going backwards and there was pushing and shoving. All in all there was a notable absence of rules. It was perfect. I loved it.
The only smear on the day was someone stealing my towel. I had left it on a chair near the lane pool and when I went to retrieve it at the end of the day it was gone. What baffles me is that it wasn’t even a good towel. It was probably about 5 years old, holey and very, very thin. This was not a towel you would want to snuggle up in longer than you had to. Drying yourself with it would cause sleight discomfort as the rough edges could rub you raw. But I loved it and since it was so thin it was perfect for traveling – it rolled up tight and dried fast. I ended up having to air-dry and use the sleeves of my shirt. Now I need to replace it. In one day someone stole my milk and my towel. Oh NZ, is this the best you can do?
Afterwards, sitting at the bus stop, waiting an hour for my bus an older woman sat down next to me. She was probably in her 40s but she wore the mask of someone much older, you could trace her difficulties through the deeply entrenched wrinkles that ran across her leathery face. Her left sandal, quite old, was falling apart and I wondered if she thought when she was a child if she would grow up to be someone who wears third hand sandals. We spoke intermittently and she, not surprisingly, immediately picked up my accent: “Ahh, you’re American.” I spoke of where I was from. She asked if NY was flat or if there were mountains. She inquired about the great Long Island beaches, which I will forever love even though they are dirty and lacking by NZ standards and then she asked me what’s “popular” in the US. To this I had to laugh and began the whole Antarctica story to explain why I haven’t been home in over a year. It gets old. Her bus came soon and she was off, leaving me on the bench still damp from the pool and quite happy with my day. |
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