The French Gym

I had a gym date this morning with a mom from Julian's school. Her daughter Lili (short for Clementine) is one of Julian's friends, the first one he pointed out to me as "not feeling shy around". Anyway, Lili's family is new to La Rochelle- they moved here from Angouleme this summer and Lili, like Julian, was missing her friends from before so maybe they sensed that in each other and bonded a little. Her mom joined a gym and invited me to come along so we went today to a group muscle toning class. The place was hilarious because everything is english- the place is called "Garden Fitness" and the class is called "BodyPump" they also have step aerobics- called "step" and yoga-ish classes, one called "Stretching" and the other is called "BodyBalance". Hilarious. I can't even pronounce them correctly beacuse it just feels weird to say english words with a french accent. Of course the teacher was a totally french guy and all the instructions were in his hyper-enthusiastic french shouted over the accompanying american pop music! It felt good to have a proper workout and it was actually pretty hard. Though I've been quite active here I haven't gotten the kind of workouts I was getting at Bally's back in Chicago. I must have gotten weaker in the meantime!

Tomorrow the teachers are on strike so none of us have school. France is striking everywhere at the moment! Luckily I don't depend on any public transportation for work (I go everywhere by bike or foot) because it sounds like hell for commuters to Paris....

Thanks to everyone sending me warm fuzzies from abroad in response to my last post. It helps and means a lot to hear the outpouring of support and affection. We'll try to call and touch base with the family groups on Thanksgiving and try and feel the togetherness via telephone! (Obviously it is not a holiday here so we'll be at work and school during the day! I may try to find a couple americans and have them over for dinner though!)