Wednesday 26 September 2007

A day of French firsts

I saw a squirrel today!! and it was a proper red squirrel, not one of those fat, American grey squirrels which have been out-competing the native reds. They are so awesome (the red squirrels I mean) and so much cuter than our mangy possums, I don't know how foreigners can think possums are cute when their possum-substitutes are squirrels. So that was a first for me, I have to buy a bag of nuts so I can get them to stay still for long enough to take a picture. I've only seen them once though, so I might not see them again.

My other French first was a gym class, actually I've never been to a gym class before anywhere, so it wasn't just a French first. It was a pretty fun class, I took the spin class, which is where you are on a bike. The bikes are much more like proper bikes when compared to the cardio-bikes you get in gyms. They take a bit of getting used to though, the spin bike, because they have no free-wheel on them, if the wheels are spinning you have to be pedalling. I nearly stacked it during the class, I'd got a bit of speed up and then wanted a bit of a break so stopped pedalling, thankfully I was sitting down because otherwise I think I may have fallen off. That would not be good, falling off a stationary bike in the middle of a packed spin class.

Of course the class was all in French, but I could follow a surprising amount, mainly because the gym instructor was really big on gestures. Plus he didn't say too many words, just "resistance" with a French accent (meaning increase the resistance) and "attak". I just increased the resistance whenever he did and got out of the saddle when everyone else did. There was one guy in the class who was seriously going off! He was an older guy too, maybe late 40's, all decked out in his cycling gear, clapping along to the music, whistling and yelling "allez" whenever the resistance was increased. Some people really like their spin classes. He certainly made it more amusing.

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