Splash

by Danielle

I know you will appreciate that I’ll spare you the horrors of bathing suit shopping in Paris. Suffice it to say that there are a plethora of expensive string bikinis available, and not much else. Why I left my favorite Target brand tankini in storage, I will never know…

There are not one but two new indoor swimming pools within a short walk of our apartment, and I’ve been eager to take Joseph. My brother and I grew up swimming on a highly ranked team (Go Tuckahoe Tigers!) and spent our childhood summers at the pool, so I’ve been eager to expose Joseph to the intoxicating scent of chlorine mixed with SPF 1000.

It was on impulse that I decided one day to take him. We’d shopped for suits the week before but I’d hoped to check out the pool once on my own before going together. I was certain I’d misunderstood the opening hours, or that there were some rules I was not aware of that would preclude us from swimming. I wanted it to be perfect, without any disappointments.

You pay at the front desk (1.80 euros), and head downstairs (after admiring the skaters on the ice rink) to the locker room. I was not prepared for a coed experience! Not that there was any nudity, but I am so used to the sexes being seperate, that each time I saw a man I was startled, thinking I had made a wrong turn somewhere and was in the wrong place. It didn’t help that signage was poor and the flow of the space, especially the changing cabins, bizarre.

Joseph was a great sport as I stumbled through the rooms, and he seemed especially tickled to have to walk through a teeny wading pool (not sure why, to clean feet?) before climbing stairs up to the pools.  Oh by the way, two things you should know about French pools; swimming caps are required (cruel), and so are speedo-style suits for men (cruel? you decide).

There were four pools in addition to a huge lap pool. We spent most of our time in the kiddie pool which had about a foot of water and a few playful features (fountains, some levers that controled waterflow into a sculpture) that were not operational at the time. Joseph loved it, we spent easily an hour in the kiddie pool and then moved on to the next size up, where he practiced jumping in from various locations. I was thrilled that he wasn’t afraid of the water and even when his head went completely underwater (twice) he did not get upset at all. Could he be a Tuckahoe Tiger in the making? Only time will tell.