In the changing room there are another set of rules.
And I don’t just mean the don’t-look-below-the-waistline-rule.
I’m a white-assed, freckle-endowed, non-muscular, burn-easy Irishman in Barcelona.
Today, having been at the pool, I found myself in the midst of a very busy male changing room, Catalan being spoken all around me, with a race of people who a) actually have summers where you can go to the >outdoor< pool; b) who have white-asses, sure, but who are already tanning deeply though it’s only early May; c) and who have grown up in swimming pool changing rooms, unlike me.
There’s an unhurried cool in Barcelona swimming pool changing rooms; and this contrasts wildly with my hurried-to-get-my-underwear-on style, one still-wet foot in the air, other foot balanced precariously atop a flipflop.
I realise I’m getting it all-wrong. I’m letting my shorts drip on an otherwise dry floor; my swimming attire was cool in 2005; I haven’t brought a hairbrush, nor skin moisturiser for that matter, nor a separate towel for my face. I’m an Irishman for God’s sake, we don’t DO that kind of thing.
It’s a cultural thing, tell me it is, it’s about the only comfort I can take. I wonder if another year, or ten, of post-pool Saturday-morning experiences will ever give me that natural changing room cool? Personally, I doubt it.