Sport for all

Don't get me wrong, I'm not claiming to be a great athelete. I'm not even a mediocre athelete. But that still doesn't stop me from thinking that the people of Buzău have missed a trick where sports are concerned.

Take the gym I've started going to. Full of modern equipment and offering regular classes of abs, aerobics and tae-bo. Fantastic! I'd found a new passtime and, hopefully a way to meet people so I happily trotted along to my first class. Having got changed I was then beginning to get a bit scared. There were only a few of us in the group and a huge mirror covered wall. They'd soon see that I was not up to the challenge of 45 minutes of aerobic workout.

Turns out that I had nothing to worry about. The class basically consisted of stretches, repeated 16 times over. All the instructor did was count to eight....and then count to eight again. I felt cheated out of a complicated dance type routine (that I would never have been able to follow in English, let alone Romanian) and, although the one where you have to swing your leg round close to your head is bloody difficult (and meant that the next day I had trouble sitting down) I think even a septegenarian Jane Fonda would be wondering when the aerobic part of the aerobics was happening.

So I decided to try the swimming pool. It was blowing a gale and trying to snow but I trecked to the "Aqua Center" across town. I found it to be almost completely empty! I looked around the sparkling marble lobby (where were all the vending machines?) but couldn't see anywhere to pay so I headed to the changing rooms where there seemed to be some kind of party going on. Several staff members in uniform were sat round a table drinking fizzy pop and eating crisps. I walked in and asked if I had to pay here, to which one of the women replied "Cine?" (Who?). Feeling doubly intimidated I repeted my request and evetually got my ticket (more expensive than in France!) and was allowed to change in the corner (there were not changing rooms, per se, just portable screens on wheels with a bench behind to hang your clothes on. I had a locker but had to leave the key behind. Still, with staff to swimmers ratio of 3:1 I felt sure that my smalls were being well looked after.

The pool itself is modern, well maintained and pretty warm. It's also a fulll size Olympic one which seems a little unneccesary given the fact that you'd have to swim in zig zags to actually bump into someone.

There is the unpleasant problem of the lingering aftertaste of the water. Somebody told me it was the cleaning pastilles that left the water looking white and cloudy. I'd not noticed this personally but the water certainly tasted rank! For the rest of the day I felt like my mouth had been sandblasted. Not very nice and perhaps the reason for the low frequentation of the said facilities.

If the manager of Aqua Center is reading this, you need to;

1. employ less staff (two of them were hiding in the toilets when I went in) to help decrease prices

2. open at more convenient times. 9-6pm Monday to Friday maybe be convenient for your staff but it's not great for anyone who goes to school or college or works a regular job (ie everyone)

3. sort out that nasty taste!

on my way back from the pool I saw a youth flailing around on inline skates. The light was fading and temperature below zero but he still insisted on wobbling along in a very uncertain manner, in the middle of the road, swerving from angry drivers, beeping their horns in their Dacias/4x4s.

Maybe there is hope for Sport in Buzău after all - with determination like that he could go far.

Or he could end up in Casualty!