Le Gym

          When the mood strikes, I enjoy an occasional gym workout. 

          Fortunately, I am not a gym snob.  I'll work out in just about any gym no matter how dirty, noisy, small or old fashioned.  My requirements are minimal.

          Unfortunately, the only gym here in Vaison la Romaine doesn't cut it.  I'm sure many prison gyms blow this one away.  On top of that, the hours are pretty bad:  Monday through Saturday 8:00 to 7:00 except Tuesdays which does not open until noon and Saturdays which closes early and Sundays which is closed altogether.  Plus, the guy who owns it (who is a nice guy but likes to fly airplanes) takes off whenever the mood strikes and closes his gym for several days at a time.

          That's why I was pretty glad when I found that there is another gym in the region -- in the town of Nyons, about 12 miles away.  I went there one day and met the owner -- a guy named Serge.

          I was enchanted!  And I told him so.

          Unfortunately, that's about all I could say.  And Serge's English is as minimal as my French.  But we communicated using international gym rat sign language.  By pointing at various body parts and gym equipment and making other noises and gestures we found that we understood each other well enough. 

          Serge is a legitimate bodybuilder, which I never expected to find in the region.  He's competed in a lot of French competitions.  Here's a picture of him in his underwear:

Serge

          I signed up at Serge's gym.  It's adequate.  I've put some mildly amusing video of it at the end of the blog.

         There is another interesting side-benefit to driving to the gym in Nyons:  roadkill.  On the way to the gym this morning I saw a dead animal in the road.  From a distance, I thought it was a pig.  It was huge!  But when I got right up to it and stopped and looked, I realized I'd seen pictures of that animal before, but never in real life.  It had a pointy snout, big claws and a stripe on the top of it's head.  I thought, "that's a badger!"  And sure enough, when I got home and looked it up I learned that badgers definitely live in the area and are the largest wild carnivore in France:

          http://www.francethisway.com/wildlife/badger.php

         Oh, and here's that video of Serge's gym for anyone with too much time on their hands: