It’s very difficult to exercise in Berlin but there is no shortage of jam-filled donuts. Everyone here eats cakes all day long, or hotdogs, or pizzas covered in speck (like bacon but fattier) but no one is fat. What is going on?
I want a piece of the action of course. I also want a piece of every type of strudel available at the market but don’t want to go home morbidly obese. I can’t afford two tickets for the plane.
The first barrier to exercise I’ve come across is pants. Pants are an ongoing issue for me. I went to the Galeria, which is like Myer, to buy a tracksuit. The pants alone were 80 euros. That’s about 160 Australian dollars. I couldn’t believe it and refused to pay.
The next day I went out jogging in a pair of threadbare leggings I’ve had for about eight years. It was about six degrees and lots of people were staring at me. When I got back my thighs were cold for about two hours. I just couldn’t get them warm, even when I sat on the heater covered in a doona. I thought I might have to have my legs amputated. The following day I got a cold that lasted a week.
Then I tried to go to the gym. It was practically empty when I entered. I asked the lady behind the counter how much it was for a day pass and she said “25 Euros”. I said “I’m sorry, are you sure?” and she said “Yes, of course”. I thought the poor woman was having trouble with her English so I got a piece of paper and wrote “25 Euros” on it and showed it to her. She said “Yes, why not?”
WHY NOT? That’s about 50 Australian dollars to go to the gym for one day.
It was too much for me. I started crying and yelling at everyone in there “What’s your secret huh? How come everyone eats donuts in this country but no one gets fat? Yet no one can afford to go to the gym and no one goes jogging in leggings. How come only foreigners and old people get fat?”
I was still screaming “I know what you’re up to” when the police arrived.
Well, that’s what I wish I’d said. Instead I said ‘ok’ and went across the road for a nice jam-filled donut and strudel chaser.
2 comments:
Maybe they don't really eat them. They just buy the strudels and hide them down the back of the couch. That's why you should never stick your hands down the back of a German's couch when you're visiting. They'll be embarrassed and you'll have sticky hands.
This morning the guy at woodend train station made me to go into the ladies and check if they were dirty or not becuase someone made a complaint...he said all he could see was a bit of toilet paper on the ground. I agreed just a bit of toilet paper on the ground but what we were both afraid to say to eachother was there were traces of skiddys on both bowls ...my train couldnt have come sooner
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