Friday 2 August 2013

A Typical Day, Part 3

The first thing most people do (after they have rested) is to claim a spot on the lawn and put up their tent.  Sometimes, the place where we are staying at will allow us to sleep inside which is nice when the place is air conditioned and it is really hot outside or raining, though some still prefer to sleep outside in their tents for the privacy.  It is a little odd sleeping in a gym filled with a hundred other people.


The next order of business is to take a shower.  The quality of our showers varies quite a bit from place to place.  The shower rooms in schools are usually pretty good, but when we stay in a city park, we usually have to use the shower rooms from the nearby city pool which don't tend to be in very good shape.  Often, less than half the nozzles work and those that do spray the water with enough pressure to blast the tan off our skin.  The nice showers actually have hot water.  A couple times, we actually had private stalls with curtains!  I successfully went through all of high school without showering with a bunch of other guys, but that's simply not possible here.  I get a little uncomfortable when one of the older men strikes up a conversation with me when he's standing in front of my buck naked.

Once we've showered and setup our tent, we usually have a few hours of free time before supper.  A lot of people use this time for an afternoon nap.  Most try to find some wifi to reconnect with the rest of the world.  Sometimes it's available from the place we're staying at, but other times we need to head into town looking for a McDonald's or any other place that offers free wifi, and sometimes we are just too far from civilization and have to do without.

4 comments:

  1. There was a great joke (may have been a meme on the internet) years back that referenced the correlation between your age and your comfort level with respect to nudity in a change room. It was something like:

    "As a teenager, you change with a towel wrapped around you.

    As a young man, you change facing the locker, and get dressed quickly.

    As a middle-aged man, you change at whatever pace you feel like in whatever direction you happen to be standing at the time.

    As an older man, you strip down naked as soon as you get into the change room and walk around naked as long as possible before you need to get dressed to leave."

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    Replies
    1. Yes, that pretty much matches what I've seen on this tour.

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  2. Reminds me of when I used to go to the Y in Cambridge at noon and once got into a discussion about the old testament prophets with an older Catholic priest and all this went on without either of us having any clothes on. Oh well, we pretty much look al the same.
    I enjoy your blog Mike, keep up the good work.
    Gene

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