Peanut Butter + Swimming = AWESOME!

Saturday morning we wake up and the first thing I do is stir the peanut butter.  I always hated doing this in Seattle because no matter how careful you are some of the peanut oil spills over the side.  But this time I was delighted to stir the peanut butter.  And I was delighted to eat it on toast for the first time in nearly 2 months!! We brought a small jar with us when we came but that was long gone many many weeks ago.  I used to eat peanut butter every single morning in Seattle.  SO SO good.
After breakfast Josie had swim practice. On Saturdays it is always at the same pool, the one we missed all of our connections to last Saturday.  This time we made all of our connections and walked into the pool right at 9:00!  Yay.

Even more exciting was me remembering to bring my swim stuff because from what I could gather there was open swim during the time Josie was at practice.  Wouldn't that be so great if I could swim while she was practicing?  I packed my swim bag reminding myself to keep my expectations in check.  I could just go for a walk if I couldn't swim.  But I was still hopeful.

I drop Josie off and ask another swim parent if he knows if it is open swim in the part of the pool that the JFK team is not using.  He said it is!  I walk to the other entrance, pay my 5 € and I'm in!  Put my stuff in a locker and head out to the pool.  It is a glorious 50 meter pool with tons of windows.  AHHHHH!  SO nice.  I ask the life guard if it is just open swim because there were lanes dividing up 2/3 of the pool which was being used by the JFK team and then there were three lanes open but with no dividers.  He said yes and pointed to the open three lanes.  I said, oh, so you just have to watch out for each other people.  And he said yes and looked at me like I was dumb.  Well, if you know anything about lap swimming you know that typically there are lanes and if there are two people you just split the lane and each person goes there and back on their side of the lane.  If there are more than 2 people then you circle swim by always staying to the right side of the lane both there and back.  In this open three lane area everyone was just swimming willy nilly. There were about 15-20 people and about 6 of us were freestyle trying to lap swim.  Even though it wasn't quite as relaxing and energizing as being able to just swim and not have to avoid crashing into someone it was still really super great.  I knew I was out of swimming shape but was pretty tired after about 15 minutes of hard swimming.  Right about then the lifeguard gets my attention and says I could use one of the lanes.  He must have gotten the attention of a few other lap swimmers because before too long there were about 5 of us circle lap swimming.  Now, this was it!!  I had arrived.  Now that I didn't have to avoid anyone I had much more energy and ended up happily swimming another 45 minutes.  This makes me realize how tiring it is to constantly be on the alert, constantly watching out for people or afraid of doing something wrong.  Which is how it has felt for much of our time here in Berlin. We are constantly on the alert.  No wonder we are so tired all of the time.  Living, or in this case, swimming is so much easier and less demanding when you are familiar and now what to expect.  In Seattle an hour was my normal so this felt good to be able to do it again here in such a nice pool.  Come to find out that the pool, Schwimmhalle Finkensteinallee was built as a training facility for Hitler's army.  And then later used by the US military.  It really is a great pool.  I decide that this will be our Saturday routine.  Yay!!

Later in the day we head out to the park we found while Marty was gone and go to Indian food for dinner.  Josie (and I) must've been so hungry from all the swimming that she didn't even complain about going to Indian food this time... well, OK, she did a little but not much.  I had forgotten just how hungry I get after I swim.