I've gone lap swimming twice now in Germany and lap swimming with Germans seems contradictory to many of the descriptions of the German mindset that I read about in my recently completed German history book. The first time was on our trip to visit Claire's German friends in southern Germany. We went for a day trip to Lake Constance, where Claire spent a semester studying in college, with her friend Sabine and family. They live about an hour north of Konstanz by train in a town called Villingen. Konstanz is lovely, right on the Bodensee and we went to this recently redone, lovely thermal bath. View from the thermal bath.
After relaxing in the warm water and enjoying all the varieties of bubbles, jets, whirlpools and the general view out over the lake, Sabine and I left her son Oskar with Claire and went to the lap pool. Only as we walked out does Sabine tell me it is not heated (20˚C), "sehr frisch." The thermal pools were about 33˚C. So I knew it would be invigorating, but I was ready for a swimming workout after not swimming since July. Before long my legs and toes were freezing, I felt like I couldn't move them as fast as I wanted. Yet the only way to keep warm was to keep swimming, an oxymoron at best. But I'd swum in cold water before and it is very "frisch" and rejuvenating, usually worth it in the end.
The lanes though were a bit confusing. The whole time I wasn't sure how the lanes worked since there were no ropes between the lanes and no one seemed to be circle swimming. The pool wasn't super crowded though so I found a nice lane marker on the bottom and held position. Towards the end of my swim all of a sudden someone is in my lane, she had previously been swimming about one lane over. I thought maybe she was just swimming over to get out. But no. Since there was space I just crossed over and started swimming in what had previously been her lane. Odd but not worth long term contemplation. - Below is the "frisch" lap pool.
Now, however, I've learned that despite being stereotyped (and at times documented) as order loving people, Germans do not love order for lap swimming. There are tons of pools all over Berlin with wave pools, saunas, 25m pools, 50m pools, and halls with multiple pools. All the pools have lanes painted on the bottom. Why they bothered is a complete mystery to me. This week I went for my first swim in our neighborhood pool (conveniently just two blocks away). At first I just watched trying to figure out the system. Then I finally realized there was no system. Everyone just swims in their own imagined lane and the pool is not separated in terms of speed. So I found a section where I could squeeze in a swim around people who looked like their imagined lanes and mine might just line up. That worked for a while. Later here's this dude leisurely swimming around right where four of us were actually managing not to bump into each other, no need to be in the lap pool for him. People crash into each other all the time. You could never do the backstroke. Even two people who clearly came swimming together did not try to share a "lane." In general I can work with well used, crowded, public facilities - I like the idea of well-used shared space. However, part of the joy of lap swimming or for that matter any kind of physical exercise is being able to relax mentally so you can focus on relaxing physically and constantly worrying about the possibility of a concussion limits that ability for me. Somehow as I find myself wondering if instead of bringing my swim cap I should have brought my bike helmet, I'm thinking I should instead proactively stalk the pool to find out when its a bit emptier. We wouldn't be here if everyday wasn't a learning opportunity and people and nations had no contradictions the world would be quite boring. Moral of the story - bring a hard hat if you want to lap swim in Germany.
