Pull? Push? Pizza?

Words:  668; one video; one picture

            I flew from Moscow to Frankfurt yesterday, hoping to get a late evening flight to the States.  Unfortunately, there are no flights across the ocean after 5 in the afternoon.  I considered spending the evening in the airport, but then considered the fact that I had very little sleep the night before, and that I was not looking forward to much sleep in the future, I decided to get a hotel.

            I asked for the least expensive.  A Holiday Inn Express was suggested—no pool, no exercise room, 69 Euros.  Fully booked.  A regular Holiday Inn with an exercise room for 72 Euros.  OK.

            The problem with the 72 Euros was that the hotel is located in the wilderness and the only place to buy food was at the hotel bar—not even the hotel restaurant.  Not only this, but the Wifi cost 5 Euros per hour.  (In the end, I didn’t have to pay this because it didn’t work, anyway.  Why would the hotel charge such a fee when it costs them practically nothing to provide this service?  In the States, land of super-expensive, super-slow internet, Wifi is free nearly everywhere.)  

            While we are on the topic of complaints, I cannot help but mention my pet peeve when it comes to restaurants:  When the place has something on the menu, but then it is not available.  I really hate this.  In my experience, it often happens at places in developing countries when they want to pretend that they can do more than they can. Whenever it happens, I do my best to indignantly walk out of the room with my tail feathers ruffled.  I don’t expect to encounter such deception in the Western world. 

            At the super-expensive hotel bar, I ask for a menu.  I look through the thing and decid on an over-priced mozzarella pizza. I get the barman’s attention and make my choice. 

            “I’m sorry, we don’t have that pizza.”

            I was too tired to get upset or excited, so I simply closed the menu, said, “Ah, forget it,” and pushed the menu away.  I pranced out showing proper indignation and ruffled-ness.  I asked the receptionist if there are any shops nearby…no-THING!  The thing was, if the lady at the airport who found me the hotel would have warned me that there was absolutely no place to find food out there, I would have availed myself of the plethora of choices at the airport before getting on the shuttle. I was forced to go BACK to the bar and choose something that WAS truly available. 

            “Hi again.  What DO you have?” I asked with a smile.

            “We have all except that cheese pizza.  I sold the last one to that man over there.  I don’t know why you become angry.”

            I mumbled, “Well, it simply annoys me when restaurants have things on the menu, but then they DON’T have it.”  I’m sure he didn’t want to hear my explanation.  Whatever the case, I'm sure that he probably didn’t want to see me any more than I wanted to see him. 

            The next morning, I eagerly went to the exercise room.  In my jet lagged condition, I was three hours ahead of the present time, so I asked them to open it at 6:00. No big deal.

    The room was small and had some machines. Now when you think of typical items to have in an exercise room, what is top on the list? 

     ...a treadmill, right?  Maybe for a guy who ran a marathon, that's typical. Anyway, no treadmill. But they DID have bikes. I grabbed a couple hand-held weights and started peddling. Actually, I may NOT have used the hand weights if I was on a treadmill, so the bikes were good for me. I used the weights because I was super conscious of the fact that I was sitting on my butt.

            I did a 30 minute workout on the bike.  Felt great!  By the time I was finished, my mood had gone from normal to fantastic!  A typical exercise room, there were mirrors all around.  When I talk to the boys via Skype, we often need to turn off the video from their side because rather than talk to me, they are often distracted by seeing their faces on the screen.  After my time in the exercise room, I completely understand.  I LOVED making faces and grimaces.  I loved looking at my typically American smile.* I had my head phones on, and was jumping around to some great music.  I held onto the weights and completed smooth movements in every direction.

An interesting sign:

* I asked a student if she recognized any of the matroshka dolls.  First off, she said, well, they all have American teeth.  Americans have famously straight, white teeth.