I was feeling really lonely last week. Nia’s after-school activities kicked in, which means she’s now gone for 10 hours three days a week. And Nick’s schedule is even worse—a GOOD day is 11 hours away. When he has night events, like last Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, he leaves at the crack of dawn and rejoins us just as it’s time to get into bed.
Normally, I can get my people fixes through small interactions throughout the day: a shared smile, a few exchanged words, a kind gesture, or maybe even a short conversation. But interactions on the street are not common in German culture. Everyone keeps to themselves and goes about their own business. I’m also still working on finding my place here. The reality of relocation is that finding your people and organizations takes 6–9 months, which is about when I’ll start to feel settled here. In the meantime, I expect a lot more lonely days. It’s all part of the process.
Whenever I feel the funk creeping in, working out is my favorite reset button. I already rack up serious mileage just running daily errands—my fitness tracker is boasting an average of 12,000 steps a day—but I’ve been seriously neglecting strength training. There’s a free gym at the Consulate nearby, but it’s tucked away in the basement in a dark, crowded space that does not make me want to visit.
Meanwhile, I’ve spent weeks eyeing a sleek, upscale fitness club on my errand route. One morning, I decided to pull the trigger, walk in, and ask for a tour.
I was hooked from the second I stepped through the door. The lobby had a small café serving tea, coffee, and protein shakes, where several groups of people were sitting post-workout, chatting and lingering over coffee. As I glanced beyond the lobby and took in the lofty ceilings, light streaming from floor-to-ceiling windows, and row upon row of shiny, top-of-the-line machines, I knew this was going to be hard to pass up. And I hadn’t even begun the tour yet!
Past gym memberships have taught me to fear the slick sales pitch and the iron-clad contracts you need an attorney to escape. But this was delightfully chill. The membership manager bought me a drink at the café, led me over to a desk, and ran over the options: class packs, monthly passes, or annual tiers, with typical discounts for longer commitments (plus the obligatory registration fee).
Then came the kicker: every new member gets a complimentary 75-minute orientation with a certified trainer. This person sits down to map out your specific goals, walk you through proper machine usage, build a customized routine, and put you on one of those high-tech biometric scales that itemizes muscle mass and visceral fat. Even better, you get another free session every 8-weeks to jump back on the scale, measure progress, and adjust your routine with the trainer. I love squeezing every drop out of a perk—especially when it’s built-in! My orientation is next week, and I’ll definitely report back on whether it is as good as it sounds.
From there, the tour just kept delivering. What looked compact from the street turned out to be an athletic compound: two expansive group studios, an endless floor of cardio and resistance equipment, a sizeable stretching zone, and a mezzanine featuring a full CrossFit rig and a boxing ring. And it didn’t stop there. Next up was the indoor pool where I caught a glimpse of a water aerobics class in session, giving me an instant pang of nostalgia for my beloved classes back in Bend.
The variety was incredible, especially the schedule of around 120 classes a week. They even have specialized technique classes for things like swimming strokes or kettlebells—invaluable for someone like me who wants to try new things, but gets easily overwhelmed when it comes to new sporty things…
I booked a guest pass for the next morning to test out a Pilates class, and it passed with flying colors. Still, I hemmed and hawed for a couple of days. My inner penny-pincher scolded me for paying top dollar when I have access to a perfectly good free option, while my sanity argued that my physical and mental well-being in a brand-new country was worth the investment. Sanity won. I signed up for a flexible monthly membership to test the waters.
Eight days in, I’ve already burned through five classes: Pilates, Yoga, Full-body Toning, Water Aerobics, and Water Zumba. Every single class is instructed purely in German, and my vocabulary for anatomical parts and movement verbs is essentially nonexistent. Thankfully, visual learning has saved the day. I always deploy my go-to phrase right away with the teacher: Ich spreche nur ein bisschen Deutsch—that’s “I speak only a bit of German” for you non-German speakers. From there, I park myself in the middle with a good view of the teacher and mimic the surrounding bodies like a hawk. It works surprisingly well!
Of course, surviving the local gym scene requires navigating the unwritten German playbook. Germans are not shy about pointing out rule violations, so I approached the pool with high anxiety. Do I shower before walking in? Where do shoes stay? Are water bottles banned from pool decks? Miraculously, I navigated the water aerobics etiquette without incident.
I can’t say the same for Pilates, though. I set my mat down next to an older woman who, a few minutes later, shifted her mat backward to line up with the row behind us. Assuming she was making space for late arrivals, I followed her lead and slid my mat back in line with hers. Turns out, that was NOT why she moved—she was trying to get a clear view of the instructor! She made quite a fuss about it, and while I couldn’t understand most of what she said, I apologized profusely and yanked my mat back to its former spot. It’s wild how easily well-intentioned gestures turn into cross-cultural blunders. On the bright side, locals don’t nurse long, silent grudges like polite Midwesterners do; the moment the transgression is corrected, everyone moves on.
Mistakes aside, the daily gym visits have done wonders for my mood. Intriguingly, the gym seems to have its own relaxed social contract. Members say hello and goodbye as they come and go, and a few have even struck up conversations with me. I’m loving it. Who knows? Maybe I’ll even come out of it with a new friend–that’s precisely how I found one of my closest pals back in Bend!
Okay, this post has gotten absurdly long! If you’re still reading, I’ll leave you with one more new delight I found: the gym’s hydration station. This is no standard water fountain, people; it dispenses still water, fruit juice, iced tea, cola, and bubbly water—all for free!
At first, I thought sparkling water on tap had to be a unique luxury, but I’ve since discovered that the Consulate’s water dispenser has bubbly water, as well as Nia’s school.
Clearly the gym takes it next level, but how fun to always have sparkling water available as a choice when you go to refill your water bottle?! That’s it for today, friends. Thanks for reading.
