Quand en France....

One of the goals of this summer in France was to learn and experience French culture first hand. Well this lesson was one step removed from being first hand, but a lesson it was. One of the attractions of Bellac was the public swimming pool. We had been planning to visit it shortly after we arrived to escape the heat, but the weather quickly cooled and beating the heat was not a high priority. But this week the heat arrived back in Bellac as well as Steve's nephew Paul, his wife Sybil and the two girls. They were off to the pool for the afternoon,  

Bellac Piscine

and we were to join them later that afternoon, mainly due to the fact that we can only get five in the car. Steve drove them over to the pool, and waited until they were safely in the water. The lesson we were all about to learn, and it does involve the age old question, Why do so many European men like wearing "speedo" like swim suits?" The fashion faux pas that Paul committed, and paved the knowledge highway for us was that men can not wear anything into the pool that might be considered worn outside the pool, such as the North American hybrid bathing suit/short. Paul was pointed out by the life guard and it was explained that he couldn't wear his shorts into the pool. The pool fortunately or unfortunately had a spare pair of approved maillot de bain for him to change into. This meant a shopping trip for us to buy a pair of the approved maillot de bain for ourselves. The family clothing store did not carry any, and our next stop was the Eco Gem. It is a mini department store. The other part of French culture, or commerce is that Monday is still considered a day off for many, especially here in smaller towns, and the Eco Gem was shuttered, as were our dreams of a cool dip in the pool. On returning home, I did some research into this dress code rule, and found that we are not the first tourists to find that our perfectly good bathing suits were not perfectly good in France. The rules only apply to public swimming pools and not private pools or hotels and resorts.

In actual fact, this is a law harking back to 1903 when longer swimming shorts were banned by the Government and despite this rather tricky subject being raised numerous times in the French Parliament for an update, so far its a firm “non”.

So we thought that maybe that the pool wasn't for us, and unlike wine and brie, it would be a part of French culture that we just weren't ready for, or they weren't ready for us. When we found out that Paul had purchased a book of 10 admissions to the pool, we thought that maybe we would have to live up to the traveler's moto, When In Rome...., so the next day we were off to Eco Gem to hunt down the perfect slip de bain or un boxer, and Eco Gem had both. We thought that we would ease into this fashion, so the boxer was the choice. It reminded me of bathing suits that I had as a kid, but that was a long time ago and a few changes have taken place. The next hurdle to cross was the size. Holding up my first choice, large, to my waist, I thought that there was no way....., and after Steve tried on the xxxl (7)  he found that it was too large. We decided that a xxl (6) would the the size of choice. Thank heavens that they were only €12.50 so it wasn't a big investment to be a real France nageur.  Also the cashier assured us that if it doesn't fit, we could exchange or refund as long as we had the receipt. He was a nice guy, and asked if we wanted him to speak English to us. The whole process of buying a tight fitting, all revealing swim suit was way out of my comfort zone and I was happy to complete the transaction in English. He seem surprised that we would even want to swim in Bellac's pool.

Bellac Piscine

So as our heat wave continues again, it will be off to the pool this afternoon and a chance to go European..... 

For those of you following the comings and goings of the house, we are now over-flowing. Tuesday brought the arrival of Donna and Cindy, forcing the youngest 2 on to air mattresses, and later today, Evelyn and her daughter Olivia arrive, and her air mattress is already inflated and Olivia can have the love seat, (two hours late thanks to a last minute change at the airlines). Saturday brings Thespian (Spin), the cot and then Sunday, the final arrival of Evie and Kevin. They get to toss Paul and Sybil out of the Master Bed room on to either the last remaining air mattress, couches or where ever they can find. I am feeling a bit like Basil Faulty trying to keep this place running smoothly.... If I only had Manuel to help.

Sorry for the formatting inconsistencies but Blogger is not a very intuitive program, and the minute you try to drop in pictures it does strange things to the text. Ce n'est pas de ma faute.