I have an irrational and overwhelming desire to go swimming right now. I think it started with an idea, hey, we could go swimming tonight, rather than bowling or watching a movie or any of the normal Friday night activities. Then I started looking online for a place to go swimming, and they just don't seem to exist. In Ottawa, there are about 30 public, indoor swimming pools, where they have open swim times or lane swim times, where you just show up with a bathing suit and a couple of dollars, and you get to swim. There are also three indoor wave pools, where you show up with a couple more dollars and get to swim in waves. But these places don't seem to exist around here. The only pools I can seem to find are either outdoor or members-only or both. It seems downright silly to me to join a gym just to go swimming once in a while. And wave pools? They don't even seem to exist except as part of outdoor water parks. And so, what started as a silly idea has become an obsession. Pretty much every day, I hop online, and search in a new and different way for a place to swim. Maybe a college or university? Students only. Maybe the Y? Members only (and the membership there is more than many gyms!).
Really, Philadelphia, your summer is not that much longer than Ottawa's. You get, what, five more weeks of good swimming weather, and that's enough for you to feel like indoor pools are a waste of wall? I can understand the lack of curling rinks, but really, I wouldn't have thought of indoor swimming pools as a Canadian concept. Maybe it's a local thing...
Any thoughts?
3 comments:
Fear of lawsuits have put a serious crimp in open pools. The insurance requirements are massive if you want to have open swimming. For members only you can get them to sign a waiver that makes it almost impossible to sue.
-Justin
OH I love to swim. I think the only place we have around here (other than a gym or college) is a community center. It's been hard for me not to swim either. I moved from Southern CA where swiming is a year round thing to the south where we haven't seen sun in days :(
Chalk up one more good thing about living in Canada!
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