Observations of a foreign land

Weather Report: Mostly cloudy and damp Correction: Sunny and nice (I started this post yesterday but didn't feel the inspiration so I put it off)

I had a great walk around the neighborhood today because the weather was bearable more importantly I NEEDED that sun for my soul.

A couple observations of European living:

1) Everything is smaller here, houses, cars, yards, streets, shops and restaurants to name a few.

2) People have chickens in their yards. Yes, chickens in the middle of town. Don't be afraid these are not rampant garbage eating chickens but proper free range (there is a fence) hens. I thought this was just a fluke when I was walking around but saw it in several yards.

3) Now #3 is the most perplexing to Tremaine and I. This has happened to us at other places but the gym, fitness gym, is where is occurs most frequently. People say "Ciao" aka "bye" when they leave the locker room at the gym. Previous to this good-bye I had no contact with these people nor had I seen them on a regular basis. We never had a moment while in the locker room that warranted a good-bye. There was no "we both come to the gym at the same time but never talked but feel a connection with each other because of the similar interest in moving extreme amounts of steel" with these people that in my world prompts a good-bye.

I feel that a "hi" has to precede a "bye" at some point during the process. But that is simply my humble opinion. Maybe its just a creepy locker room thing because last year at a completely different gym it was guaranteed to happen if someone was leaving the locker room to go home. They would not however say it if they were simply leaving the locker room to go out on the gym floor.

Maybe its a testosterone thing maybe its just creepy but if anyone could shed some light on this it would be greatly appreciated.

TJW