Swimming Lessons / Der Schwimmkurs

Nikolas' first swimming lesson was a cultural experience, to say the least. Three year olds are also allowed to take swimming lessons here, or at least Nikolas was allowed to sign up. The details of it all were slim, the sign-up done by email, with the only instructions being show up at the pool at 2:45 with a swimsuit and towel. The family who lived here last year took advantage of these swim lessons and thought they were good, so we weren't going into it completely blind - just clueless.

When we arrived, the lobby area was filled with parents and little kids, and a grumpy lady at the check-in booth told us the woman from the swimming union was running late. The hallway leading to the locker room was securely barricaded behind a card-activated triple-decker turnstyle. Since everyone else was waiting, we waited too. Not long after, a wet, chunky man in a teeny-tiny Speedo appeared on the locker room side of the turnstyle. "Children should get a free entry card from the desk and come with me. If parents want to accompany their children, they must pay the entry fee," he said.

If parents want to accompany their children??? We paid the entry fee and shuffled our way with the rest of the group (who had also paid their entry fees) into the locker room, which was co-ed and a maze of skinny aisles lined with lockers. I assume there were changing rooms somewhere, because there were middle age women in tiny string bikinis standing around and more men in teeny tiny speedos, and none of them were in the process of undressing. It was total chaos, with the group of parents and children stuffed into a skinny aisle, children being stripped of their clothing, jostling each other, really too crammed together to move about properly. The wet, chunky man directed the parents to a woman sitting on a bench who was collecting the payment for the lessons and said, "Children, come with me. Parents, if you want to watch your children, please remove your socks and shoes and stores them in a locker."

If you want to watch your children? I quickly dumped my shoes and socks in a locker, but by this point, Nikolas had become a little clingy and did not want to go with the wet, chunky man. I can't say I blame him. If we hadn't paid our entry fees, I would have been inclined just to leave, but since we were invested in the experience we pleaded and coaxed him to go with the group. He was having nothing of it when, miraculously, a second teacher (a young woman also in a wet bathing suit, but it was a real bathing suit and not a tiny bikini) appeared and said, "Do you want to come with me?" Nikolas loves pretty women and went right to her. Phew.

After that things improved quickly. Salzburg has several outdoor pools for the summer and one indoor pool. It's a great pool with a children's area with pirate ship and a climbing wall rising out of the deeper water. The kids did a lot of kicking and splashing and right at the end Nikolas got to dive for a ring on the bottom, which is his favorite thing to do. In this blurry photo, Nikolas is the one with the blue goggles on in the middle. Anna Maria, his teacher, was great and without her the whole experience would have been a complete disaster. Now that we know the ropes, we'll be better prepared next week. At least I think we will.