In training January 15, 2009

When I used the gyms in New York, I dreaded the roaming trainers who would stop you as you work out only to show you you have no idea what you’re doing and that you need them to train you. The other day, a trainer (or “midrach”) showed me an exercise on the equipment where you put your arms on padded sides and hold yourself up as lift your legs. He showed me an exercise that hurt so much the next day, but he didn’t try to sell on a package, thankfully.

 

Today,  I was doing it again, when another “midrach” saw me and stopped in his tracks.

“Did another trainer show you how to do that?”

“Um, yes.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “Oh.. ok.”

“Is there something wrong with it?”

“Um, no, not really,” he said as he shook his head, frowned, but continued to stand there.

“Is there a better way to do it?”

“It’s not that. It’s just that I know of another exercise you can do. It works your Gasdfjs Ksdjfaksd muscle.”
“My what?”

Annoyed, he repeated, “The Fadfj JSdfas muscle. It’s not quite your ab muscle, but the exercise works the ab muscle as it works the GFshdfa sadfsd. It works here,” he pointed to the general abdominal and leg area.

Confused, I tried to move away from the machine to see if he wanted to show me this magical move, but he illustrated by bending slightly and said, “It’s this move where you bend your knees at an angle, and then take your knees to your chest.”

“Isn’t that what I’m doing?”

“No. You need to pull your legs higher.”

“Higher? I don’t think that’s possible.” I tried to do the move, but there was just no possible way my legs could go higher, even in peak physical condition.

Instead of showing me, he just kept explaining the move as “No, but higher.”

“I don’t understand how this move is different from the one the other guy showed me.”

“Well, if he showed you this move. He must have had a good reason.”

“What reason?!”

“I don’t know, but he must have suggested it because of something.”

“Um, now I’m scared. Thanks.”

“No, don’t be.  Next time you see him, ask him. But also, if you want a trainer, let me know,” and he walked away.

 

 Ok, so obviously all the “midrachim” are told to show people the same move on that machine. This guy was trying to lure me in based on the false hope of a better move with higher leg lifting, but he was so unpleasant, I would never consider a session with him.

 

After that, I walked to the weight area and watched a woman with her male trainer. I’ve always found it awkward to see a trainer stretch the trainee. The positions they get themselves in seem.. compromising. Usually, the two are chatting away so it’s not so bad and I find the contrast amusing. But this time the trainee woman was lying down, eyes closed, in what appeared to be a slightly painful euphoria while  her oversized trainer looked down at her intently as he stretched her legs. I wondered if they were married, not to eachother of course.

 

This is why I could never have a trainer. I don’t want to chat as I work out, I don’t want Tantric style stretching sessions, and I don’t want someone telling me they are showing me moves to work out muscles I’m not sure I believe exist.

Cookies! January 11, 2009

Today at work:

 

Bus drivers January 7, 2009

Now that I have a job, I ride the bus in Jerusalem much more often, and I have noticed something.

 

The bus drivers in this country are crazy- period. Especially in Jerusalem.

 

Since I’ve gotten to this city, I have had to learn a few things:

 

1.  If you don’t know the Hebrew word for driver, then you will after your first bus ride, because not one ride on a bus is without someone yelling “NAAHAAG!” from the back of the bus because the driver is too impatient to use the back mirrors to make sure everyone has exited the bus. One time, there were three to four “NAAHAAG!”s for one stop because the driver kept closing the door every 5 seconds because the bus was so packed he couldn’t see people were trying to make their way out… or pretended not to see…

 

2. Bus drivers will not wait for you to get on before they start driving.  One time, a bus stopped for me and I asked the driver if he was going to the central bus station. Without looking at me, he nodded yes, and then took his foot off the brake pedal and start rolling. I ran a few steps and hopped on. Another time, the bus driver started rolling as I had one foot on the bus and one still on the ground, and I almost tripped.

 

3. If you’re not sitting when the driver starts driving, hold on tight! It’s going to be a jerky ride. During most bus rides, I find myself being propelled down the aisle, and I basically turn my body and let myself be swung into my seat. If I don’t get a seat, I always hold on to something with both hands.

 

4. The bus drivers here have no mercy for the disabled. I’ve seen blind people get on and barely make it past the bus driver before he slams on the gas, and they go flying, usually stopped by the help of another passenger. One time, the bus driver did it twice to one poor blind guy as he was trying to get onto the front seat*, to the point that the exasperated man yelled, “NAAHAAG, why?!” and the driver just ignored him and offered no apology.

 

5. Bus drivers hate eachother. In New York, I was amused by the tradition in which bus drivers raised their hands in recognition of one another when they would pass eachother on the road. Overall, there seemed to be a level of respect for other bus drivers when a cluster of bus emerged during traffic. Here, bus drivers honk and cut eachother off all the time. Let’s not even go into the story of the tour bus driver who drove down a ravine and killed two dozen Russian tourists- the accusation against him is that he was so mad about getting cut off by another bus driver, he was driving wrecklessly. 

 

One story I can’t make sense of happened to me as I got on the bus after work one day. I stepped on and thought, “Wow, my first female bus driver!” However, for some reason this woman gave me the feeling that her live-in boyfriend is a bus driver but he felt too sick to go to work, so she figured she’d just do it for him. Bus drivers here don’t have a uniform, but she looked like she just finished watching a Dynasty marathon on TV. She wore a bright red velour jumpsuit with lipstick to match. Her stomach reached over above and around the wheel.

 

I gave her my card to punch, and without looking at me, she made a wave gesture to motion me along. Was she really not a legitimate driver or could she not wrap her fake nails around the hole puncher? I’m still not sure. She braved her way through Jerusalem rush hour traffic, and made such illegal moves that one car drove alongside her to yell at her. Once we approached campus, she honked passed other buses, and once we approached the final stop, I pressed the stop button, which I soon realized was silly because it’s the last stop and obviously she would let us all off there. The last stop approached… and passed… as she gathered speed. “NAAHHAAG!” called out the remaining students on the bus, and she halted, although not immediately. I looked up front toward her, and in the reflection of the rearview mirror, I saw her big red mouth smile.

 

Maybe it was an embarrassed smile, but I’m not sure she is capable of that emotion. Maybe it was the lipstick, but the smile looked sadistic. Did she purposely pass the last stop as a silent protest against my pressing the stop button, or did she just plum forget to stop the bus in anticipation of finishing her (boyfriend’s?) shift and returning home to new Israeli Big Brother episodes?

 

 I just don’t get it.

 

* The front seats on Israeli buses are reserved for the elderly or handicapped, but they are so inconvenient because people need to climb a big step to get onto them and there is about 2 inches of leg room. Just try mounting or descending from the thing when the bus is in motion!

False alarms January 2, 2009

A new job has meant a new gym membership for me. I went over the university gym and finally opened my membership. I had been waiting for a steady income flow before I did so, and wasted no time once the job was official. I was annoyed to find out that they required a doctor’s note to be presented at the front desk before I entered the gym. They required it for using the gym, but I was still allowed to use the pool! When I asked how that makes sense, I got no reply. After some Skype phonecalls to my doctor’s office on New Year’s Eve, they emailed over a letter as a Word Perfect file- who uses Word Perfect anymore! I had to download a converter to open the thing in Word and the letter looked so fake, I would never have accepted it if I were the gym. But I thought, “Ah, this is Israel. They’ll take anything.”

 

Unfortunately, I didn’t get to print out the letter before the weekend hit. I woke up this morning really wanting to go to the gym. The previous evening’s New Year’s and new job celebration- which involved eating a tasty, but lacking attempt at Mexican food along with half a bottle of wine, and then sharing a warm apple pie a la mode-  had me feeling bloated, and well, I already paid for my membership and wanted to use it, damn it.

 

I decided to take my chances and see if I could get away with not having the note. If I’ve learned anything here, it’s that nothing works right and you can get away with a lot. I walked to the front desk ready to play dumb about the letter, and it turned out all I had to do was scan my own card and go through a turnstile. The girl behind the counter was too busy talking away to notice me, and I walked upstairs to the work out area giddily.

 

The gym was decent enough. It’s what I’m used to in the US, but with shorter shorts and more sets of hairy shoulders. There were treadmills, ellipticals, an area for machines, and then an area with the more hardcore machines and weights where big guys looked at you funny if you walked in.

 

I walked out of the gym and heard another helicopter zoom across the sky. I looked up and saw that it was near a blimp. Why the hell was there a blimp in the sky? Is this really a time to be flying blimps above East Jerusalem? Are there such things as military blimps? The thing looked like an engorged missle. For a brief second I wondered if it was a missle, and I had to readjust my eyes to reassure myself that it couldn’t possibly be one before I continued to walk.

 

I came back to my room, ate lunch, and then walked outside to a nearby building to refill my laundry card. As soon as I finished, I heard a siren outside. I froze. A siren? Here? Can it be? Where are the shelters here? I don’t even know! There was no one around so I couldn’t tell if others seemed panicked. Then it struck me. It’s the Shabbat siren. I relaxed enough to go back outside. Part of me still expected to see someone running, but I found only cats running in an around trash cans.

 

I gathered my things and walked over to the laundry room, which consists of four washers and two dryers, and is the only facility for over a dozen dorm buildings. I didn’t have to wait for washers, but I did wait for a dryer. In many ways, I hate doing laundry, but here I enjoy it because I usually meet people. Today, I met someone who found it amusing that I was reading a highlighted and underlined copy of a children’s book about a dog named Shakshuka who disappeared. We talked a while about the usual, where we are from, what we are doing here, and he mentioned his travels to Jordan and Egypt, which I was interested in because I have met so many Israelis who are just not willing to go to Arab countries, even if it means missing out on some great sites, like Petra or the pyramids. He said he was often mistaken for an Arab to the point that when a group of four of them ate at restaurants in Egypt, the waiters set out three sets of plates and utensils because they thought he was the local tour guide.

 

Now my laundry is clean and I can’t choose a pair of clean underwear from the bounty on my bed.

 

I’m going out tonight. Jerusalem, be fun and don’t piss me off.