Slacker

So I've been monumentally slack and for that I must apologise - I last wrote on here a week ago - shocking! I do have some small excuse though, I moved! Which occupied all weekend - Friday and Monday included. But more about that and the apartment later... possibly in another block entry. Divide and conquer is my theory at the moment as so much has happened recently that the prospect of putting it all into one blog post is rather daunting. To put it mildly.

So we start at the end (where else??) I went to gym this morning. To put this into context, the university gym, called the Aztec Recreation Centre, is just up the road from my apartment. Literally about 100m, maybe 150m at a push. So the other night my roommate Sarah and I decided to go and sign up. Gym here is horrendously expensive - a whole $17 per month! We also had a look round while we were there. Aside from the fact that it was hideously busy, evenings are apparently not the time to go if you don't like queuing, the facilities are uber impressive.

For your $17 you get access to the ARC itself and all that it contains (more on that in a minute), the Aquaplex which is just up the road - no idea what's in there besides the obvious, water, but will let you know when I've investigated, the tennis courts, bowling arcade (bowling is a sport here it seems) and possibly more which I've temporarily forgotten. Back to the ARC, the gym itself is quite interesting, it's split into very different sections. A free weights section, a machine weight section and then a cardio section. They're all large! The weights sections are definitely bigger than the ones at Virgin Active Westville and the cardio section is about similar probably although they have a much bigger variety of machines, just not as many of each type. Eg, they have 2 types of orbitrek/elliptical trainer machines (which I only realised once I was using the one type this morning) - ones where the handlebars move (like VA) and ones where they're just stationery. There's also basketball courts/practice hoops in the gym as well as a climbing wall which looks so cool! There's one studio for aerobics etc and one they call a multi purpose room. It has spinning bikes in it, punch bags and steppers. You can go to a stepper class like you would do spinning! Might try that sometime although it's only in the evening.

Ooh, I just remembered the best part. You don't need to remember your silly card for gym and wait while someone swipes you in - things are far more advanced here! You walk up to a turnstile and enter your access number (mine's just the last 5 digits of my student id) then you scan your hand! I couldn't believe it, it's soo cool! I'm definitely going to take a pic of it and post it on here.

It was sooo funny today. After I'd finished on the orbitrek I decided to do some stepping because that's what I normally do at VA. One problem - there were no normal steppers (from what I could see initially, or not see as I didn't have my glasses on or contacts in. Instead they had a stairmaster machine which was literally like a revolving set of stairs so when you're on it you actually physically step up on to the next step (or you don't have to in which case you fall off when the bottom step disappears at the bottom). I tried that for a while but it was really hard - the steps you have to take are big and not what I'm used to! I survived 10 mins but by then I'd spotted what looked like normal steppers so I decided to switch. I hadn't seen the steppers before because they're much smaller that the ones I'm used to - these don't have bars on the side, just handles in the front so you are really stepping 'up'. If that makes sense. The first one I got onto, the pedals started going down then there was a loud clunk - like the chain had slipped or something. I tried a few more steps then decided something was definitely funny and if it wasn't - I didn't want to use it anyway. So I got off and onto the one next to it. Well - on that one I couldn't even keep the pedals up no matter how fast I stepped. So feeling like a bit of an idiot I went up to the front desk and asked if there was anyone who could show me how to use the stairmaster (they're all called that here I discovered). The girl at the desk smirked a bit but got one guy to help me. He came over to one of the other machines (that I hadn't tried, there are only 5 of them by the way though) and showed me how to use it - it worked normally, just like the virgin active ones. So then I asked him to try the other two that I had tried and the exact same things happened to him! I was so happy it wasn't just me! While I was on the normal stepper he came back with a maintenance type dude so hopefully they'll be fixed if I try to use them again. They definitely wont be my first choice though.

So that would conclude 'Kate's first gym experience'. I have to run downstairs now to check the tumble dryer (gasps of admiration I hope - I'm actually doing my own washing!) but check back soon because I want to try post a bit more stuff about my apartment and starting varsity today.