Today We Make Wellness

The swimming pools are fantastic here. It seems to be one of the main ways for Germans  to un-wind, and thought and design is put into the many pools in each city. One thing  in common to all German pools we have visited...changing areas and lockers are tricky.  Once you learn how the lockers and changing rooms work, they are comfortable places to  visit, but its easy to get tripped up when trying to figure these things out.  Unwittingly walking into the womens room or being unable to find your locker, is a  common occurence to begin with. Now, I see the odd lost foreigner and  sympathize..."we've all been there, dude".

We are lucky to have a beautiful pool (Holthusenbad) at Kellinghusenstrasse, a couple stops down the road on the tram. It was built easily over 100 years ago and contains a wave pool, a  kids pool, an outdoor pool, and 3 large temperate pools, all within a historic  cavernouse building. Sitting in a huge, bubbly hot pool, looking up through the ceiling  of glass, to teh skies above, is a truly relaxing experience. One of the hot pools has  built in seats to lay back in. Mayzie loves the wave pool and all the hot water pools,  too. She is so cute with her floaty ring, swimming around, little miss independent. She  was a good sport and agreed to go into the REALLY COLD pool, because I promised her a  gummy bear treat. She would do anything for those, but she was sooo mad at me for  putting her in there. I reminded her of her treat and she was fine. The health benefits  of the cold to hot transition fell on her deaf ears.

The outdoor pool is great, too. The girls lasted 30 seconds, but at least they tried.  Luke warm water, under the grey, drizzly skies of Hamburg. Its a refreshing change to  teh chlorine soaked air inside. Woodsmoke and crisp air while swimming in winter time.  Nice.

**You see this word "wellness" at the pools over here. Seems an odd english word  choice, but I like it. I think they mean "health". I was joking with Jenna that maybe  they put the German word for "health" (Gesundheit?) into google translate and  "wellness" popped out, so they used that.