Swimming in Paris?

I have returned from my two months in Paris. This thread was immensely useful, because accurate. I found a pool near my apartment early on: Piscine Pontoise, in the Latin Quarter, just off Boulevard St. Germain. On my first visit I was stunned to find that there were something like 75 people in this pool trying to swim laps. There was one “fast” lane, but it had seventeen people in it, and most of them were slow. It was a constant negotiation to time my departure and pass other swimmers in the middle third of the lane, keeping an eye peeled for somebody trying to pass coming the other direction. On my third swim I had about a dozen in my lane. It seemed like more due a total lack of lane etiquette. On my home planet if you reach the far end of the pool and someone is on your toes, you simply stop for a moment and let them go ahead. Mais non. I nearly killed somebody that day as I came into the wall passing one flailing backstroker and another, directly ahead of her, reached the end of the pool on the extreme right side of the lane, and pushed, blindly, across my prow in the center. We only smacked hands: a miracle. She stopped and looked at me like I had assaulted her person. “Pardon,” I said, as she looked away, pushing off into the waves like a seaborne filing cabinet. I bought a pack of ten passes, but didn’t quite use them all. It got to be too frustrating. So now I’m home and working my way back into training. It was a lovely time–truly, an inexhaustible city–but I can hardly express how happy I am to be back in my home pool!

I have returned from my two months in Paris. This thread was immensely useful, because accurate. I found a pool near my apartment early on: Piscine Pontoise, in the Latin Quarter, just off Boulevard St. Germain. On my first visit I was stunned to find that there were something like 75 people in this pool trying to swim laps. There was one “fast” lane, but it had seventeen people in it, and most of them were slow. It was a constant negotiation to time my departure and pass other swimmers in the middle third of the lane, keeping an eye peeled for somebody trying to pass coming the other direction. On my third swim I had about a dozen in my lane. It seemed like more due a total lack of lane etiquette. On my home planet if you reach the far end of the pool and someone is on your toes, you simply stop for a moment and let them go ahead. Mais non. I nearly killed somebody that day as I came into the wall passing one flailing backstroker and another, directly ahead of her, reached the end of the pool on the extreme right side of the lane, and pushed, blindly, across my prow in the center. We only smacked hands: a miracle. She stopped and looked at me like I had assaulted her person. “Pardon,” I said, as she looked away, pushing off into the waves like a seaborne filing cabinet. I bought a pack of ten passes, but didn’t quite use them all. It got to be too frustrating. So now I’m home and working my way back into training. It was a lovely time–truly, an inexhaustible city–but I can hardly express how happy I am to be back in my home pool!