Piscine Josephine Baker

Yesterday was warm and sunny, or suppose to be anyway, so I left the house after a bowl of Special K and headed to Bercy.  Why Bercy?  That is where Piscine Josephine Baker is...the pool "on" the Seine.  You may remember me talking about it back in the winter when Kerry, Ashleigh and I stumbled upon it.  Now, the roof is open and they have all 300 lounge chairs out on the sun deck.  I don't think I have blogged about pools in Paris...and promise not to ramble, but I think the rules and regulations of public pools here are quite meticulous.  

The entrance fee for Piscine Josephine Baker is 2.60...for 2 hours.  Each hour after 2 hours is 2.60, but they don't exactly tell you that when you enter.  Its more of a *surprise!* on your way out the door.  Most public pools are at least 1.50 if not 2 or 3 euros.  As I walked through the corridor looking for the women's locker rooms, there was only one door.  The girl told me it was this way....so, off I went.  As I approached the doorway there seemed to be a basin of water, with no way around it.  Fiddling in my purse trying to decide what I should do I saw someone else just plop right through it.  So, I took my shoes off (very unwillingly) and trudged on in.  There were men and women, children and babies all just naked together in the locker room.  It was so.....

French.  

I dove into a changing room so fast I didn't know what else to do.  I didn't really need to change, but just collect my thoughts.  I put on my "pool" flip-flops and walked over to the lockers.  A man with a squeegee came up yelling at me to take off my shoes.  I looked back and of course the floors were white and I had made footprints all the way inside.  Oopsy!  The thought of putting my bare feet on a floor where other peoples bare feet made me gag a little but it was another creepy rule they had.  I went through yet another "footbath" to get to the pool deck.  The footbath I suppose is a good thought, but its just gross old dirty water that others peoples feet have been in....they could at least filter the water every now and then.  

I didn't swim in the pool this time, but when you swim you have to take a shower before you enter the pool and after.  Men must wear speedo's, thats right, no shorts for you!  And everyone must wear a swim cap.  Doesn't matter if you are there for play or serious swimming, if you don't have one, they will make you buy one from a convenient cap/goggle/speedo "vending machine" if you will on the lower level.  

You can see the part of the roof they take off during the summer.

The sun deck.  

Enjoying the sunshine.

From here you can see the library in the background.

The sun deck was nice, and they had as many lounge chairs packed in there as would fit.  If you lay in a lounge chair you must have a towel to sit on...you can't sit directly onto the lounge chair-oh, the horrors! If you can get past and remember all the do's and don'ts and the topless women, the pool is actually quite relaxing.  I stayed for about 4 hours and Omphile came to meet me the last 2.  It was sunny during the morning but became very chilly and overcast in the afternoon.  I kept checking the weather on my phone and it said 78 and sunny....NOT.  

I also just wanted everyone to know that I got the Grouchy Ladybug situation under control...so you can all breathe a sigh of relief.  :)  I returned it to the library today expecting to deal with an angry librarian who was going to charge me a million dollars in late fees but she was very agreeable, listened to my story, and took the book and cleaned our record.  No questions asked.  Yes!  

I met with some fellow au pairs today at the Paris Plage for a late picnic lunch.  These 2 girls have been here for awhile already, but for some reason we are now just meeting up!  They are both from New Zealand and we had a nice afternoon.  It got rather chilly around 4:30 so we decided to pack it up.  

Ahhh yes, le Tour Eiffel in the background.  

...Only to find this lucky lady was with me on the metro.  Yessss....one of my favorite things about Paris is fashion choices and this has to make the top of my list.  Don't you love her pants?  The shoes and blue puffy jacket only top it all off.  

I went to Chloé and Franck's to pick up my mail and whatnot and these were waiting for me!!!!!

Heck yes!  40 more days!