Hotels, Showers, Fitness, and Coffee

Via LinkedIn....

A couple of days ago a woman named Zach Franz asked a question over on LinkedIn.

The 41 people who commented agreed. Some hated instant coffee. I complained about the stupid Nespresso machines that deliver about three tablespoons of coffee at a time when you want a big fat mug of java.

Yesterday, in Quebec (the capital city of Quebec) we stayed at an otherwise superb hotel called Monsieur Jean Hotel Particulier. While there I was reminded of another place where hotels are an utter crap-shoot: the fitness room.

Every hotel is different, and it’s rare that the fitness centre shows any sign of being set up by someone who uses one on a regular basis. Monsieur Jean for instance had what I suspect was a NordicTrack Hotel Package #6. Rowing machine, treadmill, two bikes and an elliptical machine, all equipped with overly complex and generally annoying touch-screens that you had to figure out just to do a basic workout.

Except when they crashed of course.

And, just to demonstrate their old-school credentials, two skipping ropes, three yoga mats, and a selection of weights, the smaller of which were missing.

And, a big fat TV screen with a NordicTrack video on a loop, including both men and women whipping giant ropes, and a guy with, I kid you not, a fifteen pound sledge hammer pounding something on the floor as a fitness technique.

Couldn’t find the video, so here’s Peter Gabriel instead.

I guess, like the coffee thing, fitness centres are considered an obligation, and unless customers complain about them they’ll get just minimal attention.

Now that I’ve been converted into someone who actually cares about, and is willing to work at, fitness, I guess I’ll just have to accept what I’m given and work within the limitations of the hotels that we visit.

And, ultimately, I’ll still have the memory of the gym at Concordia in Montreal. It’s a great gym, except that when you enter it during the school term you walk head-first into a veritable wall of twenty year old male testosterone. A hundred young males, sweating, working, and desperately seeking a sexual release is a powerful thing!

(Forgot about showers: every one with new and unique controller, no two the same….)