The local pool in Breckenridge isn’t like anything in Australia.

For starters, it is negative a lot of degrees outside, so the pool is indoors.  Then, the pool isn’t a real length…. it isn’t the 50m pool I’m used to, it isn’t even 25m, it is 22.something meters.

I’m told it is 72 lengths to 1 mile.

That is stupid.

Why not make it 75?  Would be easier to count.

And the pool is at 8,750 feet above sea level.  that is 698m above Australia’s highest mountain.  or 31 and a half lengths, of their pool.

That isn’t where the oddities end……

At my pool in Australia, I don’t usually use the change rooms.  I just wear our speedos under my shorts or jeans.  So I drop them and go swimming.  Being in Colorado you have to use a change room… it is bloody cold outside.

In Aussie, when I go to the pool, most folks are swimming for training or exercise.  In Colorado, the pool is more of a cheap fun park for families and kids.

I get it, and there are lessons and high school squad training and then adult masters training going on.  A quiet day at the Breckenridge pool, is like every day at an Australian pool…. combined.  I’m not a fan of the crowds, but I love that people are using a beautiful indoor facility.  Kids learning to swim, people trying to loose weight and athletes training for events.  It is fantastic.

In Aussie, for most of those things I just listed, we go to the beach.  It is cheaper…. maybe we are just tight arses?

While I’m on a roll, I’d like to point out more differences.

My experience of Aussie change rooms (which I don’t usual use), are an in and out thing (except when something naughty happens – click here to find out about my naughty change room experiences).

In America, it seems like a slower process.  Strip down, walk around, take a leak, weigh yourself, arrange your clothing in alphabetical order.  All while being naked.

What?

Yes, never seen more bare bums in my life (I run porn sites) than in an American change room at the local pool.

Nothing sexual, just weird.  And not something I grew up with.

I get changed, maybe under the towel and get it done.  These American fellas were walking around strutting and chatting.

So, in Breckenridge, after seeing more than a barbie load of American sausage, I was down to my speedos and went to the pool, with my swimming goggles.

One would have though I had committed a crime.

Walking out of the change rooms, the weird pool version of elevator music stopped.  The lifeguards…. the pool isn’t deep enough for lifeguards, let alone 4 of them, stopped mid step, mothers nearly (I’ve be overstating it if they really did) covered their children eyes.

The Aussie is going to swim 2kms, I can’t figure it out so I’m going to swim 108 lengths which is 1.5 miles – which is more than 2kms which would usually take me 40 minutes, but being at altitude might take me 55 minutes.  I’m there to swim, swim for a long time, and do it properly.

I’m not going to swim 108 lengths in a pair of baggy board shorts…. what else am I supposed to wear?

And, I just saw 20 penises in the change rooms.  Right now, I feel like I’m holding the modesty card.

After my 108 laps I feel like a sauna…. peer pressure makes me go back into the morass of cocks that is the American change room and put some dork shorts on so I am not the weirdo wearing a speedo.

I don’t get it, it is weird and this is why I spend all the time and treasure on this blog promoting speedos and why it is just normal.