Swim Caps and Flip-Turns

Not many adventures in the life of Bus in Bergamo lately. After the initial “firsts” (1st game, 1st snow,…) It gets difficult to write something interesting about a lot of my days. I don’t think you want me to start documenting the minuets of the daily routine…
9:30am- Woke up
9:35am- Decided to have “Honey Rings” cereal.
9:36am- Poured bowl of “Honey Rings” and then realized I was out of milk.
9:40am- Walked to the market to buy milk for my “Honey Rings.”
These may be the minuets that fill up my day, but by boring you with them, I would be taking away hours off your life.
Instead today I am going to discuss some differences…
“What kind of differences Bus?”
Well if you would just be patient I will tell you…
Since my life here is centered being in or around the pool, that where I make a lot of my observations. I’m going to bullet these out
•Swim caps- It is mandatory that unless you are groomed to pass military standards you must cover your hair with a swim cap at all times while in the pool. I was very confused because I have not worn one since I think I was 8 years old doing club swimming. But here everyone has a cap, and most of the guys wear these cloth ones that look more like a grandma shower cap than anything else. Every time I put mine on I struggle to find my masculinity.
•Flip-turns- Lets just get this point out of the way first- I HATE SWIMMING. This may come as a shock to some of you who are wondering why the hell I have devoted so much of my life to the pool if I loathe this activity, and I do. It’s boring, tiring, and after 24 years I still haven’t found the point of it. I love water polo. Water polo is a GAME that combines physical strengths and skills but more importantly requires as much thinking as playing a game of chess against Bobby Fisher. Swimming is mindless. Hell, even my retarded cat Ned can swim if he gets tossed in the drink.
So for all you smart people out there…”What do you think is my least hated part about swimming?....”
Of course it’s the flip-turn…It’s the only part of swimming where you aren’t actually swimming! You go heals over butt, push off, and then for 2 beautiful seconds you don’t have to do anything at all…just glide. That is why I am so confused by the members of my team…no one does flip-turns. They approach the wall, touch it with their hand, do a 180, and then push off. Besides looking like a 5 year old, this takes way more time. There are definitely guys on the team that are way faster than me, but in anything over 50 yards I can kick everyone’s ass because they insist on doing their open turns. I just don’t get it…who in the world would want to swim anymore than you have to?
-Bus#10