Sunday 15 November 2009

Saturday 14th November 2009 - Getting Some Exercise

          I've tried, with some success, to keep up my exercise program while I'm travelling.  Since my knee never recovered from the five-a-side football, I restrict it mostly to floor exercises.  At my age, half-an-hour three or four times a week is quite sufficient. 
          But sometimes I feel I ought to be walking more.  Walking is quite an unnatural thing here, and sticks out like a sore thumb.  I can see why Americans have to buy funny clothes and go to parks to do it.  And cheap motels are usually on the edge of town, where there are no sidewalks.
          Anyway, I decided I was going to go for  walk.  I walked down the hill into town, and discovered it was only half-an-hour to the library.  I could have done that every morning.  And only another ten minutes into town.  Problem  was coming back, because I had to walk up the hill.  I think my knee is going to suffer tomorrow.
          And I need to eat more fruit.  Which means buying it.  I went to a supermarket called "Giant", to buy some apples, and found that all the apples were giant too.  A single apple would have fed a small family.  Still, a nice selection of fruit is what I need.  I will ask the motel manager for a large fruit bowl, to put my apple in.
 
          While I was resting from my walk, I watched football on the TV.  Notre Dame were at Pittsburg.  My neighbour at the bar wanted to know which team I was supporting.  "Well", I said, "my sister went to Notre Dame, so I suppose I'd better support them".  They were all quite impressed.  Come to think of it, so was I.  The "Fighting Irish", as they are know, lost narrowly.
         I remain quite fascinated by College Football being on prime-time television.  In fact, the colleges seem to advertise extensively in the half-time interval.  I wonder if that's part of the deal?  It's certainly big business.  We're next door to State College, the home of Penn State.  They were entertaining Indiana, known as the "Hoosiers".  There were over 100,000 people at the game.  My sources assure me there are practically no away supporters.  Penn State also won, a bit more comfortably than Pittsburg.
 
          Later that night, I met a man from California who was having a love affair with Texas.  Said when he retired, he was going to go to Texas.  Played lots of country music for me on the juke box.  Texans have this wonderfully arrogant song, "When I die I want to go to Texas".
          When he left, I wished him all the best, and expressed the hope that he died in Texas.  He seemed a bit non-plussed.

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