bikram yoga, exhaustion and hyponatremia

so i've been doing bikram yoga for about 3 weeks now, maybe 4 weeks if you include the last week in berlin where i discovered it. it's a form of yoga that was created and then patented by an indian dude - bikram - who moved to the states and opened his franchise/personality cult there in the 70s, and it's gone supersonic from there. it's a series of 26 postures, always the same, always done over the course of 90 minutes, and always performed in a room that's heated to 40 degrees. that's right: 40 degrees: hotter than the human body. to boot, the room's at ~40-50% humidity, so even before you start the exercises you're sweating like a bitch.

it's not a secret that i love heat and humidity, and with my long and ever-increasing list of musculo-skeletal/neurological problems (+/- psychosomatic elements whose overall contribution i am unsure of), i've been in need of some regular stretching and exercise since forever. perhaps since i was a foetus. this seemed like the ticket. so i went for it.

here are my results at week 3:

1) self-love. at some stage during the first week of bikram in berlin, i came home and said to g: "i think i'm falling in love with my body". now this may sound ridiculous or narcissistic (no surprise there i hear you cry!), but let's face it: no-one's 100% comfortable with their bodies. he or she among you who is prepared to stand naked in front of a crowd laughing and pointing and not feel a bit insecure should cast the first stone. but 90 minutes a day sweating in front of a mirror wearing nothing but a tight red bather-bottom has left me thinking "you know what...i'm sort of loving what i'm seeing right now". apparently g is too...

2) flexibility. my memory does not extend far enough back to a point in my life where i could actually touch my toes without bending my knees, if such a point ever existed, which i increasingly doubt it ever did. 6 months ago i was able to touch a point just below my knees (perhaps my tibial tuberosities on a good day), now i'm one third of the way down my shin. that's almost 10cm extra! happy? i'm ecstatic! we can't be martin luther king jr all the time: sometimes our dreams are not so lofty, sometimes our dreams are in fact quite selfish and material. my dream is to touch my toes.

3) pain. i'm not sure about this, but i think my back's hurting less. hope interferes with perception, so i'll have to get back to you about this one.

4) exhaustion. it's true that one sweats like a bitch and i drench my towel every session, losing what i estimate to be a good litre of sweat in those 90 minutes. though i feel good-ish for doing the yoga, overall i have to admit that i've been quite exhausted, have had to take nanna-naps in the afternoon on the days that i do the yoga in the morning, and have had two minor viral illnesses and two coldsores in the last 2 weeks. i'm not sure what it is, so i've started taking a multivitamin, trying to increase my electrolyte and protein intake, and even had some meat the other week in an act of desperation. still trying to work this one out...

and that's where i'm at three weeks into it. ultimately i want to do a 6-month challenge: three months in paris and three months in (? insert location after paris). i'll keep you posted :)

go cadel!

cultural revelations #4: bastille day fireworks

an estimated one million people gathered together by the eiffel tower to celebrate french nationhood last night. it must be said that 2 boys - your g and o - had the best non-seats in the house. a fireworks display doesn't get much more iconic than this!

cultural revelations #3: bastille day military parade

at one stage during the parade, a group of soldiers marched before us on the champs-élysées - young men and women, tall and proud in their french military outfits - and all around us people were clapping and cheering. the man next to me screamed out 'bravo!', and i was suddenly lost in the moment - a gush of emotion rose up through my chest, my face burned and i felt tears welling in my eyes.

and then i snapped back into reality. what the fuck was i getting emotional about? this disgusting display of military might? this flexing of imperialist military muscle by a post-colonial world power? the whole thing dripped with violent, masturbatory nationalism, generating an atmosphere of love-me-and-fear-me police-state hysteria that infected everyone like a virulent disease. first we saw kim jong-il go past on an armoured vehicle (whoops, i mean nicolas sarkozy), and then it was just a cattle call of all the different planes, helicopters, tanks, trucks, troops and guns that the french state has at its disposal to hurt people.

but all was not lost. when you train hundreds of young men until their bodies are sculpted, and then squeeze them into tight military uniforms and leave them to parade about in front of you until your mouth waters, you find yourself surprisingly willing to enter into a love-me-and-fear-me master-slave relationship - as long as there's an exit strategy. and hey, when the planes flew over churning out plumes of blue, white and red smoke: that was pretty cool too...

cultural revelations #2: paris blowholes

just like myself, the metro system in paris is full of hot air. so that those trains can keep zipping around with their 3.9 million passengers per day and not create vacuums that suck people onto the rails or down flights of stairs, there are blowholes throughout the city to let some of that air out. the metro needs to breath like a big whale. some blowholes are little and are pleasant to stand on when it's cold or when you feel like impersonating marilyn monroe. others are massive and can lead to live art when combined with toilet paper, as i found the other day walking home past le moulin rouge:

Cultural Revelations of an Australian in Paris (CRAP) #1: café culture

café culture comes in many forms. in paris, when the hipsters and groovesters are out sipping their espressos, it is strictly to see and be seen. nothing demonstrates this better than the way people sit: everyone faces out onto the street.

advantage: when you're cruising down the cobblestone streets of paris and you pass a hot frenchman sitting in a cafe, you don't have to make a scene in order for him to notice you: he's been watching you all along!

disadvantage: the realisation that the city is bursting at the seams with superficial motherfuckers!

icelandic export

when you stand up through the window in the ceiling in the little sleeping part of our 17m² apartment (yes...the ceiling is so low that you can stand up through it), here is the view! ahh yes we are unmistakably in the city of love!

today was our first full day in paris. we arrived on tuesday afternoon, but within 24 hours were on a plane headed for manchester where we spent a couple of days falling in love with that funky north english town. we loved it so much that we are both wondering whether or not we might want to live there in the future...what a wonderful vibe that city has...

why were we there? was it a case of 'why not' because easyjet sells tickets for the price of a meal in paris and we wanted to smash the environment? was it because we need to be constantly on the move to validate our existence? was it to prove to ourselves that we're bourgeois international jetsetters? or was it because i told g some time ago that since MJ died, the only living person that i actually wanted to see in concert was björk, and she was starting her tour at the manchester festival with a series of concerts to which g bought us tickets for my birthday? it was all of the above!!!

yes it was lots of fun :) incidentally we went and saw the new x-men while we were there which is another one of my pet 'leave your brain at the door and go get yourself entertained' loves. has anyone checked out the actor who plays magneto - the auschwitz survivor with the power of magnetism? fetch the smelling salts!!!

goodbye les wolves!

we spent a few days in alsace chilling out before heading to the big P

here's g, his sisters and his mum

a whole pack of wolves!

highlander

we were so over cities that we only spent an hour or two in vienna, then crossed salzburg, innsbruck, munich, zurich, and every other city between slovakia and france off our list and just headed for the hills for a week of alpine relaxation. in austria we stayed in off-season ski guest-houses, and in switzerland we were lucky enough to be hosted by anja's mum for a few days high up in the mountains near the italian border - thanks susana!

the alps in austria and switzerland were so beautiful that it left us breathless. the swiss scenery was bigger, more intense, more striking. but for both g and i, the lush green hills of austria were even more beautiful (if that's even possible), and, still captivated days later, we realise that we have left our hearts there. we'll be back!

it was a wonderfully relaxing way to end our 2 week holiday from a holiday that in many ways was 2 weeks too long. perhaps it sounds too bourgeois to say that we are suffering from tourist fatigue? but both of us are ready - and have now been ready for many weeks - to get to paris and start our new life there. we're itching for it, hungry for it, greedy for it. we'll be in the city of lights - the city of lovers - in just a few days!

incidentally, was anyone else transported back to their childhood by the first video's themesong? oh the 1980s...*sigh*

...na na naaa na na naaa na na naaa...

cities are for living in

only 50km apart, bratislava and vienna have many similarities. both are on the danube, both are the capital of austria, both appear to start with the letter b. both cities are like a deer - not a small deer or a large deer, but a medium deer that stands alone on a highway at night when you slam into it at 120km/h in a rented vehicle, and that deer - the deer that is now splayed across your windscreen with what appears to be a purple bone protruding from its neck - that deer just manages to turn its head and look you straight into the eyes. your eyes. it is staring and staring, and then it is sliding, and then it is gone. had that deer survived - and who knows whether it did - had that deer survived and given birth, it would surely have given birth to a creature that was half-man, half-wolf. that wolf-man, after the baby-check and other necessary formalities (including photos with the extended family which can be time-consuming as herds of deer are invariably large, and operating a camera with hooves is virtually impossible), that wolf-man born of a dying deer would have looked out from his jacuzzi in the forest through dark sunglasses, and after taking a swig from what you at first believe is a fishbowl but is in fact a giant cocktail glass, that wolf-man would have looked you straight in the eyes - your eyes - and stated in no uncertain terms: give me ambiguity, or give me something else.