why bother with the gym when you can workout at the local playground

I never embraced the workout scene when visiting Turkey. While I always lugged my running gear over the years, I seldom ventured out for a run even with the inviting Aegean backdrop. Since most of our trips to Turkey occurred in August, I used the heat as my excuse to hold my sneakers hostage in the suitcase. Lame, I know, but I generally don't fare well in hot weather, never mind running in it. Yet to curb my workout pangs, I used to naively search for some local gym in the Cesme area that I could use temporarily during our stay, only to be greeted with a hearty guffaw from my husband.

Some things have changed over the years. The playground across the street from the Cesme house was refurbished recently with workout equipment. Imagine monkey bars and slides on one side and strange looking apparatuses on the other. So today I took a stroll over to the "open air gym" for a closer examination. An older woman wearing street clothes and flip flops was getting off some type of leg swing appearing very fatigued. She then proceeded to wipe her brow and light up a cigarette. "Çok zor" (translation: difficult), she said looking my way. The real difficulty was trying to figure out how the heck to use the equipment. The folks over at Cybex have nothing to worry about.

Turn tables or peck rotation wheel? DJ got me falling for exercise again.
 Tag team workout for Bigfoot


While my kids refer to the playground as the Mickey Mouse playground, I can't help but stare at the ominous mouse head overlooking the area which reminds me of a bad combination of retro Mickey  and deadmaus. 



So my take away for the day is to let the park commission know to put some instructions on the equipment, replace Mickey with Hello Kitty, and dot a few ash trays near the equipment. Oh, and plan for a few runs along the sea with my husband at sunset.


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