Le Speedo

Speedo.

Is it just me or does this word make you cringe at just the thought?

I know my first image when I hear Speedo is large man, big belly, too small of a swimsuit and nightmares to follow. 

I wish it were thinking of the Speedo swimsuit that I own.

But it's not.

Alain, Guillaume and I decided to venture out one of our first days here for 

METZ PLAGE

which was super fun.

Plage = Beach

It was similar to Paris Plage... except they actually had a pool, two above ground non-permanent ones, but still a pool!  

Though there was no beach, it was set up by the river (just like in Paris) to make you feel like you were.  There were even truck loads of sand brought in on which to play beach volleyball.  There were obstacle courses, bounce houses, water misters, sun umbrellas and chairs to lounge/tan in.  

It was awesome.

We were thrilled and got in our swimsuits.  It was hot and humid and I was ready for a soak. 

We got in line for the pools and when we got to the lifeguard who was allowing people in she said I was not allowed to let Guillaume in with his swimsuit.  

Quoi?

He was wearing little shorts over his diaper cover which was over his swim diaper.

I was at first confused because I wasn't sure if I had followed the health regulations with a non-potty-trained infant.  But she assured me he could swim.  

I just had to pants him.  

So I stripped his swimsuit and he swam in his diaper cover, sported as a Speedo.

Pretty cute for a wee one. 

But what about Alain you may be wondering?

Well, it turns out you can NOT swim in the pool with board shorts... and that's ANY public pool in FRANCE.  

And I thought I was relatively cultured!

This came as quite a surprise since we did not have another suit for Alain.  And France is not like America who tries to gain wealth at any possible moment where they can monopolize and jack up the prices due to need, so there was no swimsuit shack to sell anything of the sort.  

Alain stood on the sidelines. 

Sweaty.

Hot.

Bored.

Because of this rule we have decided to purchase a Speedo for Alain.  He loves swimming and is comfortable enough in his skin to do it.  I am proud of him.

Another consequence of this rule is that France truly is roaming with men in Speedos.  And they don't all look like the Olympic team either: 

Vs.

The worst possible image you can imagine of men in Speedos.

(I thought I would spare you the visual.)

It is scarring. 

And humourous. 

But we all knew there was lots of skin in France... now there's just a little more because they require it.

Why is this you may all be wondering?

Let me enlighten you to what I have discovered. Whether this is fact or fiction I cannot tell for sure.  But what I have learned is that they think it is unsanitary to go swimming in board shorts.  The reason is because they cannot tell the difference from regular shorts a man would be wearing all day.  It would be considered extremely unsanitary to wear the same shorts throughout the day and then swim in them.

Oh the

Horror!

How do they know some of these men haven't been sporting their Speedo's the whole day, like on the bus on the way to Metz Plage? Or under their pants... like half of the girls in bikinis that were being sported under their clothing and revealed when they stripped down to swim.  I even thought I saw a few bras and panties (NOT swimwear in my opinion) which I'm sure they were wearing all day.  But WAIT no board shorts.

What are your thoughts?