Day 123: Too Hip to Exercise

Apparently, I am now living a lifestyle that's so hip it precludes exercise. My hotel in Sweden is something out of movie about cool people. I'm not sure how I got here but they obviously weren't checking very carefully at the door.

Let me tell you about my room which is a hauntingly beautiful, high ceilinged suite painted white and mushroom cream with artwork that scares me - and I'm usually the edgy one in the room. One photo is of a young Japanese girl outside a crammed subway licking a lollipop seductively. The next is a photo of John McCain grabbing Barack Obama's behind. The next is a close-up of a man crying.

I have windows in various shapes... three huge portholes and a French window, all of which start above my sight line, so I can't see out of them. Kind of like being in a stylized jail cell. I have shelves all around. One is decorated with 7 empty photo frames. Empty. No photos. I'm sure this is meant to telegraph something but I can't guess for the life of me. The next shelf has a small marble bust of a disillusioned looking girl, an animal's skull, and a brass statuette of an angel with giant stained glass wings. There's a crystal chandelier the size of 4 basketballs, and a light blue corduroy sofa. I have two flat screen TVs, but no alarm clock or phone. There's a hand painted wooden sign on the wall that says, in English, "Silence Please." The shower is too complicated for me so I lie in the tub and let the water run over my head from the spigot. The toilet seat is square and impossible to sit on; I'd squat but it's so high I can barely reach it to sit without having to jump up. Are Swedish people all tall or something?

The place has been designed down to every austere and functionless detail. They've got "esoteric" down to a science. So much so that they simply don't have a gym. They've got a membership you can use at a club 15 minutes away... but when you ask for a map of how to get there, they just shrug. The gym?

So, it seems, the type of people who would stay at a hotel like this do not run. I'm an outlier here. I do not fit in. The truth is, I haven't got time to run on this trip any way. I've never made an excuse to you yet, have I? I promise this is no excuse now. I'm booked morning to night, and it's just not going to happen.