Some schools love to host Summer Programs Abroad. Students and faculty fly to a distant city, attend lectures with visiting experts who are themselves enjoying the sights, write a few exams that are grading by unlucky graduate students, earn a few credits, and generally have a good time piling up student loans. I chose Salisbury, Austria and do not regret it.
At this time I was also a student of aikido. I brought my gi to Austria and was delighted to discover a class met every other day in a local gym. They welcomed me both to class ("We have to translate everything out of German anyway, for Hans is a Bavarian") and to the afterparty at a local pub. First, however, we had to shower away a couple hours of sweat.
The showers were co-ed.
We all experience our upbringing as normal. I had been raised a typical, puritanical American; this was my first mixed-gender experience with nudity sans romantic privacy. Everyone there knew exactly what the issue was and very kindly said nothing about it as they chattered away in German at a great rate the whole time. Or perhaps , so who knows?)
Rigorously confining my gaze to straight ahead, I put my towel on the rack and entered the common shower. They had plenty of hot water and it really was a good shower. If I'd spoken German there would have been plenty of conversation as well. After an appropriate time, I grabbed a towel off the rack and started to dry off.
Suddenly a lovely young woman, with whom I had been practicing on the mat when we were both fully clothed, stomped up to me, pointed her finger and launched into a torrent of emphatic German. I understood not a word but her gesture was clear: I had her towel.
She wanted it and wanted me to know it and she wanted everyone in the showers to know it.
This was simultaneously the most embarrassing and the funniest situation in which I have ever been. I can handle most situations but I was completely unprepared for dealing with a lovely young naked blonde in the prime of physical condition demanding that I return her towel. I stuttered, I blushed to my toes, I endured a great deal of good-natured chaffing for the rest of the evening: none of which and all of which I understood.
I lost touch with these jolly Austrian Aikidoka long ago. When I retire I must go back and look for my towel and for them.
