As I walk through the front door, I look the front desk clerk in the eye, hoping to be greeted… no dice.  Somewhat disappointed by her lack of charisma, I move on to the entrance gate to swipe my ID for access.  After quickly scanning my ID, the buzzer goes off, indicating that my card is valid; however, I have to wrestle with the turnstile, giving it three pushes, so that it finally turns to let me through.  

Now ticked off at the stupidity of the entrance gate, I head down the hall to the locker room to get changed and store my belongings in a locker that I had to buy 10 euro proprietary lock to use. Before I can even begin to look for the locker that I want to use, I am hit by a windstorm of body odor that burns my nostrils.  As this happens, I look at my buddy next to me and all we can do is shake our heads.  We finally find a locker that is in an area where we can breathe fresh air and put our bags in the locker, taking our iPods and protein shakes with us.  

Heading out of the locker room, we make a quick right turn to go play basketball as a warm-up and are greeted by the Arctic air that is the basketball courts.  Now shivering in our cut-off shirts, we realize that the basketball courts are more suited for a cool down as opposed to a warm-up, so we head two flights up to ride the bikes.  As we reach the second floor, I mount my bike, excited to get my workout going, but realize that the handles are soaked with sweat from the person who previously used it.  Now in an even worse mood, I hop off the bike, grab a paper towel to wipe down the machine, and ride ferociously for the next ten minutes hoping that the power doesn’t short out like it did last time. 

When my ten minutes are complete, my friend and I head down to the weight room, hoping to get in a solid lift.  As soon as we enter, we are met with stares of contempt from skinny, spandex-wearing men who seem to be upset that our cut-off shirts frame our slightly bigger, more muscular figures.  Ignoring these stares, but adding a slight air of arrogance to our demeanor as a means of patronizing them since we don’t speak Catalan, we go about our business and start lifting weights.  Making sure to breathe extremely obnoxiously on certain sets, we are constantly grilled by the manager on duty who has no problem frequently reminding us that if we don’t bring a towel or don’t rack our weights, we won’t be allowed to work out.  Knowing that he is only doing this to us because we are American, we pay little attention to his words and watch him get frustrated because he knows we speak a word of Catalan. (Note: he definitely speaks Castellano, but refuses to converse with us in anything but his native tongue due to his grossly nationalistic outlook on tourists).

Carefully completing each set, my friend and I are pleased with our workout and head out of the weight room. There is one toilet in the whole locker room and no soap.  Met with the same stares that we were so kindly greeted by on our way in, we just laugh. We head back down to the locker room and gather our possessions, once again being careful not to inhale the sweet aroma of armpit odor.  As we head toward the door, the turnstile decides to give me problems again, this time drawing frustrated looks from the receptionist.  Finally getting through the turnstile, I give her a polite head nod as I exit, but get no sort of acknowledgement in return.  What a surprise.  This is our Barcelona gym.  This is Fronto Colom. 

Oh, and a word of advice to you, Fronto Colom, please get heavier dumbbells, change the concrete floor that is in the INDOOR basketball court, invest in a heating system, tell your patrons that “tighty-whiteys” are for middle school kids, put a sign up that says “spandex is meant to go underneath shorts,” don’t let two uncoordinated, unathletic 50 year olds take up the entire basketball court, and, most importantly, just shut down because you’re the worst gym ever.  Gracias.