Ode to a Silver Trainer

Today I ventured out into Geneva alone to do some girl shopping - ie, the mall! It was finally a beautiful weekend in Geneva - not too hot, not raining, and we weren't out of town. I managed to hit a nice number of stores, but my favorite interaction of the day was when I went into a sporting goods place to buy a new pair of trainers. My usual approach going into a store the first time is to skulk to the back and watch people to see where what I need can be found without the obvious 'foreigner wandering around' signals that result in uncomfortable foreign-language interactions. In this store, the layout was tricky - were the shoes all in one section, or separated into Mens and Womens? If separated, how would I know if I was looking at the right section? And heaven forbid, what if they have kid's shoes too?

I deciphered that shoes were all in one section, and started looking for 'womens', but no luck. Sometimes it was obvious - at least if pink shoes still don't appeal to the majority of the male population, but I was still a bit lost. Finally, my worst fear occurred - a salesperson came up and started chatting me up in French. I use my one and favorite response "Desole - parle un peu francais". To my delight, the salesperson responded "That is good. I speak little English". Whew!

Together we proceeded to find me a new pair of shoes - more difficult than you might imagine. First, we had to communicate and agree on my criteria. For some sweet reason, he thought I was in need of running shoes, but my excellent mimicry of 'elliptical', 'treadmill' and 'walking' (my favorite - in slow motion!) got the message across. But how to communicate my key criteria: "I don't want anything that looks obnoxious on my feet OR makes my feet look big and clown-like". I remembered that I have memorized most colors now in French, so "no red, no blue, no black, but white is very good" hit its mark. "Clown-like" is not a word I've learned yet, so we tackled that one subjectively as we went along.

Our conversation included such topics as the amount of gel cushion in the sole of the shoe, the merit of gel vs silicone cushioning, why you should leave space for your toes, and why a squishy heel isn't the best sign of support. I learned more about trainers from a French 17 yo kid than I ever did in the US. In the end, I walked away with a very snazzy pair of ASICs, which have the bonus of being white, silver and a little navy. They even have this space-age reinforcement on the bottom that sort of reminds me of Terminator 2. I am dubbing them my astronaut shoes and plan to break them in this week before walking all over London next weekend. Of course, now I remember one of my favorite shoe stores is in London - but I can now walk there in the ultimate comfort before blowing more money on adorable but non-gel-supportive shoes!