I'm back, baby!

When I lived in Auckland, New Zealand as a kid there was an amusement park called Rainbow’s End. They ran a TV commercial at least 20 times every day, especially in summer time when my mother and I were living in Kiwiland. One day, my mum said that she would take me and my friend Kimone on a Saturday to go visit Rainbow’s End. Obviously, I was ecstatic. I believe we had to wait something like three weeks before we finally found a Saturday that suited all parents and both children involved, and finally, we were on our way.

Entering the gates of the amusement park was probably the biggest let-down of my life. The fanciest attraction was a stinking rollercoaster that took something like a minute to ride, and that had looked at least twice as big on TV.  To say I was bummed would be the understatement of my childhood. Before moving to New Zealand, I had visited Disneyland outside of Los Angeles and my naïve ten-year-old brain had hoped Rainbow’s End would at least be reminiscent of the outstanding American theme park. Well, it wasn’t.

The difference between Rainbow’s End and Disneyland, LA is a good analogy to the complete joy I’ve been bathing in since returning to Norway from Kurdistan. Trying to stay healthy and fit in Sulaimaniyah was a little like living as far away as possible from anything that could be called health or fitness. Picture a desert island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean of training and good eating, and that’s Kurdistan for you. Needless to say, coming to Norway has been nothing short of magical.

Ariz and I have spent countless hours browsing the shelves of regular super markets, and jumping from pure excitement when we’ve so easily been able to find the products we’ve been missing in Kurdistan. Skimmed, protein-enriched milk. Skinny cottage cheese. 4% fat ham (of pork!). Full-grain bread. Fresh chicken fillets. Salmon. Salads, capsicum, celery, apples aplenty, and even blueberries and raspberries. To say I’m in Zone Diet heaven would be the understatement of my adulthood.

And then there’s the fitness aspect of it all. We’re members of a gym. A real one. Not the one in our spare bedroom which held a bench press, some weights, and a treadmill. We’re proud members of a gym that’s open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, all year long. And they’ve got machines, and weights, and treadmills, and elliptical trainers, and all the space you can imagine. Ariz doesn’t need to hold my legs when I do oblique crunches anymore, cause there’s a wall especially made for just that. I don’t need to jump on the tiny bench press bench, cause they have squared stands made for jumping onto. There are other women at the gym, who are at least twice as strong as I am. And when we want to order protein, or vitamins, or casein, we simply do, online, and have it at our doorstep two days later.

My body is relieved, and I’m relieved. I’m very happy to say that I’ve finally landed – after five years overseas – in the Disneyland, LA of fitness.