Asphalt Green, Upper East Side

Interesting lane chat, with Upper East Siders.

Boy-o-boy swimming in New York is expensive, after the eye-watering yet worth-it $50 for my Chelsea Piers opening swim, I was hoping for a cheap pool #2!

I had two meetings booked in around the Upper East Side so Asphalt Green starting from 12 pm so managed to squeeze in a quick 3,000-yard swim.

The pool was busy, great chatting US politics with my lane companions, trump and general conservative bashing being the main topics of conversations. I’d never heard a ’70s something lady use the c-word in casual conversation before!

$35 for a guest day pass, $1 for a towel and $8 for a padlock (I now own a padlock worthy of a Fort Knox vault door!).

I planned to arrive bright and early for the 8:30 am session, but I spent most of the night awake with full-on man-flu!

My Manchester United Uber driver on hearing the British accent launched into a full 25-minute premier league season analysis and his dislike of Chelsea – His excitement to hear I was a West Brom fan and we were playing Chelsea today was the catalyst for a full-blown Chelsea bashing.

The pool is a full 50-meter length with a diving pit and floating boom. During my visit, the pool was split into two 25-yard pools with school swim on one side and lap swim on the deeper diving pit side.

The water temperature was perfect, cold and refreshing – and soothing for my man-flu fever!

The swim was made more complicated mid-set by the in-pool cleaning crew ‘scraping’ black balls of who knows what from the bottom of the 3.6-yard-deep end!

Meet a colleague for dinner, only for them to offer me their Asphalt Green membership pass! Could have saved $35!