An open Zumba session takes place at the base of Queen St.

There’s something about Zumba which has always made me shiver. Perhaps it’s the cheese-ball infomercials, perhaps it’s my lack of confidence in being able to exercise with a fedora on, or perhaps it’s because Zumba founder Beto Perez would come off second best if he were to come up against the real deal; the one and only Billy Blanks of Tae Bo fame. Whatever the reason, said exercise regime makes me cower in fear, especially when the council closes the main city street on a Sunday morning to promote free, mass participation.

The under-17 NZ Women's Futsal team scores en route to victory.

As part of Auckland’s inaugural Playing in the Streets event on Sunday, 19th February, obscure sports organisations for all shapes and sizes unveiled themselves to the public. Les Mills and their group classes were ever popular. Auckland cricket and their bouncy-castle-come-ball-catching setup commanded a queue (even for a group of excited young gymnasts). Badminton proved to be a hard sell but the number of people in the general populace who can arch their back 180 degrees to hit something 1 metre behind them has got to be small.

Despite the best efforts of Aerobics Oz Style, aerobics still seems to be popular; it would seem that the grapevine just will not die. And whether or not it was for show or whether incompetence rose to the occasion, the NZ Mens Futsal representatives were defeated by the might and power of their unforgiving opponents; the NZ Under-17 girls team.

But that Zumba… Fun for everyone, including Christchurch City councillors.

Commentating to the masses.

For what is now a complete tourist attraction, the old royal quarters of the Palace of Versailles retain all of their elegance. It also retains all of its financial might, sustaining itself from ticket sales alone which rake in millions of Euros each year. Enough to justify installing a new set of main gates covered in gold leaf and costing a cool €8 million.

The grounds are as impressive as you’d expect from a King; over 2,000 hectares of parkland and a man-made lake with a perimeter of 7km. More impressive is that an admission fee is only needed to enter the Palace itself; the grounds are open entry to the public which opens the way for the locals of Versailles to lay claim to one of the most impressive landscapes in which to carry out their lunch-time jog.

As impressive as all this was, my attention was grabbed by something a little different: Mandarin speaking Frenchmen.

A Mandarin speaking Frenchman.

The French accent is renowned for its smooth, silky, poetic roll off of the tongue. In comparison, Mandarin is more like being jabbed repeatedly with sharp, pointy pieces of bamboo. The Chinese tour groups in the Palace were not being lead by members of their own country but by Mandarin-speaking French guides. A strange mix of smooth and sharp, but the tourists appeared happy with the novelty.