Confusion and Flusteration

I'm weighing gym membership options here in Lillehammer, and recently was given a tour of Elixia. This week I've I taken advantage of a week pass to try out a few of the classes. I was running late for a yoga class, a bit unsure where the class was held, and as always thinking of what I might say in Norwegian if someone were to ask. I was also noticing things in the gym that I hadn't noticed on my tour, like where the bathrooms were, and the line across the hall where one must remove their boots. 


As I left the women's locker room, I noticed a counter just outside the locker room where members can alphabetically file their workout cards. I remember thinking, "that's a handy spot! I don't remember that from the tour" as I mindlessly headed towards the door to the gym. But alas, the door to the gym was actually not the door to the gym: it was the door into the men's locker room. I think I turned around in mid-air, the door already closing behind me, and I'm reasonably convinced no one even saw me. The "door" to the gym was in fact a wide doorless doorway, and I have no idea how I failed to navigate that turn. 


But, on to the task at hand: find the yoga class. A bit flustered from my near-encounter with male flesh, I hurry through the gym to the room where I believed the class to be. But alas again, no class in the yoga room. I stumble through a jibbery Norwegian/English sentence with a staff member in the classroom, and increasingly flustered, turn around to hurry back through the gym to the other room for large classes. But--boom! A woman is blocking my way, sweaty in workout clothes, hair in a pony-tail, and she asks me, in Norwegian, "What sports did you do in the US?" 


What sports did I do???  What kind of greeting is that?


The following thoughts simultaneously race through my head:

• Who the heck is this woman? Do I know her? Is she a mother at the barnehage? Is she in my norskkurs? Does she work with Erik? 
• T o r t u o u s l y   t r a n s l a t e   w h a t   s h e   i s   a s k i n g   m e .  .  .  .  
• How does she know I'm from the US? She's asking about sports in the US? Does she remember me from track in the US? That's impossible. . . 
• How do I say "track" in Norwegian. . . I know this one. . . running. . . løpe. . .  hurdles. . . 
• And where the heck is my yoga class?  I'm really going to be late!

It hit me about 2 minutes later that she was, in fact,  Elizabeth, a Lithuanian woman from my Norwegian class. At least I had the weekend ahead of me to compose my apology to her, and look up a few words in my dictionary, like confused, (didn't) recognize, and men's locker room.