Rubber duckie

Just got back from the hamam, or traditional Turkish bath house. Ummm, okay, life experience... Odd and hilarious and yet still wonderfully relaxing.

Normal enough spa experience to begin. Go to this changing room, wear this cloth... Then you walk into a giant ancient circular tiled room that is at the high end of safe sauna temperatures and are confronted by the truth. Fat old turkish women in black underwear are at work scrubbing down topless Europeans. "Scrubbing down" is by no means an exageration.

The room is mostly filled by a large smooth stone slab. This is essentially the massage table, so you lay down and get comfy and start sweating. when it's your turn to be washed, after a brief wait, during which i stared at the light coming in through the gorgeous stone ceiling, focused on my breathing, and told my mother to shut up,you find your place on the slab in front of one of the matrons. She dumps water on you and scrubs your entire body vigourously. Not gonna lie, it's awesome. Next comes the suds; a literal blanket of lather is laid over you, and the rubbing continues. You flip over, sit up, foot massages, arm massages, etc. When she briefly and enjoyably attacked my shoulders, my big mama pressed my head to her bosom for the best angle. she was all business though, so I refrained from motorboating her. The piece de resistance, however, is the rinse and shampoo. You are lead over to the edge of the room, which is where the numerous taps of running water are found, and told to sit... on the stone floor. Then water is dumped over your head. Warm. Cold. Hot. Warm. Shampoo. Scrub. Water. All I could manage was to not breath in at the wrong moment. When you are done you can relax on the hot stone again,then towel off and dress.

Anyways i sweat a lot but now have some silky smooth skin. Sigh. Good times in the old world.

-- Post From My iPod