July 25th
Today was an off schedule day because I had an appointment
at the Turkish Bath with Amanda in the afternoon and Eva and Eli had a playdate
with her kids. After getting some work
done in the morning, we caught a taxi to Rainbow Street to eat lunch back at
books@cafe first. The kids really love
their pizza.
From there, we walked to Amanda and Samir’s. Jason hung out with all the kids while Amanda
and I walked to the Al-Pasha Turkish Bath.
For those of you who haven’t been to a Turkish bath, they’ve often got
areas for steam, hot water, cold water and also attendants who scrub you. Men and women are separated, or in the case
of this one have separate times they can come to the facility.
Amanda had us booked at 2:20, and there were only a few
other women there at the time. I think
it was almost 1:1 bathers:attendants.
Bathing suits were worn by all, though that’s not always the case at Turkish
Baths. For the curious, I’ll give a
quick rundown of how it went:
1st you shower, then you spend about 20 minutes
in a steam room. This particular bath
has beautiful ceilings with bottles set in that go all the way through and thus let through natural light. When you look up, you see bright spots of
various colors. It was very hot, but
they brought us slushy drinks (pomegranate with ice? I’m not sure) and water.
Next you sit in the whirlpool tub for 20-30 minutes. The bath I’d been to in Turkey didn’t have
anything like that—instead they had a hot pool and a cold pool and you’d
alternate between them. This facility
was smaller but more ‘modern’ in terms of the plumbing.
I don’t know if the steam and the water loosen up your dead
skin or what, but next you lie on a marble slab and one of the women scrubs the
heck out of you. It is both amazing and
disgusting to see what they scrub off.
It makes you want to immediately go out and buy a loofah. This goes on for 20-30 minutes, but
afterwards you feel like you’ve been sandblasted clean. And yes, that’s a good feeling.
The next bit is the massage. The women there have
VERY strong hands and work on you for about 40 minutes. I should note that this whole experience is
25 JD (which works out to be about 35 USD)—such a deal!
Apparently the kids had a great time together back at Amanda
and Samir’s—mostly playing Legos (though Eva was playing on an iPhone). We’re going to see them again on Friday!
That night we went to a small cocktail party at the Director
of the Institute’s apartment, which is right above ours. Watermelon margaritas and brownies—now that’s
a party! Eva watched Eli and Yaffa in
our apartment—apparently they had a good time too, though perhaps not the most successful photos:
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