Two Words: Bath House

Turkey. There aren't any words that are going to do this post justice. Probably one of the funniest moments of my life happened here. So remember how I told you we didn't have an excursion planned and we were just going to "wing it?" Last night, before we got up at 3:00 AM to watch our Lakers lose, we decided to go through the cruise Gazetter that tells you all about your next port of call. Normally we don't really pay much attention to these things, but we knew NOTHING about Turkey and needed all the help we could get. One of the articles is titled: 5 places you don't want to miss in Turkey. Perfect! We'll just do those 5 things. This is easy.

We get off the boat with our Gazetter in hand and head to places #1 and #2. Sadly, a lot like down town LA but with really well dressed sales people. Like they could work at Nordstroms but really they are screwing tourists over in some alley in Turkey. Onto #3. Turkish Bath house. We can't find the darn place. Some guy sees Jared and I twisting and turning the map hoping to figure out where we are and asks if we need help. Totally dude!!! We tell him where we are wanting to go and he smiles and tells us he'll personally walk us there. Nicest guy ever. Or so we think. We walk up and down, up and down, tiny alley after tiny alley until we get to a door with the words Bath House on the outside. To be honest, just one look at the place, scared us. A lot. But we decide to not be those lame tourists we see walking about and give it a chance.

We walk in and the heat hits us like a ton of bricks! There is a smell I seriously cant describe. Somewhere between cigarettes and soap. Not bad, just different. The helper man tells Jared "he's gonna LOVE this place" in a too creepy of voice and he offers us a tour. We walk through a tiny (we had to literally crouch down to get inside!) wooden door and see a room with a giant marble slab with two giant Turkish men scrubbing what we think are two other men with suds flying everywhere.

A few seconds of deliberation and 17 Euro later and we're in. He shows us to the changing room upstairs and hands us the "cloth" we will be wearing. Big enough to cover the important parts, but small enough to show everything in between. We change, walk down stairs and are told to sit in the "marble room" for 20 minutes. It is by far the hottest room I have ever set foot in. Like, should be illegal it's so hot. We sit there for what feels like an eternity and then some man walks in with an oven looking mitt on his hand. Tells Jared to lay down (sunny side up first thank you very much) and begins to scrub him from head to toe. Literally. Not like the gentle exfoliation we have back in the States but like a "Brillo pad/I'm going to hurt you" kind of way. Scrub Scrub, time to flip over. It's onto the back and then sit up and scrub your neck and face.

After this, he asks Jared for a shampoo and Jared says yes without hesitation. The giant Turkish man grabs a bottle of their version of Suave and squirts it on top of his head. Lathers Jared up like its nobodys business! Not just his head either. But his face, chest, arms, etc...He then grabs a bucket of water and begins to pour it over Jared. Over and over and over and over and over and over again. There was a minute there that I thought Jared might drown. All I could do was lay on my marble bench and laugh until I cried.

Next up: me. Same sort of thing except he lingered on my boobies unlike with Jared. Jared sort of sat there helpless as his wife was being man handled with soap suds by this Turkish freak. Whew- we thought. Almost outta here.

But wait...another guy walks in and he's ready for the "massage" part of our bath. Who knew?? He had us lie on the marble and covered us in suds that he magically made appear by blowing into some type of pillow case. By far the weirdest thing I have ever seen. I'll tell you one thing though- this dude knew how to give a massage! It was hands down the best massage I have ever had. No candles or soft music playing in the back ground. This guy meant business!!

When we were done, they threw buckets of cold water on us, on them, on the marble...everywhere. We walked out of the room and they covered us in towels like we were part of the Taliban and we were done. We politely declined the hot oil massage they offer after the bath partly beacuse we were just grateful we were still alive and thought we should just quite while we were ahead!

This had to be one of the funniest moments of my life. Seeing Jared being tossed around like a fish on that marble still makes me giggle as I type this. He's promised the rest of this cruise will be rated PG. At the rate we're headed- it's turning into some type of porno cruise. My mom would be so proud!!