(no subject)
I don't even know where to begin! Haha, Turkey is an experience...so hard to describe...but there are a lot of specific stories from the weekend...
So on Friday morning, we headed out to Safranbolu, this city about 5 hours away full of old houses of the Ottoman era. We toured around for a bit, got some safron tea (by far the best tea I've had here), and after dinner we were at a loss for what to do in such a small town on a Friday night...so we decided to go to a hamam (Turkish bath). The boys had been to a nice hamam already in Istanbul for 40 lira or so, but none of us girls had tried it out yet - we were holding out for closer to the end of the trip. So this hamam was like 16 lira...so it was kinda like, well hey why not, what other better things do we have to do? Little did I know what was coming...I'd made fun of the boys being so worried about what to do in a hamam/being naked/all that fun stuff...but um. I shouldn't have. LOL.
We walk into the place and they lead us to these changing rooms and give us some super attractive red plaid towels to put on...so we all wore the towels - but just incase, we left our underwear on so that we wouldn't be totally exposed in a worst case scenario. We get into the steam room...which was warm, but definitely not steamy or hot like a steam room should be, and so we each sit by a wash basin thing and start throwing water on ourselves (read: wet towels and wet underwear) and then this large hamam woman in a bra and red panties comes and grabs my arm and brings me over the marble slab in the middle (lol why did I have to be the first to be violated? lol) and PULLS off my towel, has me sit on the slab...sorta pushes me around till I'm on my stomach and in the right place for her to start scrubbing me...and all of this is quite awkward because I'm quite aware of the fact that I'm ONLY wearing underwear and everyone can see me clearly since I'm in the middle of the room...so then she scrubs all the dirt of off me, washes me, massages me...but I think I should mention that she pretty much removed my underwear too in the process of this so we all got to see each others asses too (really, this was quite a bonding/scarring experience), turns me over a few times, cracks my knees for me (lol), and straddles me (apparently? I had my eyes closed during a lot of this)...yes. It was an experience. And each of the other girls went through that in turn...lol, it was hilarious and mortifying at the same time. And then to top it off...well we were are soaking wet afterwards, underwear included...so when we put on our clothes to leave, we had to go commando....ummm...so when we were negotiating prices outside, the guys were still inside and they heard us and we saw a couple of them peer out - wearing THREE towels (one for their hair? really now? really?) with bottles of water that the got...obviously a much nicer deal for them! And apparently their steam room was really a steam room. *sigh* And I don't think they were quite as exposed to each other as we were. They had a good laugh when they came out and we were saying that we wanted to go back to the hotel right away...and then they realized that was because we all had our wet underwear in our hands...hahahahaha...The whole thing was HILARIOUS. I'm glad I went, but...yeah. It was quite an experience.
Anyway, the rest of the last few days really wasn't quite as entertaining as that - playing Mafia with the whole group later that night, visiting Amasra - a beachy scenic area the next day, singing on the busride home (oh god...I feel sorry for the bus drivers hahaha), trying to motivate myself to write a paper on Sunday after coming back, getting tickets for a soccer game on Wednesday (!!!), the longest lunch of my life today - mostly because of slow service, and...yeah.
And now I have three papers to write before the end of next week. :( Boo.
I'm kinda looking forward to coming home - in the sense that I can go out on my own anywhere I want, better nightlife (so done with techno), food I don't have to pretend to like (and I mean, home cooked meals are always wonderful), and seeing all of you guys and everything...but I wish it were like...I come home for a couple weeks of break and then come back here. Or something like that. 6 weeks definitely is not long enough - should have been at least 8 or something. There is so much to do in the next couple weeks and so little time! So I better get on finishing some papers so I have time to explore this lovely city some more. :)