AMAZING DAY!

AH! one of the best days so far!  So we started our day off by sleeping in and eating lunch on the ship.  We’ve been trying to get a lot more on the ship to help save some money.. and the food isn’t as good as it has been in the previous countries so that’s okay.. we left the ship, made a stop at the atm, got on the tram and went to the Spice Bazaar… yes that is B-A-Z-A-A-R…. once again a flaw in my blog has been pointed out by sean… it Is not bizarre like I had typed in my entire blog yesterday.. it is bazaar.. and the thing is I knew that, I have it written right on my calendar but I didn’t realize it one bit yesterday.. ohhhhh well… okay so back to today. We went to the spice bazaar and I got some cool things including apple tea for myself since it was so yummy yesterday!!! At one of the stands I was at the guy handed me and Christina each a candy nut thing.. it was like a gummy center and had some type of nut on the outside and was surprisingly pretty good.. he also handed all of us a candy square of a nut in the center of white chocolate, reallllllyyyyy good!  This guy was all about giving us stuff because he also handed each of us a Kleenex so that we could wipe off the dripping sweat from our faces… mhmm then apparently a couple other people throughout our hour and a half stay In the bazaar gave Kristi more things to wipe her sweat with hahhhaha… 

So after we got all our goodies we headed back to the tram.. one the way I found a picture that I really like and the asking price was 30 lira but with hardly any problem I was able to bargain it down to 20!

So we hop back on the tram and head to the most amazing part of the day, the TURKISH BATH!!!

So we all did the Luxury Treatment for 95 lira (about $63) this included unlimited time in the bath, a 15 minute scrub, and 30 minute oil massage! Umm really good deal!  So a Turkish bath is  not like anything in the US but it was super cool once you got adjusted to it.. and we knew what it was like going into it somewhat so we were a little more mentally prepared ahead of time as well.. so you go in they gave you a pair of underwear bottoms (or you can wear your own or swim suit bottoms) and a towel like cloth.. obviously you strip down to those items and then continue to the bath room.  It’s a big open circular room that has this center slab that you all sit around, the room is warm kinda like a sauna effect.. well the bath woman call you over to their areas and you layout your towel and lay on top of it still on the middle slab so its hello boobs to everyone… you lay down and they first scrub you (when we entered they gave us each a box that had a cloth scrubby thing in it) and they scrub all of you.. then they throw a couple bowls of water at you.. and really they just throw them at you.. then they get the soapy stuff and do this really cool thing with the scrub thing that makes a crap ton of bubbles and they completely cover you in bubbles more bubbles than you can imagine.. then you scrub you down some more with the bubbles they flip you over and to Christina and Jackie they pulled down their bottoms to reveal their butts for me and Kristi however we got the wonderful wedgie effect.. then they sit you upright scrub your arms and your neck and then move you to a side room where the water comes from.. they sit you down on the floor and they sit up on a little seat behind you and remember this is all just wide open walking around to anyone there just the underwear things.. so in here they shampoo you, mine woman got a handful of shampoo put it on the top of my head rubbed back and forth like two times then rubbed it ALLL down my face and up and down a couple times! And then went back to my hair for a little bit more.. and its not like I can wipe the bubbles off my face because my arms and hands are still all bubbly from the scrub… so im really just FULL of bubbles!  Then all of a sudden she starts rinsing me off.. to do this she threw about seven fast bowl fulls of water on me.. and its just being dumped on you to no care so its all just running down my face at this point.. good thing for all my swimming years I was able to hold my breath long enough through all of this and know the proper ways to breath and not have problems like Christina inhaling bubbles up her nose.. I was perfectly fine and it was really nice.. then you get to go sit in the bath which is basically a room off the circle one that had a pool and a Jacuzzi in it.. well me and Christina got scrubbed and bathed way before Jackie and Kristi so we were sitting in the pool for awhile like at least 20 minutes just waiting for them to come.. after they were done we all sat in the pool and Jacuzzi for about another 10 minutes before heading to go get massages..

So now to describe these women who bathed us.. adds WAY more to the experience!!!  So these women are big boobed, big stomachs, how do I know this? Their uniform is the black underwear and a black bra… mhmmm my woman had a 10 lira sticking out of her boob! And Christinas I noticed had an arm strap not attached and it looked like her boob was going to pop out any second.. VERY INTERESTING!!! 

we had to walk out of the circle room into this waiting room area where you get a towel to be able to dry off and then sit and wait for the massage..  I let the others go before me and it was a long wait at least 20 minutes, before I finally was let in.. but it was okay there were a TON of other SAS’ers there including the doctor and nurse they had the on call cell phone with them it was funny, what a way to be on call!  So finally it’s my turn to go in for a massage.. the room is just lined with about 7 massaging tables and I saw Jackie at the very end which was surprising because she was the first to go in I really had thought I had sat outside waiting long enough that she would be done.. so they unwrapped me and then laid  me down  and started with my calves, feet and thighs which just felt amazing and they spent a long time on each leg so it was really nice! Then she moved to my back and did my back for awhile then my left arm and hand then my back a little more and she cracked my back!!! Which felt nice!, then my right arm and hand. Then back to my back and she moved over by my head and did my neck and this kinda really started to hurt here I felt like I was about to get a neck spasm on the one side and yet she kept going and going and going on that side I think she could feel that it was tight and was trying to work it out but that wasn’t going to happen! Then she did a little bit of my head which bummed me out at first because that meant she was putting oil my hair but oh well, then I got flipped over the top of my legs got massaged and my feet a little more and then my stomach and boobs got massaged and my shoulder/neck region then I got a face massage!! And a little more of a head massage and then it was over =( it felt soooo good though (minus the part that was about to give me a neck cramp) in the end we spent about 2 ½ hours there and it was well worth the money!  Let’s just say that there really is no bonding experience like going to a Turkish bath together either! I’m very proud of myself for going and after like the first 5 minutes of being unrobed I was totally fine with it all, how unlike myself! ha! Go me! =)

After the bath we headed back to the ship and had dinner. Kristi had the sufi dervish ceremony tonight.. so I took a nap and then started this.. now its time for bed for real super sleepy today!