The Hammam de Luxe

The Hammam de Luxe

This week I ventured out to have a second hammam experience. If you didn’t read about the first one, you need to go read that first – it was an adventure! This experience was completely different. Mary (who went with me the first time) had told me all about this luxurious hammam that is more like a spa than the traditional bathhouse. It is conveniently located right in our neighborhood on one floor of a ritzy sports club (I don’t think they really do too much in the way of sports there – the only schedule I saw there was for men & women’s spinning times). We paid about $11 each at the desk for use of the hammam plus a scrubbing and massage and then went up to the ladies hammam floor which smelled delightfully like one of Bethany's Aveda candles. We were greeted in French (o happy day!) by a très chic young receptionist who offered us cute flip-flops to wear in the hammam rooms and keys for two lockers.

This hammam was beautifully decorated with deep red and ivory tiles. About halfway up the tiled walls was a row of fancy tiles, and above that the walls and ceiling were painted an intense crimson red. The changing room was spotlessly clean and we went from there into the sauna room. We warmed up in the steamy sauna opening up our pores, soaping up with special hammam soap and breathing in the steam until we couldn’t stand the heat. Then we ventured out into the main washroom and sat on stone stools and filled up tiled basins that jutted out of the walls opposite the stools. We chatted with a couple other women who were soaping up at the basins. One of them is due with her second baby in another month. They welcomed us warmly to their country.

As the scrubbers finished with the women ahead of us, we were called over to the marble tables. I shuttered at the thought of stretching out on the cold marble slab (no ice cream mixing here though!). As I lay down I realized with delight that they were heated marble slabs. This experience just kept getting better. The woman scrubbing me welcomed me warmly to the hammam – she didn't recognize me and assumed it was my first experience at this establishment. As we exchanged a few pleasantries she welcomed me to her country as well. She taught me a few words in Arabic – although I am not sure I should say she taught them to me. Rather, she had me repeat a few words in Arabic until I got the pronunciation somewhat recognizable, and then her eyes would light up as she heard the Arabic word come stumbling off of my confused Western tongue.

When she finished scrubbing as many spare skins cells as she could find, and a good number of not-so-spare ones too, off of my body (this part really hurts – I think I need to find a less abrasive scrubbing glove), she told me to go shampoo my hair and then come back for the massage. I washed my hair over at the basins and exchanged a few words with the pregnant lady about how clean I felt and what a good job of scrubbing the lady had done. Then I went back for round two at the tables. The scrubbing is like the healthy portion of yucky (hhmm, I’m trying to think of something healthy that I really don’t like…) scrambled eggs (are those healthy?) that you eat because they are necessary to good health, but the massage is like Kim’s yummy coconut crème brulee or tiramisu from Dante’s on Route 10 or Rae’s pumpkin cheesecake or Donna’s strawberry shortcake or Dan’s lemon tarte or Tracey's pecan squares (notice I have no trouble coming up with yummy desserts!) for dessert – good thing it comes second or I might escape before the scrubbing!

The massage started off at the head – wow! Bill would be jealous of that head massage! Then she worked all the way down to the toes and stretched out my arm and leg muscles at funny angles to make sure I was really relaxed before working her way back up the to my head. My head got massaged from all possible angles. By the time she was done I was definitely relaxed.

After saying "shookran" (thank you) in as many ways as I know how, I made my way back to the lockers to find some clean clothes. What an experience! I was as clean as could be and more relaxed than I have been since I arrived. As we got dressed the receptionist came and asked if we wanted water or freshly squeezed juice to be brought to the relaxing room. Yes, there is actually a debriefing room with lounge chairs and women congregate there drinking fresh juice and chatting before heading back out to the real world of never ending work and catcalls from odd men on the streets.