The Hamam

Yesterday I went to the hamam or public bath. It was quite an experience. So we went in and first we rent a stool and buy an exfoliating scrubbing glove thingy and some special soap. The hamam itself costs a bit over a dollar and the soap maybe 8 cents). Then we go in the outer room and get naked... everything except our bottom underwear. We get a bucket, take in the stuff we need to clean with, and leave our stuff with some people for safekeeping (for a fee of course... but only a dirham... i.e 15 cents). We go in and everyone is naked except for bottoms. I've never seen so many naked women... and I realize the ones I have seen have been in really good shape (i.e. on tv). It was kind of refreshing to see women of all shapes and sizes. So we end up deciding on the hottest room... and begin the scrubbing. So much dead skin... I don't think I was ever this clean in my life. We keep scrubbing and pouring the hot water that we've gotten in our buckets from taps over ourselves. It's wonderful, for about an hour. Then I start overheating. Around this time, though, we've all finished scrubbing so we decide to leave. That was a quick hamam experience. Sometimes you're there for 3 hours. I want to stay longer, however, I'm not going to be in the hottest room again. I feel like such a dirty person for putting on dirty pjs (I haven't done my laundry yet...) after getting so clean. Still, I fell like I'll be clean for days and days. Coming out of the hamam is almost like being reborn...