The spa last night was fantastic, once I got past the nudity (if you are an American living in Europe, you have to get past A LOT of nudity). Funny thing was, I knew months ago that it was a naked place and I sincerely didn’t think it would bother me. I’ve seen plenty of people naked. Mostly on tv… but some in real life too! And yes, I’m about as body conscious as a woman can be, but I knew I wouldn’t be the only overweight person there. Maybe the most overweight, but certainly not the only one. So I went into the situation totally thinking “Hey, I’m a grownup (I have to remind myself of this fact quite frequently) and I can totally handle going to a place where everyone is naked”.
So when we got there and walked in I was surprised to feel an insane amount of “idon’twannadothisidon’twannadothisidon’twannadothis” rolling around somewhere in my solar plexus. But, well, I had been the one saying I wanted to go give the spa a try. So, I figured, at least one person in this building has seen me naked and he hasn’t jeered or vomited yet (CB reminded me after reading this that he had,indeed, vomited that day, but he was choking on a piece of calamari, so that’s ok), so hopefully no one else will either. After that everything was pretty cool. Insomuch as, once we got down to the actual spa/shower area and I saw how unabashed everyone else was, I was about 75% secure in being naked in a semi-public area (see, we Americans live in a land where it is totally ok to let your five year old play a video game where you score points for how many people you can hit with a car or shoot with a semi-automatic rifle, but be naked? In front of another person?? Blasphemy!) (Ever wanna go spray paint the words “Puritanical Bullshit Artists” in big red letters on the front of the White House, or is that just me?).

Now, where was I? Oh yeah, regaling you all with tales from nakedland. One thing I didn’t know about spas, is once you do a hot part of the spa (sauna, steam room, whirlpool) you have to go do a cold part of the spa (little swimming pool, cold shower, or godawful outdoor torture area in which you first dump a bucket of freezing water on your own head (its sick in that you knowingly do this to yourself) and then climb into this single person pool of equally frigid water, but hey, by then you don’t even mind being outside cause the 51°F feels like being in the tropics compared to what you just did). Anyway, I did not take to cryogenically freezing myself every 15 minutes or so, but CB’s eyes lit up like the 4th of July when it was time to flash freeze himself, and while he looked psychotic, it was in a cute way so I went along with it. Towards the end of our trip, we were outside (yes he made me do the evil outdoor torture area twice), sitting on some wooden lounge chairs, doing the whole “I am hopelessly in love so I’m going to look at you like a starving man looks at the biggest, cheesiest piece of pizza in the box” thing when out of the corner of my eye I caught some guy tipping a big bucket of icey water right on top of his head.
I giggled.
I giggled harder.
CB looked confused/amused.
I got as close to hysterical as I could get for being in a place where the house rules state you are only allowed to talk in bathing areas and only in a whisper(yet another thing I think most Americans would find very difficult).
“What?” CB asked.
“Nothing.”
“What is it?”
“I’ll tell you later.”
We waited until everyone else got up and left and he looked at me.
“It’s just…how romantic is it, sitting outside in the evening, staring into someone’s eyes and then having some naked dude dump a freezing bucket of water on his own head??”

I’m still giggling now thinking about it.

Finally we got showered and dried and dressed and went to a café. It’s kind of nice though, after going to a place like that you definitely feel enervated. Neither of us wanted to eat or drink anything heavy/fried/rich, so we had lemon juice. No, not lemonade. Lemon juice. They give you a little caraffe of water, one of lemon juice, and a little pot of sugar so you could mix your own. But really, drinking lemon juice and water, well, it’s sort of like a spa treatment for your mouth. I could explain but I think I’d make it sound gross, when it’s really not, so if you ever get the chance, try it, especially if you’ve just been to a spa.

During the walk home:
Me: There was one other thing I kept thinking at the spa. And I had to try really hard not to laugh.
CB: What was it?
Me: When we were sitting in the hot tub. All I could think was, “I feel like soup.”
Everytime a new person got in I thought “Someone better give us a stir, or we won’t cook evenly.”
CB: giggling, so you felt like soup?
Me: Heehee, yup, a big old bowl of naked soup….I think my mom would really like it there.