Hamam mi? Tamam.

So now that it's quieted down somewhat here since my last post, I've been enjoying the culture and such. Ever since I found out I was returning to Turkey, I've been really looking forward to one thing: the hamams. I am a fan of the hamams. In Ankara, we'd go to these wonderful ancient little neighborhood hamams, somewhere in the order of 500-700 years old, filled with little old Turkish ladies (and younger Turkish women as well, but they were pretty popular among the septuagenarian crowd). For under 30 lira, I could get an amazing relaxing break, scrub, and massage, all in this gorgeous marble chamber with scalding-hot water and steam everywhere. It was fantastic.
In Istanbul though, there are tourist hamams, which cater to both Turks and foreigners. I'm sure there are neighborhood hamams, but they're not at all publicized, and I've no clue where they'd be. So, given that Istanbul in the summer is pretty darn hot and sticky, I figured I'd give a tourist hamam a try.
On my roommate's and the Internet's recommendation, I decided to try Çemberlitaş Hamamı, a hamam built by Sinan and right next to Sultanahmet. A friend of mine, one of my roommates, and two friends of my roommate came along as well, as hamams are quintessentially social experiences (that sounds confusing; there were 5 of us). We took the Light Rail to the hamam, which was handy, as it stops literally right in front of Cemberlitas. After a brief and surprisingly fruitless search for an ATM (seriously? We couldn't find an ATM in Sultanahmet??), we entered and paid the receptionist for the "Traditional Bath". It was definitely pricier than my Ankarali neighborhood hamams, but we got a student discount (being a student in Turkey is awesome; so many perks), so it was 35 YTL each. After that, we turned to the women's side and stripped down to our bathing togs and wraps (in hamams, women are traditionally nude, while apparently on the mens side men always keep their underwear/towels strategically on; in tourist hamams like Cemberlitas, some women choose to wear swimsuit bottoms--everyone is given a cotton wrap to stretch out on though), before entering the main part of the hamam. In the main hamam room, there's a huge heated marble slab in the middle, where you start your hamam experience by stretching out and sweating while chatting. It's not unlike a sauna. Around the walls are marble semienclosed chambers for secluded washing/rinsing, and open faucets/basins also for washing/rinsing. It's a decently large room, with a gorgeous vaulted ceiling with small globe-shaped glass windows that kind of looked like stars.
So, we hung out on the marble slab for probably half an hour, 45 minutes, just relaxing and chatting and steaming. After a bit, the bath attendants motioned that it was time for our scrubs. This is probably my favorite part of the hamam experience: hamam attendants are goood, and when they finish scrubbing you down it feels like you shed your old skin in favor of a brand new one. It is awesome. The ones at Cemberlitas had this pretty nifty soap method: they had a pillowcase in a dish of soapy water, and they'd open up the pillowcase, trap air inside it, then wring it out, forcing out cascades upon cascades of bubbles. I may need to try this with my own pillowcase some time. As the attendants scrub, they exfoliate, and scold you for not going to hamams more often (they're like Turkish versions of Norwegian Grandmothers). They really knead your muscles; I can't imagine getting a massage in addition to the scrub, but some people do-- I think my muscles would melt were they subjected to both a scrub and massage. Anyway, the attendants scrub all over, then take you to one of the secluded chambers to wash your hair. They left us there so we could rinse off a bit before going back to the marble slab to chill a bit more. It took a while for all of us to get scrubbed, as there were 5 of us, so I think we were in there almost 3 hours. After we were done, we rinsed off once more at one of the marble fountains, and then left. It's tradition to cool down after hamaming by sitting and having tea for another hour or so, but members of our party were pretty hungry, so we wandered off to find this amazing kofteci right in Sultanahmet (Kofte is kind of the Turkish version of meatballs, but more unhealthy), where we sat, ate, and people-watched before taking the Light Rail back to Kabatas. Cat, Abby and I decided to walk from Kabatas to Besiktas to catch a bus back to campus, so we set off and got distracted by a number of things. First, we wandered by the Basiktas Iskele, which was fortuitous, as we needed to fill up our Akbils (Akbils are Istanbul's version of Charlie Cards, but there are not so many top-up machines). From there, we got to the Besiktas district, where I showed Cat and Abby the DVD shops where I'd stocked up on bootleg Scrubs episodes and various movies; we spent a good 45 minutes going through the DVD selection of one of the shops and they both ended up with a decent amount of Turkish cinema to tide them over. After that, we finally got on a bus to Etiler, and got back to our dorm roughly 6 hours after we'd started out, exhausted but really clean.
It was just so nice to visit a hamam again, and I enjoyed the tourist hamam experience much more than I thought I would, although I still prefer the non-tourist ones back in Ankara. Cemberlitas was a really beautiful hamam, and I kind of wish I could have taken photos of the architecture. There are a few photos of the building at the hamam's website, which you should most definitely check out: Cemberlitas website

In other news, the court's still deliberating over the AKParti's fate, but folks are hedging their bets and starting to register new parties--one apparently is called the Hak Parti, wonder who's name they're playing off there. The Ergenekon case has been fascinating the last few days though; apparently this shadowy group has for 20 years been attempting to cultivate Turkish-Kurdish tensions to destabilize the country enough to semi-legitimize a military coup. It sounds crazy, and it may indeed be, but it's fascinating as it unfolds.
On that note,
-R