extreme temperatures

May 17, 2010

Yesterday was an amazing day. I truly experienced some things that I never imagined that I would! We slept in which was nice and then walked around town and had lunch at an outdoor sports bar that had sushi, yum :) Igor, the director at the hospital had something fun planned for us in the afternoon, a traditional Russian banya. So we all got our suits on and waited down in the lobby not really knowing what to expect. We drove back in an old ukrainian neighborhood, down a dirt road with tons of potholes. Through my mind I was like "where are we going." We pulled into a parking lot with a big building that almost looked like a lodge from the outside built with logs. We walked in and it was only us there, Igor had rented the entire place just for our group. There was a big room with a huge table and couch and foosball! This room was where they kept the snacks and vodka and you could hang out here in between going to the sauna and dunking yourself in the pool. That's right I said sauna!! The sauna was 95 Celcius which is soooooo hot, basically like 200 Farenheit. I never imagined sitting anywhere so hot. It was what I imagine an indian sweat lodge to feel like. You sat in there for about 30 seconds before you started pouring sweat. They even gave you these caps to wear on your heads so that your hair didn't burn you where it got so hot. When you couldn't take the heat anymore there was an indoor and an outdoor plunge pool to go jump in. It was VERY cold water but felt amazing. The contrast between the heat of the sauna and the freezing temp of the pool was unbelievable. After going back and forth between the sauna and the pool for awhile a few guys that worked there came into the "lodge" with big baskets of oak leaves all tied together. This was for our massages!! One by one they took us in the sauna and had us lie on our stomachs with our head lying on a pillow of wet oak leaves. They also put another branch of leaves on our faces so we could breath in the scent and to keep us cooler. Then they proceeded to give us a type of massage using the branches. It felt amazing. They would keep dunking the branches and then basically beat you with them, haha, but it felt really good!! Then they had you go jump in the outdoor plunge pool. Then you went and sat in the sauna for about 5 more minutes before the 2nd part of your treatment. They had a massage table set up in the room with the indoor plunge pool where they gave us massages and exfoliated our skin with this sand mixture. It was awesome!!!!! After they had completely covered your body in sand you sat in the sauna for awhile longer before rinsing yourself off in the shower. Our skin felt soooooo soft afterwards. I never thought I would be getting a massage with leaves and sand by a big russian man wearing a speedo, haha. It was for sure a crazy cultural experience that I would never have had just traveling on my own. So basically we spent an afternoon of being pampered, eating dried squid and pistachios, and drinking vodka and wine :) It was glorious and so nice of Igor to treat us! On the way back to the hotel we all stopped at the English Pub (surprise surprise) and had some dinner. Everyone was exhausted after a long day of sweating.