Russian & Turkish Baths

I roused myself from the pit of despair I was mired in last Sunday to post a feeble cry for help on Facebook, "anyone want to go with me to the Russian and Turkish Baths on the beach?"  I knew that several of my Groupon groupie friends had purchased the Groupon for the baths when it came out a few months ago so I was hoping someone would agree to meet me, thus forcing me to get out of the apartment when all I wanted to do was lay down and moan feebly.
I met Krei at the baths at noon and we spent a couple hours there, alternately baking, steaming, freezing, and boiling ourselves.  Since we're silly, we ran around playing with everything that wasn't tied down.  We blasted each other with fire hoses.  We jumped up and down under the rain showers.  We found the leaves they use for platza and started beating each other experimentally with them when a stern, tattooed young guy in a Speedo came up to us and, disapprovingly, mutely held out his hand for us to return the leaves to him.  Thus chastized by this guy who was obviously a Russian mobster who has killed people we stopped poking around and went back to the aromatherapy room.
One cool way to seem like a bad ass is to get nice and toasty in one of the hot rooms and then jump into the ice cold water pool and pour buckets of ice water over your head.  After the intial shock it actually feels great.
I knew I would feel like a wrung out, wet mop by the end of it all and need a long nap, and I was right.  I went home and straight to bed but first, just to ensure that I passed out, I made myself a vodka and tonic.  Ok, ok, so Grey Goose is French, not Russian, but at least I was in the spirit of things.

*As I read this over I notice an excessive use of metaphor and pun that I'd like to apologize for now.