Grand Mosquee de Paris

Yesterday afternoon Kari and I decided to try out the hammam at the Paris Mosque. Given that we've both been under some pretty intense stress recently, we decided that we deserved a special "detox" session. We went for "the works," and there's really only one word to describe the experience: DIVINE. We're totally hooked. We may not be able to afford to do the works every time, but we're definitely going to find ways to get back there, it was truly incredible.

The first step in the process was the steam sauna. You go into a gorgeously tiled room that is quite hot and steamy, and there are large marble slabs where you can sit or lay down. As a side note, I can't give a very good description of the rooms because I had to take my glasses off and hence couldn't see much of anything the whole time!!! Anyway, regarding the steam room, I found I couldn't lay down because then the sweat dripped into my eyes and stung, so I sat up for the whole time. After getting a bit warmed up, you open up the packet of "savon noir" that they give you. Savon noir is apparently made from an ancient Berber recipe, and it's super cleansing. It's supposed to unclog pores and loosen the top layer of dead skin, and you're supposed to leave it on for at least 20 minutes. Once you get too hot, there's a cooler room with showers (and unlike the Russian banya where you have to jump in the cold water tub, these showers have adjustable heat settings). So the idea is to stay in the steam for as long as you can, go to the showers to cool off, then go back again for more.

Once you've sweated out all the toxins, then you go to the gommage, where a woman takes a rough scrubbing mitt and peels off the top layer of skin that the savon noir loosened. And I mean that quite literally--the dead skin comes off in rolls! It was interesting to see where the most skin came off. From what I could tell it was my forearms, shoulders, and neck, but since I couldn't see that well I don't really know. So I literally left the hammam with an entirely new layer of top skin, and it's SO soft. The woman does a good number on you, turns your skin red. But I still took that as a good sign, there sure weren't any toxins left on my skin when she was done with me, hahahaha.

Once the gommage is done (and you have to take another shower to get rid of the rolls of dead skin...it really reminded me of when you get a cast taken off after a broken arm or whatever, all the dead skin that's left), it's time for the massage. The massage is in a separate room with multiple tables and a fountain in the center, and lots of space to lounge around and relax on the sides. Lots of women were lounging on the sides and chatting. And all sorts of fancy middle eastern curtains draped around. It seriously reminded me of the most orientalized of French paintings, like Delacroix's Femmes d'Alger or Matisse's Odalisque series.

The massage is done with warm oils, and it's obviously delightful. How could it not be?! At one point the masseuse found a particularly solid knot in my shoulder and was like, "that's a knot right? It feels like a bone but it can't be!" hahaha. She worked on it long and hard. Perhaps the funniest part was that each of our masseuses offered an extra 10 minutes of massage in exchange for an under the table bribe. Which we readily accepted, haha. I'm sure they all do it, kind of like how if the bartender gives you a free drink you give him a tip of what the drink would have cost. So we had absolutely no problem tipping the masseuses for our extra 10 minutes, since we're both total balls of stress!!!

After all that, you go get dressed and go out to the cafe area for a cup of tea (which was part of our deal). So we then spent another hour or so soaking up the atmosphere in the cafe and drinking first tea and then jugs of water. I had enough to drink beforehand and was totally fine, but I did wake up with a headache this morning. I drank more and more water and that seemed to fix it.

All in all, it was a total highlight, one of the best things I've ever done here. It's obviously got to happen again, my life will never be the same again.